510: Digital Humanities

 To put it into simple terms, metadata is, "data about data." Every digital resource is imbued with metadata. The date in which an article is posted- that's metadata, the location of where a photo was taken- that's metadata, the author of a text- that's also metadata. Metadata provides context and additional information about digital texts, videos and other media that may help the audience interpret said artifacts. There are three different types of metadata- descriptive, structural, and administrative. Descriptive metadata describes the information given to find specific resources such as, titles, authors, etc. Structural metadata is a way of organizing information into different categories for user-friendly interface purposes. This can be seen on almost any websites as they provide different information based on it's content and respected pages. Administrative metadata is another way to separate different information. Instead of the content, resources are se

     An essential part of  Digital humanities  is organization, analysis and the ability to access materials within w database and metadata. Metadata is a word used to describe when data holds information about another set of data.  It has the ability to improve our understanding of data being depicted. Details in terms of the digital object's author, creation date, format, and subject matter may all be found in its metadata when it comes to digital heritage.  It is easier for users to comprehend the resources because of extra information which is increasingly more important for the arrangement and retrieval of this data.  With this in mind many researchers find that it is imperative to find content relevant to their topic, metadata and databases to be effective tools. Metadata is easily able to flag photos, text and transcript and more and gives the ability to search and index much more efficiently. While metadata helps with efficiency, databases help with organizing this inform

What good is data that cannot be found? This is the question that chapter four rivals as it conveys the dangers of lost information if not properly categorized through the use of metadata, markup, and data description. One example of metadata that the book provided was a library record. Libraries hold an immense number of resources from books to maps to journals. Without a library record, it would be seemingly impossible to find the resources one needs, and if not impossible then incredibly inefficient at the least. That’s the purpose of metadata; to use information describing data to organize it in an easily accessible manner. There are three different types of metadata. The first is descriptive metadata which utilizes metadata schemes in order to create classification systems. Then, there is administrative metadata which uses information to help organize data according to use and/or type. Finally there is operational metadata which provides information on what is required for the dat

          In my understanding metadata is the application of organizing, describing, and classifying data. It is often used when trying to summarize large amounts of information. One needs to understand metadata to become sufficient in the humanities search because metadata is one of the sole factors in finding a topic or idea. I liked the example they provided in chapter four and page 53 of The Digital Humanities Coursebook when describing metadata. They say to imagine the data as “information in any form sitting on shelves, in drawers, or boxes (objects, numbers, or files)” and to think of the metadata as the label maker. The metadata organizes everything and provides a structure to all the information. Specifically, my project was organized in multiple ways, the most prominent being organized by year. Yet the timeline is also separated by the British monarchy's royal houses, such as the House of Denmark, the House of Godwin, etc.            As for understanding database design

     Metadata is information about a resource, whether that resource is digital or physical. Essentially, it is data describing data. The book compared metadata to the "Get info" button that you may see when browisng websites or viewing information online. You will discover the date, size, and/or format of a given file. Metadata can be  descriptive, helping with identification, naming, or describing a file. It can be administrative, describing how to access the file and who can access the file. Or, metadata can be operational, describing what steps may be required to view the file. The Digital Humanities Coursebook claims that without metadata, information would be as useful to us as "books on shelves without covers".     Metadata relates to our understanding of Digital Humanities in the way that it allows us to locate information and determine its relevance to us. It follows a set of standards so that information can be spread across our devices in a way that can b

     Metadata is terms applied to data sets to describe what the data is providing information about. For example if you had data about books published in the 19th century, your data might include things like book title, author, and year published. These categories of data are metadata. Metadata is important because it allows data to be identified and interpreted. As stated in The Digital Humanities Coursebook , "Without metadata, information in files would be like books without covers or title pages on shelves without labels" (Drucker 53). When creating metadata schemes standardization is extremely important. While there are many words for one type of thing, when describing information using the same term for the same type of data will allow the data to be found later on with more ease. For example if in one instance you label something as "year published" and in another instance you label the same type of data as "date published" later on if you are sear

    Chapter four discusses metadata, markup, and data description. This is important when setting up and analyzing digital humanity websites and projects. Metadata is defined as a specialized expertise and a world of professional knowledge. There is special importance with research, data description, and organization. The book put this idea into great context by stating “Without metadata, information in files would be like books without covers or title pages on shelves without labels.” Pg. 52 This provides a great visual as to what metadata and classification do for the resources we use everyday.       Metadata relates to how data or materials are put together by relatedness. In my DH project, most of the materials have similar significance and are all related to one topic, so it can be hard to subdivide the materials into even more related groups. They did this by grouping materials by time stamps and what related to the events happening in that moment. This is seen through the descri

     After reading chapters 4 and 5 in the Digital Humanities Coursebook , I have a better understanding of metadata, data description, and database design, which are all important elements to consider in a digital humanities project. Metadata, simply put, is data about data – all the information that can be descriptive, administrative, or operational for usage of the main data. As the textbook describes it, metadata is everything that can be listed under the ‘get info’ option on a digital platform. Descriptive metadata gives information about the data, like the caption of an im ag e. Administrative metadata gives information on how and when the data should be or can be used . Operational metadata describes the necessary digital elements to correctly operate the data, like display factors and resolution. In short, metadata is just helpful information about the main set of data, but just like regular data, it must have standards for its terms and elements for it to be helpful betwee

       Chapters 2 and 3 of the Digital Humanities Coursebook further the definition of Digital Humanities by explaining how data is created, structured, and preserved in digital form. Chapter 2, “Data Modeling” expands on the definition of digital humanities by discussing how digital data is not just collected but created and organized using various models and categorizations. The chapter also acknowledges that subjective choices about which data to include and how to represent it are a part of data modeling and these decisions may lead to bias. In the context of digital humanities, this means understanding that digital projects such as Histography.io, the project I chose for analysis are built on complex data structures that shape how historical information is presented and interpreted. This shows how decisions made throughout the design process can cause digital tools to not be neutral.       Chapter 3, “Digitization” furthers the definition of digital humanities by focusing on the

        Within chapters 2 and 3 of the Digital Humanities book it is able to highlight how data modeling and digitalization impact the areas of the world of DH. These new ideas help us change our perspective on how we view cultural artifacts. It's important to show how this information is not simply technical. A wonderful example is the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA), which is a good example of what this actually means.  https://dp.la/      In chapter 2 data modeling is explained in detail. As the reading states,  data modeling is structuring and organizing data to answer research questions and tell stories" (pg. 19). DPLAs metadata is able to help with accessibility making it easy for the scholar and average individual with one search to have a wealth of information at their fingertips. The DPLA is able to provide one destination where you are able to access hundreds of thousands of pictures, manuscript, and text from libraries, archives and museums. This as stated

The Digital Humanities Coursebook seems to be very detailed in the way that they discuss Digital Humanities and its processes. In this weeks readings of chapter two and chapter three they seem to dive deep on the processes of Digital Humanities and the terms surrounding it. Ethical concerns and accessibility concerns were also touched on in these chapters. Using chapter two and chapter three of this coursebook we get a better definition of Digital Humanities because now we have a better understanding of its processes, and how those processes create Digital Humanities as a whole. A lot of the aspects touched upon in these chapters I honestly didn't have much understanding of until now, like I didn't know the background surrounding HTML or CSS until after reading these chapters. Overall these chapters give a more concrete understanding of how Digital Humanities work, and what processes are included in it, like for example data processing. In chapter two of the coursebook, paramet

      Reading the next two chapters of the textbook has allowed my understanding of digital humanities to grow. These two chapters introduced data production practices and formatting. Adding to my previous knowledge of DH, these new chapters gave me a better understanding of the information integrated into DH. A more in depth/nitty gritty look.  During chapter two a big talking point was structured and unstructured data comparing the differences between the two. Structured data includes statements of true or false and numbers. An example of this would be written facts or a spreadsheet. While unstructured data involves natural language which is ambiguous and unclear. With the example being a painting or picture which can be interpreted in many different ways. The books also gave many good examples on the topic explaining how the term “Washington” can either mean a family name or a location proving it is unstructured data. Whereas the example of a chart with set facts shows how there can

  Blog Post #2: Data & digitization In Chapter 2 of The Digital Humanities Textbook , the emphasis is on data modeling, which is fundamental to DH. Data modeling refers to the process of creating abstract representations of data and its relationships. This chapter explores various methods for structuring and organizing data to facilitate analysis and interpretation within digital projects. By defining how data should be categorized, related, and manipulated, data modeling helps ensure that digital tools and methods can effectively handle and analyze different data. Overall, data modeling extends the definition of DH by highlighting the importance of creating and utilizing structured data representations to support complex research and analysis tasks. Next, Chapter 3 addresses digitization, which takes physical artifacts like manuscripts, books, or artworks and puts them into a digital format. This process is crucial for preserving and making these materials accessible for research

     Chapters 2 and 3 in The Digital Humanities Coursebook begin to discuss some of the technical aspects of creating and processing materials. Both chapters highlighted the importance of having a plan as to how you will model data and digitize said data before you begin a Digital Humanities project. Collecting or creating data and digitizing documents both have concerns of ethics and sustainability tied to them. In Chapter 1 these issues were alluded to, however in these chapters they were expanded upon.       Creating data for a humanities project can be difficult as the humanities (art, music, dance, literature, ect.) are meant to be interpreted, not necessarily defined or categorized. Despite this, to create a data model information must be standardized and categorized and, "Because data are always produced through an act of selection governed by decisions, they are necessarily the expression of a point  of view and value system"(Drucker 26). In other words even though da

    The readings this week furthered the idea and definition of what digital humanities truly is through its application. Chapter 2 gave a lot of detail about the types of data seen in DH and how data models are actually used for humanitarian projects. The reading discussed the difference between unstructured and structured data, which gave me a good understanding of how data can be found online and which formats may be more helpful for spreading information. To me it seems like structured data is easier to digest and gives a clearer meaning to what the author is trying to convey. The chapter shares an example stating “structuring data allows analysis, repurposing, and manipulation of data/texts/files in systematic ways. It also disambiguates (between, say, the place name “Washington” and the personal name).” (pg. 27) This is a great example because something as simple as the way we structure DH data can lead to different interpretations to various topics in humanities. The chapter als

  Data and Digitization in Digital Humanities...👽     The further along in the textbook I get, the more I question what I really know about Digital Humanities- or maybe I know too much but my ideas are just constantly changing.      What we take from human interaction and information we can therefore digitize it through data . When having these curations  through such humanities,                                                 the data must either be structured or  unstructured .                                  Structured                                                                                         Unstructured                                     ^                                                                             ^        composed of entities that are explicit, discrete,                                        natural language, is sometimes                                            and unambiguous                                                              

     After reading the two chapters assigned, my definition of digital humanities has changed again. On each page I read in the textbook I feel that I am only scratching the surface of what digital humanities is and what it entails. Yet at the same time everything I read I get the feeling that it is too much, in the way that I do not know how to describe digital humanities in only a few sentences. I keep thinking about different aspects of digital humanities and want to add more to the definition. Yet focusing alone on the two chapters, my definition of digital humanities has changed into a more statistical approach.      The specific example that stood out to me the most was the differentiation between structured and unstructured data. Each set of data had its different values. Such as the unstructured data I felt gave more personality. While the structured data gave more facts and clear data. The specific model of the data can provide a deeper understanding of what the creditor is tr

       From the textbook chapters on Data Modeling and Use and Digitization we can further our understanding of digital humanities. Specifically, the chapters detail the necessary considerations for transforming human information into digital formats with regards to data. When creating data from doc uments and artifacts one must decide what information is structured or unstructured, meaning what data can be explicit and what data is ambiguous. We must also consider how the data is made, what is considered from the original physical thing that is being digitized, and remember that almost all data is partial and only represents some features of a thing, making most data biased for a specific purpose. Furthermore, when digitizing data there is much to be considered ethically, financially, sustainably, and around the privacy of human data. C onsistent formatting matters, as well, since digitization must be at least somewhat preservatory and work long-term for computers and humans.