Doing Digital Scholarship: Discovering and using digital tools in academic work. Course syllabus, Internet Practice Part 2, April-June 2012, Univ. of Ljubljana, Faculty of Social Sciences. Instructor: Nick Jankowski
1. DOING DIGITAL SCHOLARSHIP:
DISCOVERING AND USING DIGITAL
TOOLS IN ACADEMIC WORK
General Information
This course introduces and provides opportunity to practice using a
wide range of digital tools that facilitate academic practice. Some
of the tools are integrated into the services provided by university
and specialized research libraries; some are provided by the
publishers of academic journals. Other tools come from
commercial companies and academic institutions: Google,
Microsoft, Facebook, the Center for History and New Media
(CHNM), and the Oxford Internet Institute (OII). Yet other tools are
contributed by individual scholars and research groups. This
course, designed as a practicum, will introduce a panorama of
Nicholas W. Jankowski these tools and initiatives to first-year university students. This
University of Ljubljana introduction is intended to contribute to the basic palette of
Faculty of Social Sciences
Office: C 228 research skills expected from students throughout their academic
nickjan@xs4all.nl career.
Academic year 2011/12; second semester:
23 February – 7 June 2011
This practicum is Part 2 of the course Internet Practice. Part 1 is
taught by Jernej Prodnik and is elaborated in a separate document.
This part of the course is taught by Nick Jankowski and will meet
twice-weekly during the second half of the semester, April-June
Note1: This syllabus is for Part 2 of the course
2012; see schedule below. One of the weekly meetings, held on
Internet Practice and is for the period: 17 April Tuesdays, will be devoted to describing and demonstrating digital
– 7 June. Part 1 is taught by Jernej Prodnik and tools for scholarship; the second weekly meeting, held on
has a separate syllabus. Thursdays, is located in a computer laboratory and will involve in-
class assignments related to the topics of that week.
Note2: This document contains a large number
of embedded hyperlinks. Students are
encouraged to examine some of these links,
using the online version, prior to the first class During this course students will read and comment on draft
meeting. chapters of a textbook in preparation: Doing Digital Scholarship:
Meeting locations:
Principles & Issues, Tools & Resources. Secondary literature will be
Tuesdays: FDV 20; 16.00-18.00 assigned related to themes in the book; see illustrations of titles in
Thursdays: FDV 24; 18.00-20.00 box on next page. Much of the course material will be made
available on a course website. Students will be expected to
maintain course-related blogs. Homework assignments will be
Version 5: 14 February 2012
submitted in folders on the course website and will be discussed
during the weekly sessions.
University of Ljubljana April-June 2012
Faculty of Social Sciences Internet Practice: Part 2
2. DOING DIGITAL SCHOLARSHIP
Tools
Some of the tools to be considered during the practicum include:
Reference management tools (e.g., RefWorks, Mendeley, EndNote);
Tools for annotating (e.g. Zotero), and note-taking (e.g., OneNote);
Social bookmarking and tagging tools (e.g., RSS, delicious, diigo);
Sharing and exchange sites (e.g., YouTube, Flickr, Picasa, Jing, Camtasia);
Tools supporting collaborative work such as web conferencing (Adobe Connect, WebEx, Elluminate),
co-authoring of texts (e.g., Google Docs), and file sharing (e.g., Dropbox);
Social network sites (e.g., Facebook, Linkedln, Twitter), particularly as used in academic settings;
Game and virtual world sites as venues for learning and scholarship (e.g., Second Life, OpenSim);
Virtual collaboration environments (e.g., wikis, MediaCommons);
Presentation software (e.g., Prezi), venues for publishing (e.g., SlideShare, Scribd), and archiving
scholarship (e.g., SSRN).
Course Activities
For each week of the practicum literature assignments will be
made, along with in-class exercises. In addition, a personal blog
is to be established for this course by each student that will
serve as a journal in which students are to reflect on the topics
of the course and share ‘discoveries’ regarding digital tools for
scholarship. Posts to this blog may be short and may address a
wide range of issues in an equally wide range of styles:
opinions, reflections, reviews, and synopses of readings. These
blogs are designed to present ideas in rough, unpolished form
and may relate to the weekly literature assignments. Further
information on this aspect of the course is contained in a
separate document entitled ‘Blogging in an Academic Setting’,
which is available on the course website.
Short online quizzes will be periodically held at the end of
practicum sessions. Most assignments will be completed
individually, but some collaborative group activities will be
included in the schedule. Although a formal seminar paper is
not one of the requirements for this part of the course,
students will be expected to prepare the ‘building blocks’ of
such papers: notes on literature, composition of short reflective
texts, and bibliographic entries. The practicum will conclude
with recorded presentations (e.g., YouTube videos, slide casts);
a selection of these materials will be viewed and discussed
during the last two sessions of the practicum.
University of Ljubljana April-June 2012
Faculty of Social Sciences Internet Practice: Part 2
3. DOING DIGITAL SCHOLARSHIP
Supplementary Resources
Earhart, A. E. & Jewell, A. (2011). The American
Literature Scholar in the Digital Age. Ann Arbor, MI,
Univ. of Michigan Press. (Available online)
Presentations by Professor Jankowski will be in English. Weller, M. (2011). The Digital Scholar. How
Assignments (homework, blog posts, and presentations) Technology is Transforming Scholarly Practice.
are also to be prepared in English. The seminar is Hampshire, UK. (Available online).
predicated on attendance and active participation, and Vaver, A. The Digital Scholar (blog)
the grading procedure reflects these requirements. Spiro, L. Digital Scholarship in the Humanities
Contributions to class discussions, preparation of written (blog)
assignments, and blog postings provide opportunity for
Center for Digital Scholarship, Brown Univ.
such participation. (website)
University of Oregon Digital Scholars (website)
Course Website
Materials related to the course (e.g., readings,
assignments) will be stored and made available on the
course website. A tour of the website will be given during
the first meeting of the course.
Grading
The grade for Part 2 of the course Internet Practice will Course instructor
be based on a weighting of the following components: Nicholas W. Jankowski is Associate
contribution to class discussions 20% Researcher at the e-Humanities Group of the
(blogs, discussion forums, class meetings) Royal Netherlands Academy for Arts and
Sciences (KNAW). He has been researching
homework assignments 40%
community and new media since the mid-
periodic quiz-style exams 25% 1970s. During this period, he has co-edited
final presentation 15% some half-dozen books on community media,
This grade will count for 50% of the entire course grade. research methodology and new media.
Recently published volumes include: Internet
and National Elections: A Comparative Study
First Meeting of Web Campaigning (Routledge, 2007) and
The first meeting of the practicum is scheduled for e-Research: Transformation in Scholarly
Practice (Routledge, 2009), and The Long
Tuesday, 17 April, in room FDV 20. After an informal
History of New Media (Peter Lang, 2011).
introduction by all attending, Jankowski will provide an
Jankowski is initiator and co-editor of the
overview of the course and digital tools available for journal New Media & Society. He is founding
doing scholarship. As form of preparation, students will board member of the European Institute of
be invited to complete an online survey regarding Communication and Culture (Euricom) and
awareness and use of digital tools for academic work. In editor of the Hampton Press book series
addition, students will be asked to consider the following Euricom Monographs: New Media and
question in preparation for this meeting: What Democracy. Recently he served as Principle
experiences have you already had with online learning Investigator of the project Enhanced
tools such as: social networking sites, peer-to-peer Publishing in the Humanities and Social
Sciences; a short video describes this project
communication, collaborative tools, digital libraries,
as well as an article under consideration for
online literature resources, and social science databases?
publication.
University of Ljubljana April-June 2012
Faculty of Social Sciences Internet Practice: Part 2
4. Planning
Date Activity
17 Apr. Meeting 1: Introduction to practicum & Doing Digital
Scholarship
19 Apr. Meeting 2: Practicum: Exploring library resources &
literature databases (e.g., JSTOR, SAGE Journals);
preparing academic blogs
24 Apr. Meeting 3: Digital libraries: panorama of resources
26 Apr. Meeting 4: Practicum: searching library & institutional
databases
01 May Meeting 5: Reference software (e.g., RefWorks,
Mendeley, EndNote)
03 May Meeting 6: Practicum: preparing bibliographies with
reference software
08 May Meeting 7: Note-taking & annotation software (e.g.,
Zotero, OneNote)
10 May Meeting 8: Practicum: note-taking & annotation exercises
15 May Meeting 9: Online collaboration tools (e.g., Skype,
Dropbox, Google Docs)
17 May Meeting 10: practicum: exercises in using collaboration
tools
Planning (cont.)
22 May Meeting 11: : social media and scholarship (e.g.,
Facebook, IM, LinkedIn, Twitter)
24 May Meeting 12: Practicum: exercises social media &
scholarship (incl. social bookmarking tools)
29 May Meeting 13: presenting & publishing (e.g., SlideShare,
Scribd, SSRN, Prezi)
31 May Meeting 14: exercises in exploring / using presentation /
publication tools
05 June Meeting 13: Presentations of student projects
07 June Meeting 14: Presentations of student projects