Training
There are many resources for training in different aspects of the use of digital tools at the intersection of humanities, social sciences, and technology, at all levels and both in the UPF and other institutions. Here you will find a selection of recommendations for students and researchers interested in this field:
UPF Courses for Students
For students, both at undergraduate and graduate level, interested in learning about digital tools and research methodologies, or improving their digital literacy, there are several courses available at UPF in different Departments. The courses recommended are not necessarily organized or affiliated with DIGITHS:
The Minor in DH is tailored for undergraduate students seeking an introduction to the skills and methodologies of digital humanities. This program aims to equip humanities and social sciences students with technical knowledge, while providing students with a technical background a sound foundation in humanistic knowledge.
This minor provides a transdisciplinary training programme to students who wish to specialize in the study and creation of digital narratives and arts, covering such fields as interactive narrative, video games, transmedia storytelling and artistic production linked to new technologies.
The Computer Engineering subjects available are expected to attract not only students with a technical and scientific profile, but also from the fields of social sciences, communication and humanities.
Overall, the subjects of the minor cover the following three areas of training:
- Theory and general principles of digital culture, digital narrative, contemporary art and humanities
- Design and script of interactive digital media works
- Technology, programming and implementation of projects
This master’s degree aims to provide students with advanced training to analyse the various social and cultural phenomena surrounding digital media, and to develop their own projects in this field through basic or applied research or research linked to the practice. It examines emerging media and techno-cultural trends, and proposes a comprehensive and critical understanding of digital culture from the media studies perspective, exploring the complex relationships between society, technology, communication and the media.
Digital competence is the set of knowledge, skills, aptitudes and behaviour which enhances our abilities in different areas: information, communication, content creation, security and problem solving.
Digital competence training allows members of the university community to acquire the knowledge and skills needed to carry out their activity in the area of technologies and information resources.
To achieve this, the Library/CRAI offers training modules on digital competence for undergraduate and graduate students at key stages of their university degree.
DIGITHS has as its core mission promoting interdisciplinary approaches to research, and serving as a hub for researchers of different fields to collaborate. For students who wish to do the same at an undergraduate or graduate level, HackLab UPF offers a wide range of resources to find collaborators, work spaces, budget, and to develop interdisciplinary projects with other students.
HackLab is a workshop for the co-creation of ideas, a space to promote, encourage and facilitate self-learning, knowledge sharing and collaboration around topics such as technology, communication and digital arts.
Course Recommendations
- Introduction to Digital Humanities (Bachelor’s Degree in Humanities). Optional subject on the second semester of academic year 2023-2024
Outside the UPF - Postgrad DCH-Courses platform
The DCH-Courses platform provides a global overview of all postgraduate courses aligned to Digital Cultural Heritage, Digital Humanities and Digital Social Sciences worldwide by location, institution, required ECTS, and a summary of essential details for those interested in pursuing further study in the domain. The platform is a unique initiative from the EU-funded Mnemosyne Project and the result of years-long efforts of the UNESCO Chair on Digital Cultural Heritage as a part of the ongoing work from several EU funded projects at the Cyprus University of Technology's Digital Cultural Heritage Lab.
Training for researchers and PhD students
There is a broad range of local and international training programs and courses aimed at researchers and PhD students who want to initiate or expand their knowledge regarding digital methodologies applied to the humanities and social sciences. Here you can find a selection of courses and resources from institutions all around the world, which we hope to expand in the future:
CLIK is the Center for Learning Innovation and Knowledge at UPF. It aims to promote activities of innovation, improvement and teaching support, contribute to teacher training, and become an internal and external center of reference.
As part of its activities, CLIK organises Continuous Education courses touching on a variety of subjects, including digital tools and digital competencies. DIGITHS has periodically worked with CLIK to organise thematic courses, particularly around spatial analysis tools.
The Digital Humanities Course Registry is a curated platform that provides an overview of the growing range of teaching activities in the field of digital humanities worldwide.
The platform is a joint effort of two European research infrastructures: CLARIN-ERIC and DARIAH-EU.
Started in 2019, EnExDi (Encode, Exploit, Diffuse) is an intensive training school in digital humanities technologies. This program is open to young postdoctorate researchers and doctorate students from humanities and social sciences fields who are interested in expanding their knowledge on digital tools for their research.
It covers topics such as handwriting recognition, digital editing, language processing, quantitative analysis of textual data, digital cartography or network analysis and visualization. The 2024 edition closes registration on January 10th.
“As museums, libraries, archives and other institutions have digitized collections and artifacts, new tools and standards have been developed that turn those materials into machine-readable data. Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI), for example, have enabled humanities researchers to process vast amounts of textual data. However, these advances are not limited just to text. Sound, images, and video have all been subject to these new forms of research.
This course will show you how to manage the many aspects of digital humanities research and scholarship. Whether you are a student or scholar, librarian or archivist, museum curator or public historian — or just plain curious — this course will help you bring your area of study or interest to new life using digital tools.”
“Combine literary research with data science to find answers in unexpected ways. Learn basic coding tools to help save time and draw insights from thousands of digital documents at once.
In this course, you’ll work on building parts of a search engine, one tailor-made to the needs of academic research. Along the way, you'll learn the fundamentals of text analysis: a set of techniques for manipulating the written word that stand at the core of the digital humanities.
By the end of the course, you will be able to apply what you learn to what interests you most, be it contemporary speeches, journalism, caselaw, and even art objects. This course will analyze pieces of 18th-century literature, showing you how these methods can be applied to philosophical works, religious texts, political and historical records – material from across the spectrum of humanistic inquiry.”
“In this free course, you will learn how the digital transformation of our cultural heritage and our daily lives is changing the way humanities scholars conduct their research and share it with the world.
You will learn about the opportunities offered by the growing availability of digital data and about the challenges of using it ethically and responsibly. You will become familiar with core concepts of digital research such as digitisation, metadata, ‘big data’, the FAIR principles, data wrangling, qualitative and quantitative analysis and knowledge infrastructures.
While this course will not teach you how to use specific tools or programming languages, it will provide you with a good theoretical foundation upon which you can build more specialised skills in areas that complement your humanities interests.”
Harvard University offers a variety of courses through digital platforms, some of which are free or free to audit. Among their selection of programming courses, which can be browsed in the provided link, these are some of the most relevant ones for digital humanities researchers:
CS50: Introduction to Computer Science
CS50's Introduction to Artificial Intelligence with Python
Harvard University offers a variety of courses through digital platforms, some of which are free or free to audit. Among their selection of data science courses, which can be browsed in the provided link, these are some of the most relevant ones for digital humanities researchers:
“CS101 is a self-paced course that teaches the essential ideas of Computer Science for a zero-prior-experience audience. Computers can appear very complicated, but in reality, computers work within just a few, simple patterns. CS101 demystifies and brings those patterns to life, which is useful for anyone using computers today.
In CS101, participants play and experiment with short bits of "computer code" to bring to life the power and limitations of computers. Anyone who has the ability to use a web browser may be successful in this course. No previous computer science experience is required.”
Stanford School of Engineering - Databases: Set of five courses
Stanford School of Engineering offers a set of five self-paced courses on the topic of Databases, originating as one of Stanford's three inaugural massive open online courses released in the fall of 2011. Each course covers a different topic, and they can be accessed through these links: