2. Learning Outcomes

Questions

How do institutions in the GLAM sector use digital media to support their missions?

Do digital techs push us towards particular voices in GLAM materials?

Can/do digital techs in the service of GLAM harm different communities? And if so, how? And what can we do about it?

Where are the new frontiers in CHI and GLAM?

This course is an opportunity to explore these questions; I do not know the answers! I’m excited to figure these out with you. Why not annotate this section with some of your own questions?

Nb The process of teaching is also a process of collaboration between me and you. Sometimes -and we’re expecting this, you and I- things won’t work as we expect; tech might break; the world might impinge too much. We will adapt accordingly. Remember: the grade in this course is a function of your process and your evolution, so adapting and thinking through the implications of when things don’t go according to plan is, in fact, according to plan.

Outcomes

Situate the practice, ethical, and intellectual trajectories of informatics within the cultural heritage field
Implement and contribute to a ‘GLAM Workbench’, a series of interactive computational notebooks dealing with data from the Ottawa galleries-libraries-archives-museums sector
Investigate open data sources, using the methods/techniques/perspectives of digital history and digital humanities
Develop a how-to for the workbench that communicate the results of these investigations as an act of public digital history
Given that this is an online course, another outcome will be your ability to conduct such research independently. However, no one operates in a vacuum; digital historians collaborate to troubleshoot or develop technologies, and through open practices to data sharing and reuse, learn to build upon each others’ work in a collaborative fashion.

Real Names Policy

You do not need to use your real name or identity on any public-facing work that you do in this course. Nor do you need to explain to me why you wish to use a pseudonym. It is sufficient that you send an email to me with the following message:

‘I would like to use the following username in all public-facing work: xxxxxxxx’

…where xxxxx is the name you have selected. No questions asked. For safety’s sake, if you decide to use a pseudonym, do not use one that you have used on any other website or social media platform.

When Life Intervenes

There’s nothing we can’t roll with, in this class. That said, I can’t help you if I don’t know you need help, a breathing space, some direction. When something comes up, just let me know.

You don’t have to share the details with me. It is enough for me to know that something has intervened. I trust you.

When something comes up and this course has to move to the backburner, contact me and we can figure out something else to do, or something else that will help you be successful here. It’s our course - we can change things up as we need to.

2. Learning Outcomes