NULab Communication Platforms and Resources

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This guide outlines NULab communication platforms and resources. This page is intended as an internal guide for NULab faculty and research affiliates, so please don’t share the link outside the NULab community.

Communications platforms

NULab Google Drive

The NULab Google Drive contains our meeting notes, as well as planning documents and guides for NULab faculty, staff, postdoc, and researcher affiliates. This drive should have been shared with you when you joined the NULab community. If you have trouble accessing the drive, or you would like to receive access through a different email address, email Sarah or send a share request from this link. 

If you try to click on a Google Doc linked below and you aren’t able to access it, that means that you are not logged into a Google account that has been shared on the Drive. If this happens, you either need to switch accounts or request access from the account you are using. 

NUDIGITAL Slack

The Digital Scholarship Group and the NULab co-sponsor the NUDIGITAL Community Slack workspace, which includes focused discussions on topics in digital humanities and computational social science, channels for posting events and opportunities, and spaces to ask & answer questions. You can join from this link. See the Slack guide and list of channels for more information. The Slack includes Northeastern-affiliated staff, faculty, postdoc, researcher, and graduate student members (including some alumni) from the NULab, DSG, and other communities invested in digital and computational scholarship. The Slack workspace is a great place to ask questions, share job opportunities, announce events, and post CFPs. It is also where our working groups plan gatherings and share resources (details below).

This Slack is an open space and any Northeastern faculty members, graduate students, postdocs, staff members, or researchers are very welcome—feel free to share the Slack link with anyone from those groups interested in joining. In the future, we may expand the Slack to undergraduates and individuals not affiliated with Northeastern, but for now please hold off on sharing the join link with those groups. 

NUDIGITAL List

The NUDIGITAL listserv is also co-sponsored by the NULab and DSG. It has the same focus on CSS and DH discussions, but the membership is broader and includes individuals from Boston-area institutes and beyond who are interested in digital and computational activities at Northeastern. The list is a great place to share events, CFPs, and other announcements—if you share job ads on the list, be very clear about applicant eligibility, since it does reach non-NU audiences. You can join the list and view its archives from this link.

NULab Faculty Google Group

This list exclusively includes NULab affiliates (faculty, staff, postdocs, and researchers, and some alumni). NULab affiliates are invited to this list as part of joining the community. Note that you have to accept the list invitation to receive messages. To post to the list, send a message to nulab-faculty@googlegroups.com from whichever address you are subscribed through. To modify your membership, go to the list’s main page. This is an unmanaged list, so please feel free to send messages directly to the list. If you’d like to be subscribed through a different address or you’re not getting messages from this list, email Sarah or Sean.

NULab Events Google Calendar and Events Page

The NULab posts our events on this page and on the NULab Events Google Calendar. NULab affiliates are invited to the Google calendar as part of joining the community; contact Sarah or Sean if you have questions or would like the calendar to be shared with a different address.

DH-GRAD List

The DH-GRAD list is the NULab’s only managed list—membership is restricted to Northeastern graduate students with an interest in the digital humanities. If you would like to send a message to DH-GRAD, email the contents of the message to Sarah. This list is a great place to share CFPs, job ads, events, and any other announcements that would be relevant to graduate students with an interest in DH. If you know any Northeastern-affiliated grad students who would be interested in joining the list, please put them in touch with Sarah. 

Please note that we encourage you to send messages directly to all of the other lists on this page—the DH-GRAD list is the only one that you should contact Sarah about messaging. 

BostonDH List

The BostonDH list is not maintained by the NULab, but it’s a useful resource if you are interested in Boston-area DH events and discussions. You can join the list and view the archives from this link.

Resources and opportunities

NULab Commons

The NULab Commons is in 409 Nightingale Hall on the Boston campus. This is a space for any NULab community members, including graduate students, to hold meetings or to collaborate on work related to CSS and DH. The space is not intended for general-purpose departmental use; any gatherings in the NULab Commons should be related to digital or computational scholarship. 

To book 409 Nightingale, use the 409 Nightingale Hall Google Calendar; if you need to be added to this Google Calendar, submit this form. We will share the door code with you when you submit the form—please do not share this code outside of the NULab community. If you forget the code, you can contact Sean or Sarah on Slack or by email. Instructions and more details are in this guide.

Working groups

The NULab hosts three working groups on digital cultural heritage, civic tech, and critical making. Each of these groups has a channel in Slack for planning meetings and holding discussions. Working groups typically meet several times a semester, both virtually and in person. The best way to get involved with one of the working groups is to join the relevant Slack channel and introduce yourself.

Digital Integration Teaching Initiative

The Digital Integration Teaching Initiative partners with humanities and social science faculty to help integrate digital methods and skills in their classes. The DITI team includes graduate students with expertise in a wide range of digital tools and methods—such as computational text analysis, narrative mapping, qualitative coding, website development, digital and data ethics, and many more. See the DITI’s faculty guidelines for more information. The DITI also shares a number of resources for asynchronous teaching and learning, which can be used and adapted at any time.

The DITI sends out two calls for partnerships each year:

  • For fall and summer semesters: CFP circulates in February with a deadline in late March
  • For spring semesters: CFP circulates in October with a deadline in early November

Because demand for this program is very high, we ask that any interested faculty partners respond to the CFP within these deadlines. The CFP circulates on the NUDIGITAL Slack and listserv, the NULab faculty Google Group, and the NULab news feed and homepage. The CFP is also sent to faculty in CSSH, London, and Oakland, as well as to all previous DITI partners. Note that any humanities or social science faculty member can partner with the DITI team—NULab affiliation is not required. 

Grants

The NULab hosts a grants program to fund the following activities:

  • Seedling grants support pilot research to begin a longer-term research project.
  • Community collaboration grants support digital and computational projects that center community engagement, citizen science, or community co-creation.
  • Travel grants support the presentation of NULab-related research at conferences or substantive NULab-relevant professional development opportunities such as workshops.
  • Co-sponsorships support NULab-relevant speakers and events, ideally open to the public or bringing a multi-institutional or regional audience to NU.

The NULab holds two rounds of grant applications, with deadlines in March and November. See the CFP Process page for more information, including details on eligibility and application requirements, and see here for previously-funded projects. The CFP circulates on the NUDIGITAL Slack and listserv, the NULab faculty Google Group, the NULab news feed and homepage, and the DH-GRAD list. Applicants are usually notified about proposal outcomes within approximately one month of the deadline.

Tips on outreach and publicity

Student job announcements

If you have a job announcement to share, we encourage you to post it to the #opportunities channel on Slack and send it to the NULab faculty Google Group with a request that colleagues share the ad in their own student networks. You can also email Sarah with any job announcements you would like distributed on the DH-GRAD listserv.

There are several other platforms for sharing student opportunities outside the NULab’s own networks:

  • Most departments maintain lists of graduate students and will usually send announcements to these lists upon request.
  • There is an opportunities portal for PhD Stipended Graduate Assistants in CSSH—CSSH faculty should receive communications from the College about timelines & requirements for posting announcements and identifying SGAs.
  • You can create a job requisition in Workday and make that available to students—please note that public posting will typically result in a great many applications.

More information on student employment, including guidance on wages and instructions on navigating Workday, can be found on the Student Employment Office page for employers.

Events

If you have an event to share, we encourage you to post it to the #events channel on Slack and send to the NULab faculty Google Group. You may also want to send to the NUDIGITAL and BOSTON-DH listservs, if you want to reach those larger communities.

If you would like the event to go to the DH-GRAD listserv, email the announcement to Sarah. You can also contact Sarah with questions about potential NULab co-sponsorship or cross-promotion of the event (e.g, including it in the NULab’s events feed and our semester events flyer).

NULab Community Building

The NULab’s welcome page is a public-facing page that outlines NULab resources and shares ways to get involved. Check this page out yourself and please feel free to share with any colleagues who might be interested in CSS or DH!