Graduate Certificate in Digital Humanities

Each student in the certificate program will develop a project that involves some kind of substantive design or implementation component. This project should use digital methods to address a significant research question in the student’s field of study and should result in both a practical component and a written reflection. The practical component could take many different forms, including but not limited to:

• A data set or digital collection (with or without an interface)
• A prototype or wireframe
• A program or set of scripts or processes for accomplishing or furthering some research activity
• A game or interactive narrative
• A schema or specification for a data set
• A set of data analyses and/or visualizations.

Whatever the format, the project should constitute a meaningful experiment, prototype, or component that contributes to some scholarly research objective. The final project may also be an element of a larger project such as a PhD dissertation.

Projects will be approved by the DH Certificate committee. Students should prepare three components:

• A project “artifact,” as described above. The artifact should be submitted through the student’s folder in the NULab Project Seminar course. The committee will review the artifact in its original format, not via printout or other indirect means. The artifact should include whatever instructions are necessary to use, interact with, or examine it for purposes of assessment.
• A written project description. This should be a document of approximately 3,000 words to include: a description of the project itself; an account and justification of the methods, tools, data, standards, and other details of implementation; and a bibliography (including references to any tools and standards used).
• A project presentation to the NULab community of approximately 15 minutes, followed by about 15 minutes of questions; the exact length of presentations will be confirmed with each cohort of presenters. Presentations should demonstrate the project, explain its methods and rationale, and situate the contribution of the project within a broader field. Presentations will generally be scheduled for early April; students may also count presentations that are not part of the formally scheduled sessions, provided that those presentations are at least 15 minutes long and have at least 2 NULab faculty members in attendance.