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13 changes: 6 additions & 7 deletions _assessments/03-semester-project.md
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Expand Up @@ -43,20 +43,19 @@ Please remember to include relevant citations to the readings and topics we have

*Updated assignment*

After receiving feedback from the instructors on your project, you will have the remainder of the semester to work on your project. In our last two class sessions, you will be grouped into thematic groups to present your project to your peers. This presentation should be a 5-10 minute overview of your project, including a brief description of your research question, the data you engaged with, the computational methods you employed, and the results you achieved. You should also include a brief reflection on the process of working on your project, including any challenges you faced, any changes you made to your initial plan, and any future directions you would like to take with your project. Then your peer group will provide feedback on your project, including suggestions for improvement, questions about your methods or results, and any other comments they have.

After receiving feedback from the instructors on your project, you will have the remainder of the semester to work on your project. In our last class session, you will be grouped into thematic groups to present your project to your peers. This presentation should be a 10-20 minutes overview of your project, including a brief description of your research question, the data you engaged with, the computational methods you employed, and the results you achieved. You should also include a brief reflection on the process of working on your project, including any challenges you faced, any changes you made to your initial plan, and any future directions you would like to take with your project. Then your peer group will provide feedback on your project, including suggestions for improvement, questions about your methods or results, and any other comments they have.

## Final Exploration & Experimental Project Submission 25%

**DUE MAY 13, 2024 (Hard Deadline)**

The final part of this semester-long project is your final project submission, due at the end of the semester (please note **the hard deadline**). This submission is the culmination of your explorations and experimentations throughout the course, representing your first forays into the realm of computing in the humanities. While there is no expectation that your final submission will be a polished digital project, your submission should cover all the required elements outlined initially, and demonstrate a well-rounded understanding and application of the course concepts.

This assignment is twofold: First, it involves detailed documentation and explanation of your project. This includes a clear description of your research question, the data you engaged with, the computational methods you employed, and the results you achieved. Your narrative should effectively convey the project’s journey from conception to its current state. Second, and equally important, is the reflective component. This is an introspective dive into the process of your project’s development. Reflect on how your ideas and approaches evolved over the semester, how the course materials influenced your project, and what changes you would now implement with your newfound knowledge. Address the feasibility of your initial proposal, the scope of what you managed to achieve, and openly discuss any deviations from your original plan. The goal is not to focus on whether you hit every milestone, but rather to articulate how the process of working with data and computing in the humanities has shaped your project and your understanding of the field.

There is no set page limit for this assignment since it will be submitted digitally, but we will discuss more details closer to the final submission date.


In writing and presenting your project, you should focus on two strands:

- First, providing detailed documentation and explanation of your project. This includes a clear description of your research question, the scholarship that you engaged with, the data you created and transformed, the computational methods you employed, and the results you achieved. Your narrative should effectively convey the project’s journey from conception to its current state
- Second, and equally important, is the reflective component. Specifically, you should where you deem appropriate reflect on how your ideas and approaches evolved over the semester, how the course materials influenced your project, and what changes you would now implement with your newfound knowledge. You might discuss how the feasibility of your initial proposal evolved, whether the scope of what you managed to achieve matched that proposal or not, and openly discuss any deviations from your original plan. The goal is not to focus on whether you hit every milestone, but rather to articulate how the process of working with data and computing in the humanities has shaped your project and your understanding of the field.

There is no set page limit for this assignment since it will be submitted digitally, but we will discuss more details closer to the final submission date.

You can find an example project here: [Example Final Project]({{site.baseurl}}/assessments/04-example-project)
10 changes: 8 additions & 2 deletions _assessments/04-example-project.md
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Expand Up @@ -37,18 +37,24 @@ This example will be built around our class example of exploring the Humanist Li
- In this section, I would also include, if relevant, a brief discussion of how others have collected and curated data for similar projects. So for example, I might include the following projects/examples:
- Scholars who have explored Usenet archives, which are early internet discussion forums, and how they have used computational methods to understand these archives.
- Projects that have used named entity recognition to extract topics from large text corpora, and how they have structured and cleaned these datasets for analysis.
- And, I would include also any citations or quotations to readings from the course that are relevant:
- So for example, I might include some references to *Data Feminism* because that influenced my approach to organizing this data.
- Finally, I would also include any reflections on how my thinking about data collection and curation process changed through this process.

## Data Analysis & Methods

- In this section, I would detail how I analyzed the data for this project and share some of the aggregate data visualizations of the data. In particular, I would try to visualize how the NER extracted technologies have changed over time and how they relate to the rise of the web. I would also detail some of the choices I've made in my use of methods and data visualizations to make my interpretations clear (so for example, things I did not include or experiments that I decided were not useful but provided a foundation for my thinking and later experiments/visualizations).
- I would also detail some experiments of using TF-IDF and topic modeling to understand the conversations on the listserv and how these methods helped me to understand the data. I might not have a final answer to my initial question but showing some trends and using those to speculate about how these technologies have changed over time and how they have been discussed on the listserv. I would also detail any challenges I faced in using these methods and how I overcame them.
- In this section, I would also include, if relevant, a brief discussion of how others have analyzed data for similar projects. So for example, I might include the following projects/examples:
- Scholars and/or projects who have used topic modeling or TF-IDF to understand the historic documents and how they have visualized these results to understand the development of discourses.
- I would also again include relevant citations from our course readings and how they influenced my thinking about data analysis and methods.
- So I might include a reference to Melanie Walsh and Maria Antoniak's work with GoodReads since that influenced my approach to topic modeling.
- Finally, I would also include any reflections on how my thinking about data analysis and methods changed through this process.

## Conclusion & Reflection

- In this section, I would detail what I learned from this project and how it has helped me to understand working with cultural data and computing in the humanities, and then specifically what this project has found over how the development of technology over time shaped discourses on the Humanist Listserv.
- I would also reflect and detail any challenges I faced in completing this project and how I overcame them, as well as any future directions I might take this project.
- In this section, I would detail any big picture takeaways about what I learned from this project and how it has helped me to understand working with cultural data and computing in the humanities, and then specifically what this project has found over how the development of technology over time shaped discourses on the Humanist Listserv.
- I would also reflect and summarize any challenges I faced in completing this project and how I overcame them, as well as any future directions I might take this project.
- Finally, I would also include any guidance for others who might want to utilize this data or methods in their own research, and how they might go about doing so.

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