About Day of DH

Welcome to Day of DH 2013!

A Day in the Life of the Digital Humanities (Day of DH) is an open community publication project that will bring together scholars interested in the digital humanities from around the world to document what they do on one day.  This year, Day of DH will take place on April 8th. The goal of the project is to create a web site that weaves together a picture of the participant’s activities on the day which answers the question, “Just what do digital humanists really do?” Participants  document their day through photographs and text, all of which is published on a community online platform (which, for this year, lives at dayofdh2013.matrix.msu.edu). Both during and after the day, people are encouraged to read and comment on their fellow participant’s posts.  Eventually, all the data will be grouped together, undergo some light semantic editing, and released for others to study. We hope that, beyond the original online publication, the raw data will be of use to those interested in further visualization or digital community ethnographic research.

Collaborate [How]

If you would like to contribute your data to this year’s Day of DH, follow the four steps below to register and prepare to document your DH-related work on April 8, 2013.

  1. Create an account by registering. Doing this creates a personal Day of DH blog for you.
  2. When you register for an account, fill out the “How do you define DH” field – these definitions will live on the How Do You Define DH section of the Day of DH 2013 Website (this website!).
  3. Once your account has been approved, create an “About Me” page where you describe who you are and what you do. You can do this before April 8 as a way of learning the version of WordPress we use.
  4.  Make sure you have a digital camera (or other photo capturing device) so you can post pictures of your day. However, be conscious of copyright issues when documenting your activities (i.e.  don’t post pictures of children!).

Once your account has been created and approved (and you have your Day of DH 2013 site), here are some things you should think about doing (before) April 8th:

  • Customize your Day of DH 2013 site theme (adding a custom header, changing sidebar widgets, etc)
  • Change your site password (located in Users > Your Profile in the Dashboard)
  • Change the timezone to wherever it is you will be blogging from on the day (Settings > General in the Dashboard)
  • Create an About Me page.  This lets people know who you are, where you work, your interests, etc.  We recommend uploading an image as well to put on the page (Pages > Add New n the Dashboard)

Collaborate [Why]

Day of DH is literally a day-in-the-life of digital humanists. In order to be effective, Day of DH needs to draw from a wide range of experiences, including yours. To answer global questions about the digital humanities, we need to collect your data and weave your DH stories into the collective whole. The goal of the Day of DH project is to create a website that anthologizes and aggregates the blog posts, pictures, and comments of many participants in order to answer larger questions about the DH community, namely “What do digital humanists really do?” As more and more people in the digital humanities community participate in the Day of DH, the answer to this questions becomes more and more interesting.

Participants  document their day through photographs and text, all of which is published on a community online platform (this website!). Both during and after the day, people are encouraged to read and comment on their fellow participant’s posts. Through this process, participants become both contributors and co-authors. The direction of the project is directly influenced by participants’ choices, both before and after the Day of DH itself. Eventually, all the data will be grouped together, undergo some light semantic editing, and released for others to study. We hope that, beyond the original online publication, the raw data will be of use to those interested in further visualization or digital community ethnographic research.

Following Along with Day of DH 2013

When Day of DH 2013 is in full swing, here are some ways to following along

  • In your browser, you can see all Day of DH 2013 blogging activity on the activity page.
  • In an RSS reader (i.e. newsreader), there is also a feed of of Day of DH activity.
  • On Twitter, follow discussion at #DayofDH and feel free to join in.

As a reminder, there are many way to participate. If you find notable posts and tweets, share them on Twitter or on your Day of DH blog. To respond to posts, don’t be shy about commenting. Join the discussion, Day of DH is a community event.

Tagging

This year (as with last year) we are encouraging all participants to make use of the blog tagging function within WordPress. We have generated a list of post tags which reflect the rage of activities the Digital humanities community engages with in their working (and playing) lives. Below are links to the list of DDH post tags and instructions on tagging your own blog using the DDH list. If you want to use a different tag (something not on the list), just be sure to use the DDH- prefix (ie. DDH-lunch, DDH-breakdancing, DDH-dillpickles, etc.)

 Who is Organizing Day of DH 2013?

Day of DH is an initiative of CenterNet, an international network of digital humanities centers formed for cooperative and collaborative action to benefit digital humanities and allied fields in general, and centers as humanities cyberinfrastructure in particular. Day of DH 2013 is proudly hosted by Michigan State University’s MATRIX: The Center for Digital Humanities & Social Sciences. MATRIX’s Day of DH 2013 team is being spearheaded by Ethan Watrall – so, if you have any problems of questions, Ethan is your man (and can be reached via email at watrall@msu.edu).

Day of DH 2013 is generously supported by the following kind folks at Michigan State University: