For UCL undergraduate students interested in Digital Humanities or the ways digital technology is changing the field, we are delighted to announce that the third year undergraduate “Introduction to Digital Methods in the Humanities” (INST0006) is being offered for the first time in Term 2 (2020) and is available as an optional choice for students selecting their course of study.

The module will introduce students to the many ways in which digital methods can be applied to research in the humanities. This will include case studies using different disciplinary approaches, as well as a chance to build practical skills. The module is aimed at students from across the arts, humanities, and historical disciplines who want to learn about new modes of answering research questions in their core disciplines. Students should have some experience in arts, humanities, or social sciences, but no prior technical experience is required.

Informal queries can be directed to Dr. Adam Crymble (a.crymble@ucl.ac.uk)

We are rolling out our new Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) training course!

Courses will take place at UCL in our Multi-Modal Digital Imaging Suite. Each course, led by Dr. Kathryn Piquette, includes a combination of lectures, demonstration, and practical hands-on sessions:

• Learn how to apply highlight Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI)
• Gain experience in applying RTI to portable objects and larger fixed surfaces of various material types
• Become proficient in capture, processing and manipulation of RTI datasets for diverse applications
• Gain familiarity with related computational photography and processing techniques for augmenting and re-using RTI data
• Apply what you learn in small teams of 2-3 people for hands-on work

There is more information available, including pricing and how to register.

We are little more than a month into 2012 and already we have seen a lot of changes at UCLDH, so I thought it might be a good idea to write briefly about a few of them. It’s especially good to welcome back Melissa Terras, who was on maternity leave and sabbatical last year. Now that she is back full time we thought it would be a good idea formally to recognise her extremely important contribution to the centre, so from now on she and I are going to be Co-Directors. This makes sure that UCLDH still has the level of attention it deserves despite the fact that I’m now also Head of UCL Information Studies. I’m really looking forward to working with her as Co-Director, as we have on so many DH projects in the past.

One of the new initiatives that Melissa is leading is the creation of a new Multi-Modal Document Digitisation Suite. This is a joint initiative funded by the faculties of Arts and Humanities and Engineering and also by UCL Library services. A room has been found in the basement of the current Science Library, which will be converted to a secure digitisation suite, according to best practice guidelines. This will provide an excellent new facility for our growing number of research collaborations in document imaging, and a space that can also be used for teaching and research on the MA/MSc in DH. We are looking forward to offering a hands-on Digitisation module, and will be liaising closely with UCL Library and UCL Special Collections to digitise real content held at UCL as part of the student training program.

This year we have been concentrating a lot of our efforts on the Masters programme, and on teaching in general, and have welcomed several new PhD students to the centre. In this context, we’re especially pleased to be part of a new AHRC Skills training initiative in DH that has just been funded. It will be led by Cambridge, and we’ll be collaborating with DDH at KCL and HATII at Glasgow to develop a new training programme in the use of social media for research for early career scholars and PhD students. We’ve been doing rather well on AHRC networks of various kinds just recently. Melissa and I are also looking forward to starting work on the Community‐powered transformations network led by David Gauntlett of the University of Westminster. Melissa will also be collaborating on the Dig Where You Stand project, led by our DIS colleague Andrew Flinn. More about all these projects will appear here soon.

We haven’t been able to run our usual events programme this year. This is partly because we’ve been establishing the new MA programme and also because, for various complicated administrative reasons we have been unable to replace Rosella lo Conte, who left in the summer, as Centre Co-ordinator. We should be advertising for a new coordinator in the next month or so (watch this space…) but until we do we just don’t have the person-power to run events. However, fear not, they’ll be back next academic year, and until then everyone is welcome to attend the newly revitalised DDH London discussion group. We are delighted that its organisation is now shared between PhD students at UCLDH, DDH (the department!) and Goldsmiths, and are looking forward to hearing about what they are planning to discuss at future meetings.

Finally, I’d like to welcome a new member of staff to UCLDH. Dave Beavan has joined us from Glasgow University to be our new Research Manager. Dave will be helping us to develop, coordinate and run new research proposals, and is keen to meet people at UCL and beyond who would like to work with us on DH research. So please do get in touch with Dave if you have an idea you’d like to discuss or are looking for possible research collaborators.

Corinne Welger-Barboza, rédactrice en chef de L’Observatoire Critique, une publication en ligne dédiée à l’étude des ressources numériques pour l’histoire de l’art, vient de poser quelques questions à Claire Warwick au sujet de la création du Master Digital Humanities à University College London:

How do you argue the necessity of a MA degree: is it the very responsibility of the D.H. Centres to assume this kind of courses? Is this part of a strategy that aims to foster an interdisciplinary field? Is the aim to supply to the technological gaps in the Humanities disciplines?

As a university UCL believes that leading researchers in all disciplines should teach and pass on their knowledge to the next generation of potential scholars. Thus we feel that students should be able to benefit from UCLDH’s unique interdisciplinary approach and not just academic researchers. So it seemed obvious to develop a teaching programme that is highly interdisciplinary and allows students to call on the very diverse subject areas in which UCL has expertise. Students may indeed be from a humanities background, seeking more technical content, but we also envisage that some of them will be technical people who might like to work in a humanities or cultural heritage context.

L’interview complète →

Regular readers will know how much we love PhD students here at UCLDH. We can’t get enough of them, almost literally. This time the studentship on offer is for the whole of the department in which UCLDH sits, that’s the iSchool for the benefit of our North American readers. So obviously this is going to be highly competitive, as it will include applicants from other disciplines. But we’d still be very keen to hear from DH applicants. The open evening is also an opportunity to find out more about DIS, though sadly I can’t be there as I’ll be in Paris at a meeting (honest!). But do please get in touch with informal enquiries, if you’d like to.
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UCL Department of Information Studies is a leading centre for research in librarianship, information science, archives and records management, publishing and digital humanities, in one of the world’s top universities. If you are considering doctoral study in any of these areas, we would like to talk to you! We are currently recruiting students to join our doctoral cohort from September 2011. We have a doctoral scholarship from the Arts and Humanities Research Council for which we are also inviting applications.

We are holding an open evening on Thursday 25 November 2010 from 5-8pm and we would like to invite you to join us to hear more about doctoral study in DIS and for you to find out about us and ask questions. So that we can order sufficient refreshments, please let us know if you plan to come on 25 November by email to : infostudies-enquiries@ucl.ac.uk.

If you want further information about making an application for doctoral study, please see our research student page.

Applications are invited for a PhD studentship at UCL Centre for Digital Humanities in collaboration with the British Library, to work on the impact of Large Scale Digitisation Initiatives (LDSIs), also commonly referred to as Million Book Projects. The aim of the research is to study the use of large-scale digitised collections to ascertain how, when, and by whom they are used. The research will gather quantitative and qualitative evidence and investigate theories and predictions about the impact of LDSIs on libraries, publishers and the reading and researching public.

The work will be carried out at the UCL Centre for Digital Humanities which brings together work being done in many different UCL departments and centres, in the humanities, computer science and engineering, as well as Library Services and Museums and Collections. We also collaborate with organisations outside UCL, such as museums, galleries, libraries and archives. We aim to produce research that is meaningful to both computer scientists and humanities scholars, and that will bring about new knowledge in both research areas. In this case the research will collaborate with the British Library, and make use of some of their large-scale digitised collections.

The Studentship is for three years and carries a stipend of £15,000 for the 2010/11 session. This means that fees will be paid, but not all living expenses will be covered. Applicants must have at least a good 2.1 in their first degree, and ideally an MA or MSc in a relevant discipline such as information studies, digital humanities or human computer interaction. Students may begin their research either in October or January of the 2010-2011 session.

To apply, please send a CV, covering letter and details of two academic referees to Kerstin Michaels (k.michaels@ucl.ac.uk). Informal enquiries may be made to Dr Claire Warwick. (c.warwick@ucl.ac.uk)

The closing date for applications is 1 September 2010.

Applications are invited for an Engineering Doctorate (EngD) in the UCL Centre for Digital Humanities and Department of Computer Science in conjunction with a major London museum. This is a 4-year studentship, starting in October 2010, leading to the award of an Engineering Doctorate, which offers the opportunity to conduct research within a cultural heritage context.

The research will seek to understand more about how 3D scans of museum objects can be used in a physical or virtual exhibition space. Within this we wish to ask the following subsidiary questions: how does the use of 3D scans affect the user experience of visiting an exhibition? (For example the user’s level and type of learning, or how much they enjoy the experience.) Can users understand the relationship between the original and virtual object? Can users understand how such exhibitions should be navigated?

This EPSRC (UK Research Council) funded studentship is available to UK citizens and EU nationals if a relevant connection with the UK has been established (usually by being resident for a period of three years immediately before the EngD). Applicants must fulfil EPSRC eligibility criteria and the normal academic requirements for admission to study in the Department. This studentship will pay a tax-free stipend of approximately £18,000 per year, plus tuition fees. EU students without a relevant connection to the UK can receive an award to cover tuition fees only.

Applicants should have at least a high 2.1 in Computer Science, Human Computer Interaction, engineering or a related field. Applicants must also demonstrate an interest in cultural heritage, and the use of new media within a museum context.

Informal enquiries on the project can be made to Dr Melissa Terras (m.terras@ucl.ac.uk). For further information on the EngD Programme, see http://web4.cs.ucl.ac.uk/teaching/engd/ or contact Dr Jamie O’Brien, j.obrien@cs.ucl.ac.uk.

To be considered, you must fill in the general UCL application form. Please see http://www.ucl.ac.uk/prospective-students/graduate-study/application-admission/, where you can download the forms and guidelines. Make sure you specify Supervisor (Melissa Terras), and EngD (“Understanding the use of 3D Scanning in a Museum Environment”) on the “Research Subject Area” part of the form. Please send the completed form to Naomi Jones & Melanie Johnson, Department of Computer Science, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT.

If you need further assistance regarding our application process, please contact the postgraduate administrators – Naomi Jones & Melanie Johnson (postgradadmin@cs.ucl.ac.uk).

The closing date for applications is September 1st 2010. Interviews will be held shortly thereafter.

UCL Centre for Digital Humanities are pleased to announce the establishment of our new Masters program in Digital Humanities at UCL, to begin in September 2011. It will be a truly interdisciplinary programme, creating linkages between teaching in the UCL Department of Information Studies and UCL Computer Science, and drawing upon modules offered in different parts of the UCL faculties of Arts and Humanities, Social and Historical Sciences, Engineering Science and the Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment. The program will also depend on facilities offered by UCL Library Services, notably Special Collections, and of UCL Museums and Collections, whilst liaising closely with a variety of world-class, London based libraries, archives and museum within the vicinity of UCL.

The MA/MSc will provide research-led teaching delivered by leading scholars in these areas, and will include a dissertation/project and placement where students will work on a practical application of digital humanities, either at UCL or in partner institutions. It will allow students who have a background in the humanities to acquire necessarily skills in digital technologies, and will also make it possible for those with a technical background to become for informed about scholarly methods in the humanities.

More information regarding the Masters degree will be available soon. In the meantime, to register your interest contact the Course Director, Dr Melissa Terras, at m.terras@ucl.ac.uk.