Creating Digital Collections II
| Creating Digital Collections II
2021/2022 MA Digital Cultures Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Maastricht University Coordinator & main teacher
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| Intended learning outcomes (more on programme level)
Creating Digital Collections (DCU4009/4010) builds on subjects, concepts, and approaches that you have studied in Periods 1 and 2 of MADC.
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| Learning objectives (course specific)
Part II – In successfully completing this course you will be able to: 1. Knowledge & understanding:
2. Applying knowledge and understanding:
3. Making judgements:
4. Communication:
5. Lifelong Learning skills:
Skills Training The course ‘Creating Digital Collections II’ will build on your existing web design skills to develop the 3D digital collection. During this period, you will use different design thinking methods to work together and make decisions, as well as to wireframe and prototype the digital collection. You will be also introduced to curatorial writing that will help you develop the textual and multimodal content of the collection. Lastly, you will be introduced to project management as a means to organise tasks, divide activities, and manage your time during the project. Project management is an essential skill for managing any kind of project, including your thesis, as well as any other short or long-term task that you need to carry out both during your studies as well as after you graduate. |
| Objective statement (course description)
This course is designed as a capstone course which brings together much of the skills and knowledge, theories and methods taught in previous courses, along with new competencies to design a specific type of web presence, that of a digital collection. It does this by having you consider the ethical, methodological, theoretical, and practical issues regarding collecting and curation, representation, reconstruction, and reproduction. This year, taking a project-based approach to PBL, you will collaboratively develop a digital collection of 3D objects. Working in small teams, you will create this collection utilising skills and competencies, such project management, design thinking, content development, web design, podcasts, technical integration, and social media. The 3D objects will be contextualised thematically for a specific audience, with interactive elements inviting readers to actively participate in knowledge creation. This course will explore, both theoretically and practically, the narrative being created in the design and presentation of artefacts while situating this collection within a conversation of other similar web-based artefacts, collections, and narratives. In constructing collections we take on responsibility as mediators: the objects we choose and how they are contextualised and framed have great influence on how the public will understand and interpret them as individual objects, as well as a collective. Contemporary societies rely on collections of artefacts and documents as repositories of collective identity to allow us not only to make sense of the past, but to understand our present. Traditional gatekeepers (e.g. archivists, librarians, and curators) are trained in making decisions about what objects are to be preserved, hence what is worthy of being remembered, as well as how these objects should be organised and presented to the public. Collections and archives play a key role in memory studies, being a repository for the present generation to collectively remember and commemorate the past, informing our understanding of identity, change, and persistence (Conway 2010, p. 442). In the process of creating digital collections we ought to be conscious of, on the one hand, the power dynamics of being the creators of the repositories that shape (collective) memory, and on the other, the responsibility we have towards the objects themselves and to the people who used and/or created them. Therefore, this course, through the development of a digital collection, also problematises the politics of digitisation and reflects on notions such as value, memory, and authenticity. The goal of this virtual time capsule is to capture the essence of our time through these representative or symbolic 3D (re)creations, augmented by other multimodal content: e.g., text, 2D images, videos, or podcasts. To realise this project, there will be both group and individual components:
– Group 1: Web Design and Coordination. The Web Design/Coordination team will be responsible for designing the WordPress site that will host the collection. They will also be in charge of coordinating the other groups and the material that will be uploaded to the website. Communication with the web design/coordination will be done via the leaders of each group. – Group 2: Introduction and Contextualisation. The Introduction/Contextualisation team will be responsible for the pages which pertain to the project as a whole (e.g., content of landing page, About, Background, Acknowledgements etc. This team will be responsible for the content of those pages. They will also be responsible for designing these pages in coordination with the Web Design team. – Groups 3-7: will collaborate to curate the collection as a whole by bringing together individual objects into five Covid related themes. Each thematic team will co-author a landing page via text and other multimodal elements that will contextualise and reflect on the theme as well as the objects which are part of that theme. |
| Type of course :
Skills & content course |
| Target group :
Master’s students |
| Pedagogical approach:
Problem-based Learning; Project-based Learning In this course, PBL is materialised in the form of interactive lectures, workshops and skills training, stressing its four core values: learning as a constructive, collaborative, self-directed and contextual process:
This course will make use of the flipped classroom instructional strategy. In this approach, you are introduced to the learning material before the class, most often via online resources, and therefore class time is devoted to working with the content more deeply. In this course, practical elements of 3D recording and processing will be introduced via the course ‘Remaking Material Culture in 3D’ on #dariahTeach, a platform with open educational resources for the digital arts and humanities. Class time will be devoted in practice and discussion. |
| Activities:
Part II In part II of this course, you will utilise and further develop the skills covered in Part I to create the digital collection. To further conceptualise the content and context of this collection, we will look at theories and practices related to (the politics of) collecting and curating (from traditional collections to new media). Through a series of guided tasks and activities, including sessions on wireframing, curatorial writing, and implementation, you will work together to describe and contextualise the objects, and ultimately bring everything together in the form of a digital collection. The collection should be thought of as both a medium and a rhetoric (in addition to a mode of dissemination), a way of communicating multimodally and interactively, creating arguments as powerful and persuasive as those we expect from long form arguments. Overview of Meetings Period 4 The course consists of two lectures, three tutorial group meetings, three skills meetings, a workshop, two progress check-up meetings, and lastly, a student presentation of the project. During the tutorial group meetings, we will discuss assignments that are organised around a specific topic which will help you to better conceptualise the digital collection: what collections are; the politics of collecting, and multimodal narratives. The skills sessions will be used to have you work in your groups to conceptualise, wireframe, and implement the collection. You are expected to continue working on the project in your own time to wireframe, design, contextualise, and implement the collection. The course handbook and the canvas modules provide most of the information you need to prepare for each session. As this course is project-based, some of the sessions will be more flexible and free-flowing rather than pre-determined and strictly structured. Items that have to be prepared for the following meeting(s) are also clearly indicated. The course focuses on three broad themes, aspects of which are explored in the lectures and tutorial group meetings using different modalities, including discussions, reflections, and case studies:
Week 1 – Reflection Activities For the reflection week, you will need to work on two tasks that will be presented in class during the skills session in Week 2. This work and the feedback you will receive will feed into the individual and group/theme contents that will develop for the digital collection. Task 1 (Individual/ Completed by each student separately): What are the occasions that your chosen object provides to talk about major angles/perspectives, issues, challenges in the 21st century? One of them should be related to one of the five themes (e.g., Technology & Society, Environmentalism, Wellness etc.), while the others should provide additional angles in relation to the 21st century issues/challenges that will be included in the Virtual Time Capsule. To complete the task, you will need to do research and find relevant bibliography about each of these issues. In Week 2, you will briefly present your findings (2 min) using the presentation template provided on Canvas. Each presentation should have between 3-4 angles/perspectives that you will cover in your individual blog post. These 3-4 perspectives should be structured around a quote from a secondary source (ideally academic); the slide should make clear how it relates to your object and your narrative, accompanied by a visual (image or video). At least one perspective should tie into one (or more) of the project themes. Task 2 (Group/ Completed collaboratively by the members of each group): Theme Teams
Introduction Team
Web Design Team
To complete the task, you will need to do research and find relevant bibliography about each of sub- themes/topics. In Week 2, each team will briefly present its findings (3 min) using the presentation template provided on Canvas. Please agree on the person or people who will do the presentation in advance. Theme groups should prepare 3-4 sub-themes for their theme page. Each slide of the presentation should include a sub-theme title, abstract, and relevant visuals. Please include bibliography as appropriate. One slide should also include a list (with visuals) of objects associated with the theme. The intro group should prepare a slide that explains how the collection comes together (i.e., overall narrative), a slide that presents the storyline (i.e., sub-themes that create the overall narrative), a slide with the objects that are representative of the overarching narrative, and a slide with ideas about the other pages that could be included in the collection. The Web design group will be given admin access to WordPress (invitations already sent), and therefore, they should start looking for appropriate ways to present the collection (e.g., WordPress theme and overall aesthetics). Please note that premium themes can also be purchased. The presentation should include slides that discuss how the collection could be represented visually (WordPress theme and aesthetics) and how might the digital collection page look. Please note that the web design group does not have to prepare a wireframe at this stage. This is a task for later in Period 4. Week 2 Lecture: Traditional Collection and Their Curation By Claartje Rasterhoff Following the spread of Black Live Matters protests round the world, keepers of arts and heritage collections (galleries, libraries, archives and museums – GLAMS) have been reflecting on their societal responsibilities. Many institutions have issued formal statements, such as for instance this one by the Cambridge University Library or this one by Tate Publications. Such reflections can be seen as milestones in a broader and more gradual process of change in collecting practices known as decolonizing. In this lecture we will use current debates on and practices of decolonizing collections as starting points for understanding the long-term evolution of collections and archives. What do we mean by collections and how did this come to be? What is the cultural role of curating collections and what do we mean by the verb curating? In the first part of the lecture, we look at how the curators developed from keepers of curiosities to powerful cultural agents in a globalized and increasingly digital world. The second part of the lecture looks at how curation as a verb is also increasingly used outside the art world. This will lead us to better understand how the term ‘collection’ can be understood not only in the “museum sense”, but more broadly in relation to selection and valuation systems in present and past (digital) cultures. Tutorial: Curating Digital Collections: The Interface as/for Entry, Mediation, Context Part I: Assignment Text Learning Goals
Part II: Curating Your Digital Collection – Group Exercise In the article that was assigned for this week’s tutorial, Kelly Richman-Abdou’s (2019) What Is Divided into three groups, one for each of the three curation stages (selection, organisation, and presentation), you should work on a presentation (PPT/GSlides etc) to describe how either selection, organisation, or presentation informed the development of the digital collection. The Introduction Team of the project will be responsible, in coordination with the individual groups, to include this on the collection website. Skills: Reflection Week Debriefing and Curatorial Writing In this skills session, we will start by listening to your presentations of the reflection week activities. In the second part, you will work in your groups to start building out the text that will accompany your themes and 3D models in the collection. In writing about and through objects, we explore how ‘things’ take on meaning (as opposed to their intrinsically possessing them) to reflect upon the last 22 years. We will reflect on what to write and how to write it, spending some time doing preliminary writing. We will also explore other modalities to communicate your intended to create the bricolage of things and stories, which not only speak to our present, but will, if we are successful, form a legacy for the future. Workshop: Project Management In this workshop you will be introduced to the theory and practice of project management, and you will learn how to apply it to the creation of your digital collection. Part of the session will be devoted into dividing tasks and responsibilities, as well as coming up with a timeframe for developing and delivering different elements of the project. We will also use the software ‘Trello’ to keep track of group and individual tasks and deliverables. Week 3 Lecture: Digital Narrative This lecture will explore how narrative theory can provide the scaffolding needed to create and interpret texts which take a storied form. Narrative theory, first developed by Aristotle in Poetics, focuses both on structure and on content. We will explore how narrative theory has been updated for the digital age in which narratives increasingly are being told through a multimodal vocabulary. Thus, the forms we use to transmit stories become part of the meaning-making process, as well as our own situatedness in time and space. Tutorial: Multimodal Narratives Part I In this tutorial we will discuss theory on multimodality as a narrative device and discuss examples of multimodal cultural (and academic) productions. Learning goals
Part II In this part of the tutorial, in teams, you will wireframe a multimodal narrative to understand how media elements combine to create new narrative structures and reinforce or work against the message being delivered. While the wireframe will reconstruct the structure, we will also analyse in what ways the multimodal elements do or do not create empathy, understanding, and meaning. Skills: Wireframing the Collection In Period 1 of the MADC programme, you have used wireframing to design your blogs. In this session, we will get back to wireframing to start thinking about the look and feel of your digital collection. We will start working as a big group to decide on the main themes and sections of the digital collection. You will then be divided into smaller groups to wireframe the landing page, the about page, and the template page of the themes. We will then come together to decide on the best wireframe (single wireframe or combination of features from multiple wireframes). Based on this decision, the web design team will have to select a (premium) WordPress theme and implement the first prototype of the collection. They will also have to decide about certain plugins and features that will be implemented across the collection. The web design team is also expected to produce a style sheet providing some general guidance to the other teams about the aesthetics of the site, layout, use of multimedia etc. This is very important for the consistency of the collection in all pages. The stylesheet that the web design team produced in the past two years will be provided for guiding purposes. Once the prototype of the collection has been implemented the web design team will receive feedback from the tutors and the rest of the groups. Week 4 Tutorial: The Politics of Collecting Learning Goals
Part II In the previous term we discussed 3D (re)constructions in terms of the affordances of 3D models, especially in relation to issues such as authenticity and transparency in the context of replication and reconstruction. In this tutorial you will combine these concepts with the ideas expressed in today’s readings: namely, how do 3D (re)constructions affect memory, both collective and individual, beyond the ways in which are available to traditional memory institutions. The case study through which you will explore these ideas is available through Google Arts & Culture, the ancient city of Bagan, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site located in the Mandalay Region of Myanmar. From the 9th to 13th centuries, the city was the capital of the Pagan Kingdom, the first kingdom that unified the regions that would later constitute modern Myanmar. Over this period, more than 10.000 temples were built. many of which have been destroyed throughout the years mostly because of extensive earthquakes. Today, less than 4.000 monuments are still standing in varying states of preservation. The last earthquake hit Bagan in 2016. Bagan’s temples, stupas, monasteries and places of pilgrimage, as well as archaeological remains, frescoes and sculptures were ascribed a World Heritage status in 2019 (https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1588). Google Arts & Culture, in collaboration with CyArk, a nonprofit organisation located in Oakland, California, United States that ‘digitally records, archives and shares the world’s most significant cultural heritage…’ developed a multimodal experience that includes 3D models of the landscape and of the surviving temples accompanied by audiovisual annotations and interactive 360o walkthroughs of the ancient temples. To enter the virtual world click the following link: https://artsexperiments.withgoogle.com/bagan Within your groups spend some time to experience Virtual Bagan. There are three temples to explore, including narratives about their life history as well as information about the development and execution of the 3D digitisation project. After you have visited all three temples and you have listened to/watched some of the available information, you are expected to reflect on the following questions. Make sure to keep notes and take screenshots, since each group will have to present their responses using PPT/GSlides etc. Each group will be asked to present their response to one question, not necessarily corresponding to your group number, thus all questions will need to be discussed and the results of your discussion made clear in the PPT/GSlide.
Skills: Implementing the Collection (Wednesday – Double Plenary Session) This plenary session will be devoted to the implementation of the digital collection. This will entail refining the design and templates created and start adding the content in the various pages (3D models, texts, multimedia etc.). Groups should have already started on this (e.g., by designing H5P elements, producing audio and video, writing the text etc.) and continue working on these elements during this session. It is expected that by the end of this session, final decisions regarding the look and feel of the collection will have been made. These will be used by the groups to work on their tasks and deliverables so that they can have a first draft of the collection ready after the Carnaval week (Week 5). During the session, we will also check the progress of individual teams by looking at your Trello Boards and updating tasks, timeframes, and deliverables as appropriate. Week 5 – Carnaval Week – No Classes By the end of Carnaval Week, you should have a complete draft of your individual blog posts. This will allow you as a group to focus on completing the other elements of the group project in the last three weeks of class (weeks 6-8). Also note that after Carnaval week you should have a first draft of the digital collection completed. This will provide you with the opportunity to get some tutor and peer feedback to revise the collection Week 6 Tutorial: Double Plenary Group Work (Tuesday) Although there is no formal session during this double tutorial, you can meet together at the allocated space to continue working on your themes and collection. The tutors will also drop in from time to time to check your progress and respond to any questions you may have. Please note that the first draft of the collection is due during this week. This will be presented during the following session. Skills: Progress Check-up and Trello (Wednesday – Single Plenary) We will use the time to check the progress of the collections, give feedback and discuss any issues that may have arisen. Each group is expected to give an informal, short 2-minute presentation on progress, difficulties, and next steps. As part of the progress check-up, we will also look at the Trello Boards of each group and amend as necessary. The Slack channel should be used throughout the project for such matters, but this live session will also be another opportunity to more consistently receive feedback and plan the steps ahead. Week 7 Tutorial: Progress Check-up (Tuesday – Plenary) We will use the time to check the progress of the collections, give feedback and discuss any issues that may have arisen. Each group is expected to give an informal, short 2-minute presentation on progress, difficulties, and next steps. The Slack channel should be used throughout the project for such matters, but this live session will also be another opportunity to more consistently receive feedback and plan the steps ahead. Skills: Project Presentations (Wednesday – Plenary) In this final session, each group will present their part of the project, with the web design group providing an overall view onto the project site. This session will provide an opportunity to give and receive feedback on work accomplished to date, so that groups can refine their work during the exam week before the final project is due. |
| Assessment of learning:
For Period 4 of the course, you have to complete two assessments; a group component and an individual component 1) Contribution to the Project (Group 50%); 2) Blog Post (Individual 50%). 1. Contribution to the Project (50%; Group grade): Each group (theme groups, Intro, web design) is expected to contribute to the digital collection. This will be assessed according to the following evaluation criteria: a) Quality of writing/rhetoric b) Use of and interaction between multimodal elements c) Use of interactivity for engagement d) Design (overall web design, theme pages) e) Referencing, citations, formalities etc. f) Content and presentation is appropriate to the audience g) Group Reflection/Assessment Please note that the Group Reflection/Assessment will be evaluated based on a separate 500-word submission that each group should make. This text, submitted through Canvas (not on your blog) should reflect on the following: 1. What were the roles each of you had in the project? This is a group submission, and therefore, each group will only have to make a single submission on Canvas using the two submissions forms (project and reflection) provided on Canvas. 2. Blog Post (50%): Each student should write a 1200-word blog post (+ bibliography) to contextualise their chosen (3D) object. The blog posts should include the following elements:
The text of the blog post should be submitted via CANVAS and also uploaded to the collection website. You are free to also post it on your own blog, but it will only be assessed as part of the collection, on the collections website. |
| Effect (witness account, evaluation of the course) |
| Additional biblio sources
https://teach.dariah.eu/course/view.php?id=55§ion=0
Other resources
Week 3
Week 4
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