During the Spring 2018 semester, Dr. Elizabeth Pollard, History professor, and Dr. Pamella Lach, Digital Humanities librarian, collaborated to scaffold a series of low-stakes digital humanities workshops and projects into an upper-division Roman History course in order to prepare students to create a high-stakes DH project of their own by the end of the semester.

Visualizing Time
Dr. Pollard assigned her HIST 503 Roman History students a collaborative timeline. Based on lectures and assigned reading, groups of students picked on a specific date in Roman History and created an entry for the timeline. The goal of the assignment was for students to experience working collaboratively, demonstrate an understanding of cause and effect, and recognize the possibilities of media-rich DH tools.

Dr. Lach then led the tutorial Creating a Historical Timeline using TimelineJS, teaching students via in class exercises how to use TimelineJS to create media-rich, interactive timelines.

See the final result of the Historical Timeline project.

Visualizing Space
HIST 503 were then assigned a project to collaboratively create a StoryMap of Augusts’s life. Utilizing lecture notes and assigned reading, students familiarized themselves with Augustus’s life; developed materials, as a group, for a StoryMap entry; and posted their materials to the StoryMap.

Dr. Lach led the tutorial Creating a Historic Map using StoryMapJS, teaching students how to use StoryMap JS to create media-rich, interactive, and sequential points on a web map, connected by a trail/line. Dr. Lack led in-class exercises and tutorial sessions in the DH Center.

See the final result of the Historic Map project.

To learn more, visit the project website: Visualizing Roman History: Scaffolding for Success. #DHSDSU