Prospectus

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Text and Data Mining in the Humanities

Course
2021-2022

Admission requirements

This course is accessible to Book and Digital Media Studies students and BDMS exchange students. Auditors can occasionally be allowed after consulting the course coordinator.

Description

The development of the digital textual medium has enabled agencies, companies and institutions to create, gather and store unprecedented amounts of textual data and metadata (data on data). Just as microscopes and telescopes widen the bandwidth of human perception, computer-aided forms of reading allow us to see things in these massive amounts of textual data that we could not see before because they were not ‘in the human bandwidth’. Thus computers affect what we may know and regard as knowledge. The availability of metadata fundamentally reshapes methodologies for classifying, searching and accessing texts and therefore leads to new systems for information retrieval. Moreover, metadata aggregation allows for completely new evaluative perspectives on the text-related industries and institutions. New types of text and related data available also significantly change (humanities) research methodologies and dissemination practices. Building on the first-semester introduction to the basics of digital text technologies, this course will provide a firm grounding in data processing technologies.The course will present advanced data processing techniques using various digital tools.

Course objectives

Students

  • receive hands-on experience in textual data processing techniques

  • develop practical knowledge of data structures in the Python programming language

  • become acquainted with recent scholarly debates in the digital humanties

  • carry out out an individual research project, potentially as a preparation for an MA thesis within this field

Timetable

The timetables are available through My Timetable.

Mode of instruction

One-hour lecture followed by two-hour seminars.

Assessment method

Assessment

The final grade will be determined by:

  • An essay, which consists of (1) a description of the results of an individual research project and (2) a critical reflection on the techniques which are discussed during the course.

  • Next to this, four coding challenges need to be submitted during the course, and all of these need to be marked as sufficient.

Weighing

The final mark is established by determining the weighted average of these three assessments

Resit

In case of an insufficient result, the resit consists of the same parts as the first opportunity; students therefore only take the resits for those parts that were insufficient.

Inspection and feedback

How and when a paper review will take place will be disclosed together with the publication of the paper results at the latest. If a student requests a review within 30 days after publication of the paper results, an paper review will have to be organised.

Reading list

All reading materials will be announced via the course syllabus.

Registration

Enrollment through uSis is mandatory. If you have any questions, please contact the departmental office,e mail: osz-oa-arsenaal@hum.leidenuniv.nl

Registration Studeren à la carte and Contractonderwijs

Not applicable

Contact

  • For substantive questions, contact the lecturer listed in the right information bar.

  • For questions about enrolment, admission, etc, contact the Education Administration Office: Arsenaal

Remarks

Participation in all sessions of this course is compulsory. Upon prior consultation, the lecturer can permit absence at one session for compelling reasons. Students who are absent twice may be excluded from further participation.