Topics in Public History: Publics, Projects, and Methods in Digital Public History

Note: this is a public-facing copy of our Course Syllabus. The final draft with complete information regarding Northeastern University course policies was shared with students via Canvas.

Instructor: Jim McGrath, Ph.D (he/his)

Email: j,mcgrath@northeastern.edu

Twitter: @JimMc_Grath

Course Slack (you will receive invites to this page via email)

Course Meeting Times: Tuesdays, 4:30-6:30 (Zoom), plus 1 ½ hours of asynchronous course work (to be completed weekly at your discretion; I’ll check in on Wednesdays each week to follow up on our Zoom sessions and you’ll use Slack to update me on your use of this time).

Location: Jim will be teaching remotely for the semester. If you prefer to attend this course in a physical location on campus, 205 Ryder is the room where you can view our weekly live Zoom meetings. Northeastern will be providing an Instructional Assistant to ensure the class Zoom session is connected to this classroom space. Please familiarize yourself with Campus Access Protocols if you are opting to visit campus.

Office Hours: Wednesdays, 3-4pm or by appointment. Please email me if you plan to come by during these times so I can ensure that your desired meeting time doesn’t conflict with a meeting with another student. Office Hours will generally be held via Zoom: I will send you a link when you request a meeting.

Official Course Description

This course surveys contemporary approaches to digital public history, centering ideas of publics and their impact on subject matter, methodologies, design choices, ideas of audience, and forms of engagement and collaboration. While we will consider projects and approaches explicitly situated as forms of “public history” and supported by academic institutions, students will also review innovative digital work happening across a wide range of nonacademic contexts: museums, public libraries, community archives, public art, podcasts, journalism, activism, among others. We will examine the ways that these initiatives are staffed, managed, and valued (identifying best as well as not-the-best practices). As part of the course’s investment in the pedagogical value that comes from collaborative work on active and public-facing digital projects, we will also work with the COVID-19 Archive on its approaches to documenting and curating the impact of the global pandemic on the Greater Boston area. Students will also have the opportunity to develop and refine their own prototypes and approaches to digital public history on topics that resonate with them.

Learning Goals

Over the course of the semester, students will:

Review contemporary approaches to digital public history taken up in a range of professional contexts, spanning academic and nonacademic institutions, perspectives, and career paths.
Discuss the ideas of publics, technologies, and cultural heritage informing efforts in digitization and data creation, forms of storytelling and curation, investments in augmentation and hybridity, and approaches to engagement, interaction, and use (among other topics).
Connect these methodologies, arguments, and ideas of value to two specific “case study” contexts that will provide useful experiential learning opportunities: Journal of The Plague Year and ongoing digital public history work at the Northeastern University Library Archives and Special Collections .
Learn more about the Greater Boston network of digital public history practitioners while reflecting on your own networks and public profile as someone invested in digital public history.
Create, contribute to, prototype, or revise/extend a digital public history project in a manner that aligns with professional motivations and builds on course work.

Course Expectations

First and foremost: this class is taking place in the midst of a pandemic, and I know these are uncertain, strange, and stressful times (they are for me, at least!). If you ever need to talk about course expectations or commitments or there’s stuff going on that might impact your contributions to weekly meetings or major course work, please feel free to email me and we’ll talk: j.mcgrath@northeastern.edu .

My plan is to meet once a week during our scheduled course time via Zoom for around two hours (and we’ll evaluate this meeting time length as the semester goes on). Your remaining 1 ½ hours of weekly course time will be completed asynchronously via Slack.

I will always use my Northeastern email address for email correspondence. Please let me know ASAP you if you plan to use an alternate email for course communication. If you have a question, you’ll generally get a response from me within 24 hours (Monday-Friday).

Zoom Policies

Zoom meetings will not be recorded but I am happy to provide lecture / lesson notes and follow up with anyone who misses a Zoom session. Zoom meetings will typically be a combination of lecture, discussion, and screensharing. Please log in to Zoom in a manner that is most comfortable to you: I have no requirements re: microphone and video use, dress code, food / drink, etc., so long as you join our meetings with a willingness to connect with me and one another about each week’s topic and relevant course readings.

Attendance to weekly Zoom calls is mandatory, and if you miss an excessive number of Zoom meetings your final course grade may be negatively impacted. That being said, please email me in advance (if possible) if you can not attend a specific course meeting due to illness, emergency, or other reasons. You will never be required to meet for this class via Zoom outside of our allotted course time.

View upcoming Zoom Meetings via the menu link on our Canvas site. Zoom links for one-on-one appointments will be shared via email.

Slack Policies

Slack is a free digital communication platform that you can access via laptops / desktops and mobile devices. It is frequently used in professional digital public history contexts: I’m using it for a few ongoing projects right now. I prefer it to online spaces like Canvas or Blackboard for course-related discussion and project development.

We’ll walk through our use of Slack in this course on our first day of classes. Each week you will be given a prompt via Slack that should take you around 1 ½ hours to complete. Feel free to complete this work during the remainder of our allotted weekly class time, but you can also do this work at your own pace or within your own schedule during the rest of the week.

We’ll also use Slack as a space to discuss readings and projects, circulate relevant course links, and develop work related to major assignments.

You are not expected to be on Slack at all times, but you will be expected to check in a few times per week (M-F).

Other Course Expectations

Reliable access to a stable internet connection is important for the semester, but I also understand that the pandemic may be disrupting how you normally complete digital course work. Most of the work we’ll be looking at and discussing is web-based or easily transferable via Canvas, Slack, or email. There may be occasions where it might be preferable to download readings, programs, or other materials. Please see Northeastern’s Student Technology Guide if you want more info on how to connect to online databases, access Microsoft Office 365 apps, rent laptops, etc. Please review Snell Library fall reopening plans and available resources as well. And please talk to me if you anticipate short or long-term issues with internet connections or access to hardware / software.

You are not required to pay for course reading materials this semester. Readings will be provided via links on our course site and Slack, Snell Library research databases, or Google Drive folder links. You may decide to invest a small amount of money in bolstering your professional online identity (via purchasing server space or a domain name), but this is not a course requirement.