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Review

Digital technology has changed how historians research, write, and publish stories. These technologies are making local history more accessible by providing opportunities for community collaboration and engagement.

Digital storytelling is a communication technique that utilizes various forms of multimedia to create a compelling narrative. An easy and accessible way to share historical content.

Case Study

Other Examples

• Mapping the Civil War in Arlington
• Maywood
• Hurley Mountain Storieshttp://folklife.si.edu/american-ginseng

Definition

Digital history is an approach to examining and representing the past using information technologies. It draws on databases, hypertextualization, and networks, to create and share historical knowledge.”

Digital storytelling is a communication technique that utilizes various forms of multimedia to create a compelling narrative. An easy and accessible way to share historical content.

Changing the way historians “argue history”

Digital history is an approach to examining and representing the past using information technologies. It uses databases, hypertextualization, and networks to create and share historical knowledge.

Democratizing History

Arlington Historical is a free mobile app that puts Arlington, Virginia’s history at your fingertips. Find interesting stories about people, places, and events in Arlington history, and enjoy curated historical tours. Each point on the interactive location-enabled map includes historical information about the site along with historical images. Arlington Historical is a collaborative project with stories published by local historians, community members, and other history-focused organizations.

Survey of Digital Platforms & Tools

Online Platforms

• https://knightlab.northwestern.edu/projects/#storytelling
• mtcwia.com/timeline
• https://shorthand.com/the-craft/an-introduction-to-scrollytelling/index.html
• https://venngage.com/
• Scripto
• https://www.esri.com/en-us/arcgis/products/arcgis-online/capabilities/make-maps
• https://knightlab.northwestern.edu/projects/#storytelling
• BBC – The Catch

Case Studies

Tools

• https://voyant-tools.org
• https://kepler.gl/
• Paraphrasing and Summarizing Tool
• Scripto
• https://venngage.com/
• https://www.esri.com/en-us/arcgis/products/arcgis-online/capabilities/make-maps
• https://www.datawrapper.de/
• https://www.mapbox.com/maps

Case Study – Google

Digital Storytelling Process

Case Study

Research Tools

• https://archive.org/
• https://www.jstor.org/
• Library of Congress
• National Archives
• https://www.newspapers.com/
• Google Scholar
• https://www.davidrumsey.com/home
• https://www.gutenberg.org/
• https://library.arlingtonva.us/center-for-local-history/
• New York Public Library
• https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/library/local-history
  

Writing for History

What are the Six Essentials of Digital Storytelling?

First-person Pronouns. Using these pronouns will make the message more authentic. We, us, our, and ourselves are all first-person pronouns. Specifically, they are plural first-person pronouns. Singular first-person pronouns include I, me, my, mine, and myself.

Dramatic Questions. Ask a dramatic question and try to resolve it by the end of the storytelling.

Emotional Stories. Design your story in a way that evokes emotion in the audience.

Condensed Stories. Make your stories as condensed as you can so that the audience can look at them in one sitting.

Remove Unnecessary Details. Pace your story in a way that makes the most sense and remove all the unnecessary details.

Use Your Own Voice. Narrate your story in your voice to elevate the impact of the message.

Digital History and Argument

Historical interpretation depends on creating and connecting persuasive accounts of the past into a framework of understanding. This is accomplished by selecting sources that can answer a research question, and identify those that provide relevant evidence. The basis of that selection can be their judgement of the truthfulness of a source, its aesthetic qualities, its representativeness, or its uniqueness.

Selecting sources requires that historians synthesize them to find patterns and structures, which guides how they arrange those sources into an argument, narrative, or interpretation which is the composite of the sources and not merely a retelling of any one of them. Historians may elect to arrange sources chronologically, geographically, topically, or along any other axis that reveals causation, experience, or consequences. Arrangement along those axes is part and parcel of contextualization, which might also be called comparison. The most basic form of historical contextualization is to understand a source by comparing it to other sources from the same period, place, or topic.

How does one write a Historical Argument?

A historical argument explains how or why an event occurred in the past. The argument is presented by a thesis statement, which must be specific, proven, and argued. The thesis statement is the main argument of the story and is supported by quality, relevant, and credible evidence to make a strong argument.

The components of a historical argument are:

• The thesis (specific, provable, arguable),
• The evidence (the information provided that supports the thesis statement), and
• The conclusion (the decision or deduction rendered that clarifies the position of the thesis).
• Other factors include previous arguments made by other historical scholars, how this particular piece of history impacts the understanding of the past or the present, and what processes and sources were used to come to any conclusions.

Project Review

Case Study

Media Resources

• https://unsplash.com/
• https://motionarray.com/browse/stock-video/

Post 8:  Reflect on your internship and complete this sentence: “Because of my internship, I am….”

In response to the post #8 assignment, I have three observations to make.  First, “I am grateful” for the opportunity to have worked for the Smithsonian Institution’s (SI) Folklife and Cultural Heritage Department. Having lived in Washington DC for over 40 years, working for the Smithsonian has always been high on my bucket list. Second, “I am more aware” of how digital humanities and information technologies are transforming organizations.  And finally, “I am better prepared” to assist other organizations with this transformation. 

The George Mason University’s digital public humanities program taught me that that “digital tools and resources are transforming the ways in which organizations research, interpret, and communicate.” Today, the Internet and social media overshadow almost all other traditional public media. However, with all transformations there are often many challenges to overcome. For example, with the introduction of new digital tools, there is often a hesitancy to make a complete break with legacy processes.

As a result of my internship, I have learned that organizations need to orchestrate new strategic approaches that encourage their workforce to experiment with and ultimately adopt new digital tools.  In the past, information technology was centrally managed, and new digital tools were introduced cautiously. But today, mobile apps and cloud-based applications are being created with breath taking speed. In addition, large organizations are having a difficult time preventing various departments and individuals from purchasing and deploying new digital tools.

During the past academic year, I was able to participate in two SI projects; one called American Ginseng: Local Knowledge, Global Roots and the other called Earth Optimism.

The Smithsonian is involved with a variety of interesting educational projects and is a leader in adopting new information technologies.  The institution was a wonderful environment for a digital humanities student to gain work experiences.  According to the Smithsonian’s strategic plan, its goal is to “build on its unique strengths to engage and to inspire more people, where they are, with greater impact, while catalyzing critical conversation on issues affecting our nation and the world.” In regard to the office I worked for, Folklife and Cultural Heritage, its mission is the following: “through the power of culture, we build understanding, strengthen communities, and reinforce our shared humanity.”

The best part of being an intern at SI was observing and learning from a wide and diverse group of dedicated staff.  At the Smithsonian, digital humanities is playing a major role in how information is collected, stored, and shared.  One of my responsibilities was to assist with the launch of a new website “American Ginseng: Local Knowledge, Global Roots.” Since the project was already well underway, there was not much I could offer in the way of web development. However, by arriving at such a late stage in the project, I could provide user experience with the site and offer some objective perspectives.

American Ginseng presents the shared stories of a wide variety of people with intimate knowledge of the harvest, cultivation, trade, medicinal use, and conservation of this fascinating plant. I also assisted with the development of a social media strategy and toolkit to help with the promotions of the launch of American Ginseng. The toolkit included the graphic presented above, #GinsengFolklife hashtag, and suggested language for Facebook groups to post links to the new site.  In addition, I was able to produce an introductory video that highlighted a Ginseng conference held in Ohio. The video also provided an audio-visual component to marketing the website.

I witnessed how challenging it can be to introduce new technologies, especially in an organization with established procedures and process. I was able to demonstrate the use of a new artificial intelligence (AI) based technology to extract metadata from video content.  I leveraged the AI process to transcribe text from the video taken at the event. The transcriptions saved time in identifying sound bites and determining what video to use in the editing process.

In addition to the American Ginseng project, I also worked with SI’s Earth Optimism (EO) team. EO is a rebranding of the original Earth Day which dates back to April 22, 1970 and was intended to generate awareness of the need for environmental protection. In 2017 the Smithsonian launched Earth Optimism to refocus the world’s attention away from the gloom and doom associated with climate change to a more positive message. At this year’s Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the National Mall, Earth Optimism will be featured for the first time. The EO team is planning many activities and displays including a small tent theater, where visitors will be able to watch videos on Earth Optimism projects from around the world. One of my assignments has been reviewing recently produced SI videos on climate change and the environment.  I prepared a spreadsheet with criteria to determine which videos are of high quality and reflect EO themes, as well as transcribed or captioned to meet current accessibility standards.

As part of this process, I learned a lot about the need for federal agencies to ensure that videos are “open captioned.”  This includes burned in captions, with descriptive text including audio context.  I realized that the Smithsonian currently contracts out this service, but the fact that a number of videos were not captioned reflects the budgetary constraints on ensuring all produced videos meet current standards.  I determined that recent advances in AI technology now make video transcribing and captioning more economical for the Smithsonian. I recommended to the EO team to consider testing this technology to determine feasibility.   

I also learned that the success of adopting a new technology usually comes from the organization’s perceived value of a new digital tool versus a legacy system, or an older process. In the case of burning in captions, the Smithsonian’s legacy process required contracting out the service. But I was able to demonstrate that existing online applications could accomplish the task at a drastically reduced cost and quicker turn around. It is clear that employees need to know that they will not be penalized for experimenting with or introducing new digital tools. In the future, the need to adopt new digital public humanities technology will only grow. Especially if organizations are going to keep up with their mission to “research, interpret, and communicate.”

My internship experience demonstrated that there is an evolutionary process in adopting DH technologies. For example, the Smithsonian embraced content management technologies, especially digital asset management years ago. But for the most part this has been more text based. Today, there is a demonstrable need for media asset management, especially with the exponential growth of audio and video files. As a result, the need to automate the process of summarizing media content by extracting metadata, is becoming a high priority.

In conclusion, my internship helped me understand that after forty years, digital humanities is no longer about the technology.  Rather it is what an organization can do with technology, and who ultimately can have access to the information.  What I learned from the Smithsonian, is that all organizations are challenged by their role as a gatekeeper of knowledge. However, I was glad to see that the Smithsonian recognized the need to constantly reevaluate its strategic approach to new technologies, especially artificial intelligence.  I believe this will assist them in their mission to share information and to engage with audiences.

Greetings to all of my fellow returning GMU classmates.  For those that I have not already met please let me introduce myself. My names is Peter Vaselopulos and I am recently retired from the United States Agency for Global Media/Voice of America, where I was the Deputy Chief Information Officer.  I have an MS in Managing Information Systems from GW, and a MA in International Communications from American U.  I’m working on this certificate program because I am very interested in Arlington’s Civil War history.  I’m currently involved with a historic preservation effort to save one of the few remaining open space properties in Arlington where Union soldiers camped.  Check out the link and sign the petition https://www.facebook.com/savefebrey/.  I wish I had taken this class before getting involved with the effort.  For the moment I’m experiencing Public History in realtime.  Looking forward to this class and learning what we could have done differently. One of my goals for the semester is learning more about Omeka. I would like to use it as a repository for Civil War digital records for Arlington’s Historical Society.

The focus of this blog posting is to determine the pros and cons of using crowdsourced knowledge. Many of us can still remember our parents purchasing encyclopedia sets. They became a valuable resource to complete our homework assignments and book reports. But even then we warned by teachers not to totally depend upon them as a sole resource. So it goes with Wikipedia. As defined in its logo, it is the “free” encyclopedia, and as we all know, you usually get what you pay for.

The concept behind Wikipedia is quite eloquent. Contributors and editors working online attempt to objectively crowdsource in realtime a scholarly article on a particular topic. Since the process is dynamic, knowledge becomes incremental and transformative. Centuries earlier, scholars “crowdsourced” by writing and sharing letters. While a much slower process, this effort did contribute to a period of “enlightenment”. However the problem facing us today, is the process may be too easy and quick. As a result, the veracity or truthfulness of the information may be diminished.

For my class assignment I had to review the Wikipedia site for Digital Humanities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_humanities. The site started in 2006 and provides an interesting perspective as how the field of study has evolved. From my review of the site it took about ten years for the editors and contributors to finally settle on a framework to present their sourced information. During those years it appears there was a lot of back and forth in trying to better define DH and provide better reference material to aspiring students and researchers.

In reviewing the DH site it became obvious that one problem of Wikipedia has to do with the credibility of the contributors or authors. So in essence, a single source or contributor, may not be as credible as the totality of the crowd (multiple sources). On the one hand, Wikipedia is very democratic in permitting a multitude of scholarly viewpoints, but it provides a simple governance process in allowing everyone the ability to edit each other’s contributions. This hopefully keeps everyone on “honest” by making sure they back up their statements with viable scholarly sources. In essence the online equivalent of “prove it.”

Another problem with Wikipedia has to do with the online posturing or confrontations between contributors. While somewhat entertaining, it reflects a 21st century lack of civility driven by our culture’s dependency upon social media. The scholarly process does provide for an “iron striking iron” methodology to craft a final and strong product. But the relative anonymity of social media permits some contributors or editors to exhibit rude behaviors that prevent others from wanting to share information or participate in the exchange.

Finally, according to Roy Rosenzweig, in his article “Can History be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the Past” (2006) its printed guidelines states that it’s primary goal is to “avoid bias.” Wikipedia encourages contributors to write their articles from a neutral point of view, factually and objectively. But even in it’s recommended policies, Wikipedia acknowledges that posting unbiased scholarly research is “difficult” since all articles are edited by people who are “inherently biased.”

So despite Wikipedia’s obvious challenges how should one approach the site and it’s posted articles? First, one should always start at the beginning at look at when the site was created. One of Wikipedia’s great features is that you can time travel and follow the knowledge so to speak. By tracking the posts, edits and contributions you can gain valuable insights as to what were some of the conflicts or controversies that were identified and eventually resolved.

Another guideline is to also evaluate who are making the most contributions. As with most scholarly debates, there are usually only a relatively few subject matter experts attentive to posting and editing. So it is worthwhile to check their biographies if possible. This will go a long way in determining their credibility as a source.

Wikipedia provides a lot of statistics, especially in regard to the volume and pace of editing. This is usually a good point of reference to track and review from a historical perspective. As with most new postings their usually is period of time where both contributors and editors make changes at a substantial volume then it slackens off. This lasts until a new posting somewhat stirs the pot and once again there is some agitation and changes made.

Finally, it is useful to track the “content” menu over time. This provides a valuable insight as to how the “crowd” wants to frame the “knowledge” and information being presented. In