By engaging with this poster session, participants should be able to:
- Describe how transcription methods increase access to digitized historical texts while maintaining the the richer context provided by the aesthetics of original documents.
- Discuss pedagogical rationale for the slow reading approach in order to engage in meaningful distant reading through text analysis.
For use in a second year fully online undergraduate history course, our transdisciplinary team developed modules for early modern text transcription and analysis. The modules offer opportunities for slow reading, where students have a better opportunity to think about the foreign-ness of historical documents. The procedure encourages them to think about sources and where they come from, how scholars do research and what methodologies they employ (Historical Thinking, 2015). Combined with text mining software, such as Voyant Tools, students have an opportunity to use new digital methods in their research. This not only allows them to employ new historical methodologies, but also sets up new transferable skills in using OCR, text mining, and other digital tools whose basic principles can find uses far beyond the academy (DeLyser et al, 2013).
References:DeLyser, D., & Potter, A. E. (2013). Teaching Qualitative Research: Experiential Learning in Group-Based Interviews and Coding Assignments. Journal Of Geography, 112(1), 18-28.
Historicalthinking.ca,. (2016). HISTORICAL THINKING CONCEPTS | Historical Thinking Project. Retrieved 6 January 2016, from http://historicalthinking.ca/historical-thinking-concepts
Milligan, I. (2013). Illusionary Order: Online Databases, Optical Character Recognition, and Canadian History, 1997-2010. Canadian Historical Review, 94(4), 540-569.
