Digital Humanities | Digital Studies: Coding and Digital Archives

M 08-26

Welcome! Intro to the course, and Intro to XML and working in <oXygen/>: Write your first XML. Mindful File Management (how to name, store, share, and submit files in this course). Setting up accounts for web server and for GitHub. Bread recipe

• By Fri 8-30: Install <oXygen/> software on your own computers. Instructions and license key posted on Courseweb.
• Read our Introduction to XML, and read File-Naming Conventions for Courseweb Homework Submissions.
• Complete XML Exercise 1
• Returning Students Only:
  • Work on project code or your choice of an interesting XML coding challenge.
  • Meet with instructors to plan peer mentoring roles.

W 08-28

Getting started with GitHub and our DHClass-Hub. Discussion of the XML recipe homework: XML Comments and Well-formedness, and how to work with <oXygen/>. Introduce student projects from this class.

• Git Exercise 1: Read and consult our Guide to Git Shell as you complete this exercise.
• XML Exercise 2

F 08-30

Discussion of homework, and XML: Well-formedness vs. Validity. XML projects in digital humanities.

Hands-on GitHub: Working with our DHClass-Hub: Open and close Issues, write markdown in Issues "help tickets" and discussions, access our class examples of code. Command line: pull and push files in Troubleshooting directory.

• Git Exercise 2
• XML exercise 3: Review our feedback on your coding exercises so far and submit revisions if we asked you to. Mark up a text of your choice (any genre; manageable but reasonable size; foreign languages welcome). Work on applying attributes with your elements, and doing so in a careful and systematic way.
• Reading and Discussion Post on GitHub: Locate the class discussion exercise on our Issues board, which will ask you to read and discuss an article by Gabrielle Kirilloff, “<Traversing_the_Tree/>”, the short article, “Frankenstein novel analyzed” and scroll through Wendell Piez’s conference talk and images for the Balisage Markup Conference 2014. For full credit, your posts should make specific reference to passages in Kirilloff’s essay, and reflect on those passages. Please raise questions and respond to each other!

M 09-02

W 09-04

Overlapping hierarchies. Document Analysis and Coding: Group Exercise with Ozymandias

The concept of “UX.” or User Experience, and discussion of projects.

GitHub Practice (starting today for seven days): Make sure your personal repo is properly set up and cloned to your local computer. Using your Git Bash Shell, practice some basic Git commands to build a habit: Always pull before you push! Then push one file per day either to your personal repo or the DHClass-Hub. On alternating days, push to the other repo (if you pushed to your personal repo today, tomorrow you will push to the DHClass-Hub). Try cloning repos on multiple computers that you may be using through the semester (including computer lab machines on campus). Pull up our quick guide Using Git Through Command Line for a ready reference of commands and look up details in our Guide to Git Shell.

UX Discussion on DHClass-Hub Choose one of the following digital archives to explore, and write a post on the DHClass-Hub addressing 1) something interesting the site is inviting us to explore about centuries-old texts, and 2) the effectiveness of the user experience (“UX”).

• Shelley-Godwin Archive: Frankenstein Notebooks
• Map of Early Modern London
• Emily Dickinson Project: prepared by Pitt-Greensburg students last in 2015-2016
• any documents in the Greco-Roman section of the Perseus project, and explore the features here.

Read Intro to Relax NG.

F 09-06

Hands-on introduction to schemas with Relax NG: How to write the rules for an XML project

• Relax NG exercise 1: Write a Relax NG schema for one of the XML documents you created for an earlier assignment (XML exercise 2 or 3), and upload it and your XML file to Courseweb. Be sure to consult Intro to Relax NG as you work.
• Review XML syntax and read and work with the Intro to Relax NG tutorial as you work on Relax NG Ex 1.
• Continue GitHub Practice (see W 9-04 assignment above).

M 09-09

Relax NG: mixed content, data types.

Review and discussion of XML rules, Relax NG and modeling XML

• Relax NG exercise 2: This time, choose a small text (maybe one of the letters from the first week's assignment that you did NOT mark up before, or anything you like). Perform document analysis, write a schema, and mark up the text according to the schema. Be sure to consult Intro to Relax NG as you work.
• Review XML syntax for test on Wednesday.
• Install FileZilla (or other SFTP client) on your own computer if you have not done so already.
• Assignment for Dr. B: Set up and test student web space on NewtFire now.

W 09-11

Test 1 (in class: 15-20 minutes): XML markup.

Course projects: Introduction, discussion and tour: digital projects with strong research questions by Pitt students in recent years:

• The Restoration of Nell Nelson
• Banksy project
• Ulysses project
• The Graveyard Project
• The Hamilton Project
• Emily Dickinson

• Relax NG exercise 3: Choose a small text of a different type or genre than last time, perform document analysis, write a schema, and mark up the text according to the schema. Work with attributes, datatypes, and mixed content in your schema.
• DHClass-Hub Post and Discussion on Project Proposals:
  • Beginning from today through M 9-16: Post proposal ideas for team projects to work on this semester. Each student should post an idea for the class to consider: a project involving XML markup to be managed within a team of 2-4 students to investigate something we could study and visualize from our markup more effectively with computers than with human reading and description alone. All projects must involve a team of at least two persons, but this first exploratory proposal is an individual assignment.
  • Each student must respond to at least one of the proposed ideas from another student and indicate suggestions or further ideas. You may respond to more than one if you like, and indicate which proposals interest you to work on.
  • Proposal discussions will run until class time on W 9/18 when we will form project teams.
• Install FileZilla (or other SFTP client) if you have not done so already: we'll use it next class! Follow instructions posted on Courseweb for setting up SSH keys to access your personal webspace on Newtfire.
• Read our Introduction to HTML in preparation for next class.

F 09-13

Building on the Web: Introducing HTML and CSS: Make a simple index.html page. Make a simple CSS page. CSS resemblance and difference from Relax NG (those curly braces)

What is "index.html" to a web server? Website addresses and file directories on a remote web server

Hands-on: Work with FileZilla (or other SFTP client) to connect to the Apache Server for newtFire. SSH keys.

File directories and their association with web URLs.

How to customize SFTP (Filezilla) to work with your GitHub repo.

• Review our comments on Relax NG homework and make revisions as needed.
• Consult our Introduction to HTML, and our Introduction to Cascading Stylesheets (CSS) as you work on the homework exercise: HTML/CSS Exercise 1. NOTE: Do not submit this assignment on Courseweb. Instead, submit this homework by using SFTP to post to our newtFire web server.
• DHClass-Hub Project Proposal Posting and Discussion:
  • Post your project proposal if you have not done so already, in the designated DHClass-Hub Issue.
  • Through next W 9/18 before 3pm: Each of you must respond on DHClass-Hub to at least two of the proposed ideas from another student and indicate suggestions or further ideas. You may respond to more than two if you wish. Indicate which project ideas you would like to work on as a team member.
  • Proposal discussions will run through next week, until class time on W 9/18, when we will meet to form project teams.

M 09-16

HTML and CSS

• Mindful file management: mirroring directory structures on GitHub and the web server
• Web browsers and display variations
• CSS Box Model
• Controlling page layouts: Flexboxes tutorial, with simple examples.

• Write and respond to project proposals on DHClass-Hub. Project teams form in our next class!
• Consult Learn CSS Layout, Flexbox tutorial, and w3 Schools CSS Reference as you code. (Also, check out Paletton (or hunt for other color scheme generators on the web) to help think about choosing a balanced color scheme for your website. Experiment with writing CSS to control font, layout, color, backgrounds.
• HTML/CSS Exercise 2 (As with HTML Exercise 1, submit this homework by using FTP to post to our newtFire web server, and do NOT use standard filename conventions, but rather simple filenames for your own website.)

W 09-18

Form project teams!

Review Relax NG issues in preparation for test

HTML and CSS continued: Image editing, more on flexboxes and page layouts.

• Project checkpoint 1:
  • Launch the project GitHub repo and post an issue.
  • Post in the Issues board of your new Project Github your available meeting times to help determine a regular meeting time for your group.
• Revise Relax-NG exercise(s) if we have asked you to do that.

F 09-20

Project customizations and boilerplate with Server Side Includes

• Relax NG questions / review
• How to customize SFTP (Filezilla) to work with your GitHub repo (if we didn’t cover this before).
• Decide on project website directory names and URLs.
• Server Side Includes for boilerplate content: Examples:
  • Include file for newtFire assignment pages: a fragment of HTML
  • Indicating where an include goes on a page: Example
  • Full page on the web: and page source
• Hands on: Add SSI’s to your personal website and test to make sure they are working on the server.

M 09-23

Review of tech so far. File dependencies (XML and Relax NG; HTML and CSS). Sharing over the web (GitHub, SFTP with SSH keys)

Project web directories on NewtFire

Document Analysis of Manuscripts: Hands-on Workshop

Project schemas and community schemas: controlled markup vocabularies. Introduction to the The Text Encoding Initiative (TEI)Text Encoding Initiative (TEI)

• Document Analysis and TEI Exercise, Part 1
• Correct Relax NG assignments if asked to revise; review Relax NG

W 09-25

Review Relax NG for take-home test.

Document Analysis and TEI Exercise continued: review code developed so far.

Data and metadata in the TEI document model: exploring the TEI Header

• Test 2 (take-home): Relax NG
• Resolve SSH key and SFTP issues if you are having issues with accessing NewtFire.

F 09-27

• The TEI Header and organizing a TEI document
• TEI ODD customizations: choosing only the elements and attributes you need. Introduce Roma JS.

• Document Analysis and TEI Exercise, Part 2
• Work on Project Checkpoint 2 (see below).

M 09-30

• Project management tools for improving communication, completing tasks: GitHub projects, Slack.
• How to write a TEI ODD. Explore Roma JS and work on developing a TEI ODD.
• Generate a Relax NG schema from the ODD file in <oXygen/>.
• TEI ODD-schemas versus hand-coded Relax-NG: Which is better for your project?

• Finish TEI ODD exercise.
• Project Checkpoint 2:
  • Locate all sources for project XML markup.
  • Establish a clear file directory structure on your project GitHub, including a distinct directory for website files.
  • Ensure all project team members are working consistently with the GitHub directory structure (all agree on it, and no one changes without notice).
  • Start work on a project schema (Relax NG or TEI): planning stage.
  • A significant quantity of project documentation and/or markup is present in the GitHub repo.
• Read our Intro to Regular Expressions and start reading the Regular Expressions Quick Start in prep for next class.

W 10-02

Readme and other Markdown Files for your project GitHub

Introducing up-conversion with Regular Expressions:

• Using Find & Replace in <oXygen/>: hands-on exercise with Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe on DHClass-Hub and Regex Exercise 1: Shakespeare's Sonnets
• How to start: inside-out, or outside-in?
• The close-open strategy: The beginning of a thing comes at the end of the previous thing!

F 10-04

Regular Expressions: thinking algorithmically. Greedy Matching. Start / finish(?) Regex Exercise 1 together in class

• If we do not finish Regex Exercise 1 in class, finish it over the weekend, and go on to Regex Exercise 2: Blithedale Consult our Intro to Regular Expressions and the Regular Expressions Quick Start as you work on the regex exercises.

M 10-07

• Regular Expressions: Selecting for what’s not there, simplifying over-complicated patterns
• Regex searching over highlighted portions of a document

• Regex Exercise 3: Pygmalion

W 10-09

• Review, work through issues with Regex exercise 3. Prep for Regex test.
• Revisit Project Management tools (Markdown files, Slack, GitHub Projects)

F 10-11

• Test 3 (take-home): Regular Expressions
• Project Checkpoint 3:
  • Some team members work on developing page(s) for the project website, creating a navigation menu (using a SSI), and working with section, div, and span elements. Try using CSS flex to control your horizontal layout. Make a file directory in the GitHub repo to separate project website files from XML markup.
  • Others concentrate on completing XML markup and refining the project schema to ensure a clear, well-developed XML hierarchy.
  • The schema is documented and everyone can find and review it.
  • All XML markup for the project features a correct schema association line pointing to the project schema.
  • Significantly more XML markup and/or improved XML markup is prepared by this time by comparison with Project Checkpoint 2

M 10-14

Navigating XML with XPath: Introducing the XPath window in <oXygen/>, functions, axes, path steps /, and predicate filters [ ]. Hands-on: navigating Hamlet.

• First, carefully read our Introduction to XPath: Follow the XPath! As you read, try experimenting with the XPath expressions on our page, by downloading the explainXPath.html file, opening it in oXygen, and experimenting in the XPath window with some of our expressions. Then, move on to XPath Exercise 1.
• XPath Exercise 1

W 10-16

Using XPath to climb trees—up and down and side to side. Predicate expressions: [ ]. (Grouping) and [Position()]. XPath syntax: some tricks.

• XPath Exercise 2
• Read and experiment with The XPath Functions We Use Most to learn more about XPath functions.

F 10-18

XPath Functions: some common functions we use and how to write them: count(), not(), distinct-values(). Preview string functions.

How to combine functions: when to use simple map vs. the arrow operator.

How to put functions in a predicate filter to return XML nodes that have qualities that you test for with functions.

M 10-21

Work on XPath and manipulating text strings. Using Regular Expressions in XPath. Preview Schematron if time.

• XPath Exercise 4: finding and remixing strings
• Preview our Guide to Schema Writing with Schematron in preparation for next class.

W 10-23

writing an XPath-based Schema language: Schematron, and how we use it with Relax-NG

How we use Schematron in project management.

F 10-25

• Schematron Exercise 2: Write Schematron to refine and correct messy or problematic code for your project team. Submit two things: 1) your Schematron file, and 2) a sample of project XML code to show how you are capturing errors.
• Preview our Introduction to XSLT in preparation for the next class.

M 10-28

• Introducing XSLT (eXtensible Stylesheet Language Transformations). XSL Transformations from XML to XML, and from XML to HTML. Namespaces
• Start hands on together in class: XSLT Exercise 1

• Project Checkpoint 4:
  • Complete most XML markup for your project according to a refined project schema.
  • Start checking and revising XML code with Schematron.
  • Review/refine project research question.
  • Make some significant content for the website.
• XSLT Exercise 1: an Identity Transformation.
• Read more about XSLT:
  • See our Intro to XSLT.
  • The XSLT Identity Transformation (examples: our method is The XSLT 3.0 way.)
  • XSLT Attribute Value Templates.
• What kinds of things can you do with XSLT? Skim a little background in the Michael Kay book: Michael Kay’s Chapter 1 and read pages 3-7, A Simple XSLT Stylesheet: pp. 10-12, How it Works: pp. 17-18, and Example: Displaying a Poem, pp. 35-38 (to review a sample XSLT stylesheet).

W 10-30

XSLT to HTML: How it works.

• XSLT Exercise 2 To read as you work on this series of XSLT exercises:
  • Thinking in algorithms
  • Developing an XSLT Stylesheet

F 11-01

M 11-04

XSLT: What template rules are doing. Push and Pull processing. Attribute value templates (review). XSLT to HTML Table transformation in class.

• XSLT Exercise 3
• In prep for next class, read about / review:
  • XSLT Conditionals, and Push and Pull
  • XSLT Attribute Value Templates.

W 11-06

• XSLT Exercise 4. (Consult XSLT Attribute Value Templates as you work on the coding exercise.)
• In prep for the next XSLT exercise, read Modal XSLT.

F 11-08

How Modal XSLT works.

Processing collections of files

M 11-11

(Dr. B is away at a digital project consultation meeting in Texas.) Semester Project workday: Review Project Guidelines

Work on developing HTML, CSS, and XSLT for projects. Also work on recording project documentation and decisions in markdown on your GitHub repo (GitHub issues and Readmes).

W 11-13

Sorting with XSLT

HTML with internal links: how it works and how to create internal links with XSLT

F 11-15

Writing XSLT for your projects. Review of metadata and TEI, and using XSLT to extract metadata: Example: Digital Mitford letter.

Checking your HTML with the w3c Markup Validation Service.

• Goal: complete and refine the project’s XML markup, and be actively processing it with XSLT for this stage.
• Work on XSLT to HTML transformations that help present your texts as a web archive.
• Work on improving the project website, updating its organization and navigation, describing and introducing the project and its team members.
• (Other goals: specific to project teams)

M 11-18

• XML that makes graphics: SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics). Drawing elements, and screen grid coordinates.
• Introductory slideshow
• Play with w3Schools SVG Tutorial.

• Work through the w3schools SVG tutorial to complete the SVG basic and SVG shapes pages. Filters, gradients, examples, and reference are optional.
• SVG Exercise 1

W 11-20

SVG from XSLT, working with variables to plot coordinate space

F 11-22

User experience (UX): Setting SVG in a webpage and providing explanation. Project applications of SVG.

Introducing JavaScript and client side interaction with users

• SVG Exercise 3 Options:
  • Plot a Timeline with SVG
  • Plot a Graph from your project data
• Javascript Exercise 1

M 11-25 to F 11-29

M 12-02

Introduction to JavaScript, and writing and associating JavaScript files with HTML. Working with variables and for loops in JavaScript. Coordinating JavaScript with CSS on project HTML.

• Toggling @class attributes in your HTML with the JavaScript classList() function, and integrating with CSS
• JavaScript to make SVG and HTML respond to each other on click

W 12-04

Putting it all together: JavaScript with CSS to interact with SVG; project needs for SVG and JavaScript. Review of creative commons licensing, project guidelines.

Work on Project Checkpoint 6: preparing material for project presentations, final project code sprint.

• Toggling @class attributes in your HTML with the JavaScript classList() function, and integrating with CSS
• JavaScript to make SVG and HTML respond to each other on click

F 12-06

• Teams prepare for Project Checkpoint 6.
• Classmates (from other teams) ask questions, offer commentary on project GitHub repos.

Mon. 12/09: 10:45am - 12:45pm

Team presentations in our classroom (McKenna 136) during our Final Exam session. Teams present their projects to the class, invite comments and feedback. Classmates (from other teams) continue to ask questions, offer commentary on project GitHub repos: commentary due by the end of the day.

Thurs. 12/12 by 11:59pm

Projects due. Submit projects with a post to the instructors from your project GitHub repo.