Care, Convenience, and Interactivity: Exploring Student Values in a Blended Learning First-Year Composition Course

Karyna Pryiomka, The Graduate Center, CUNY

Abstract

Blended learning (BL) represents one of fastest growing instructional models as an alternative to traditional face-to-face pedagogy. Convenience, interactivity, instructor availability, and classroom community are elements of blended learning environments most often associated with student satisfaction. These elements of student satisfaction all share an innate relational quality that can be understood through the framework of an ethics of care. Through ethnographic analysis, this study seeks to add to this literature by emphasizing the relational aspects of BL and the need to understand students’ experiences through the framework of care. To illustrate the use of this framework in the context of BL, this study explores how college students engage with and make sense of technology in the context of their first college course. Thematic analysis of students’ qualitative responses to interviews and a class survey revealed that students in the course largely valued elements generally associated with care, such as interactive feedback, instructor availability, and freedom of expression. Consistent with the literature, students also valued convenience and interactivity, which in this analysis were also conceptualized through the framework of care. The participants in this study were mostly non-traditional college students (e.g., low-income, minority, commuter). This article argues that understanding the effects of specific online and face-to-face practices on students’ perception of care may prove crucial in designing effective and engaging BL environments.

In a brand-new, tiered classroom, four semi-circle rows of desks cascaded downward, each chair bolted to the floor in front of a desk with just enough room to allow students to slip in and out. A pop-up outlet sat in front of each chair. This space implied a non-interactive pedagogy rooted in expert-to-novice transmission of knowledge. Situated in the middle of the classroom, a professor would deliver a lecture, while students would take notes diligently, many on their plugged-in devices. Group work and other pedagogies of deep student engagement would struggle to thrive in such a space. Here they sat, twenty-seven entering freshmen at one of the eight senior colleges at the City University of New York (CUNY), the largest urban, public university in the country. Paper notebooks and ballpoint pens were the only objects populating students’ desks, with the instructor’s laptop being the only visible electronic device. An ethnographer sitting in the last row, I began typing my notes, documenting these students’ first experiences with college composition and, for some, blended learning.

Blended learning (BL) encompasses teaching models that combine “face-to-face instruction with computer-mediated instruction” (Graham 2006, 5). Following recent calls to cut costs and engage students with “21st century skills,” the growth of BL instruction across educational contexts has led some scholars to call it the “new normal” of course delivery (Norberg, Dziuban, and Moskal 2011, 207). Despite its growing popularity, BL remains an understudied area compared to distance learning and face-to-face pedagogy (Graham 2013). The most impactful literature in BL is theoretical, focusing on the “definitions, models, and potential of blended learning” (Halverson, et. al 2012, 397) with the majority of empirical work focusing on student outcomes (Halverson, et. al 2012). Osguthorp and Graham (2003) identify pedagogical richness, access to knowledge, social interaction, personal agency, cost-effectiveness, and ease of revision as major goals of blended learning.

Given that BL models are relatively new, a growing segment of the empirical research on BL evaluates student satisfaction as a proxy for students’ ability to navigate new learning environments (Moore 2005). Indeed, BL models correlate positively with high levels of satisfaction (Vignare 2007; Graham 2013). Common factors contributing to student satisfaction include interactivity, convenience, flexibility, feedback, and instructor availability (e.g., Bonk, Oslon, Wisher, and Orvis 2002; Dziuban, et. al 2010; Mansour and Mupinga 2007), with interactivity, face-to-face or digital, standing out as particularly significant. For instance, Akkoyunlu and Soylu (2008) found that students, on average, identified a course’s face-to-face elements as the most significant contributors to their satisfaction. Rothmund (2008) found that learner satisfaction correlated strongly with degree of interaction. Similarly, Akyol, Garrison, and Orden (2009) found that students in BL models valued social and teaching presence.

Although student satisfaction surveys can often take the form of marketing research, interactivity and many other factors associated with student satisfaction share a critical quality: relationality. For instance, Garrison (2009) defines social presence as “the ability of participants to identify with the community (e.g., course of study), communicate purposefully in a trusting environment, and develop inter-personal relationships by way of projecting their individual personalities” (352). Similarly, effective feedback, teaching presence, and instructor availability contextualize the relationship between student and instructor. Moreover, I argue that the effectiveness of such relationships, in part, relies on students’ perception of care.

An ethic of care represents one of the key elements of teaching due to its potential to increase students’ motivation and engagement across various learning environments. As a pioneer of this concept, Noddings (1984/2003), identifies caring as, “the primary aim of every educational institution” (172). For Noddings (1984/2003), caring is grounded in the relational, context-specific practice of anticipating another’s needs, fostering an open dialogue, and “apprehending the other’s reality” (16). Similarly, Rauner (2000) defines care as “an interactive process involving attentiveness, responsiveness, and competence” (7). Tronto (1993) further emphasizes the contextual and relational nature of care by arguing for the importance of direct proximity between the carer and cared-for to produce genuine and effective care. Moreover, an extensive research literature in traditional instructional models and school organization links care to better student outcomes and healthy development (e.g., Rauner 2000; Noddings 2013; Goldstein 2002; Cassidy and Bates 2005).

Despite robust research on care in traditional instructional models, its discussion is largely absent from the BL and online education literature. The limited existing research on care in fully online environments suggests that students associate care with timely feedback, personal comments, multiple contact opportunities, personal connection, and commitment to learning (Zitzman and Leners 2006; Marx 2011). Similarly, Deacon (2012) argues that using technology to anticipate and alleviate student anxiety while building a sense of community creates a caring environment in an online course. These findings suggest that many of the factors associated with student satisfaction in BL may be associated with students’ perception of care, yet the existing literature does not engage with those concepts as such.

Through empirical analysis, this paper seeks to add to this literature by emphasizing the relational aspects of BL and the need to understand students’ experiences through the framework of care. Understanding the effects that specific online and face-to-face practices have on students’ perception of care may prove crucial in designing effective and engaging BL environments. In this ethnographic study, I explore how college students engage with and make sense of technology in the context of their first college course. The participants in this study were mostly non-traditional college students (e.g., low-income, minority, commuter), who are often underrepresented in the digital education literature. Foregrounding student voices (Cook-Sather 2002), I focus my analysis on understanding students’ values and the role of care in the voicing of their experiences in the course.

Methods

The ethnographic design of this study included multiple methods of data collection: 30 classroom observations, four 30-minute semi-structured interviews, and a class survey. Interview questions aimed to explore student experiences with and perceptions of various elements of course design as outlined by the instructor in a teaching journal and course syllabus. A 24 question survey was designed based on the initial themes that emerged in the interviews. Twelve students (44% of the class) participated in the survey. In both the interviews and the survey, students were asked about their previous experiences with digital tools, present course practices, and their overall impression of the course. Some of the open-ended questions included: (1) “How does it make you feel knowing that all your work is continuously shared with your instructor digitally?” (2) “In your opinion, are there any advantages to digital comments over traditional pen and paper comments on your work? Why?” and (3) “In what ways (if any) did you find having a course blog/forum (un)helpful?” Additionally, 15 students volunteered their course work for analysis, and the instructor provided a copy of his teaching journal. To facilitate recruitment, I introduced myself and described the project at the beginning of the course. When asked, none of the students expressed discomfort with my continuous presence in a classroom.

To ensure students’ confidentiality, all recruitment activities and communication were conducted without the instructor’s presence. Informed consent was provided for all research activities. To build a caring and productive relationship with the students, I volunteered to provide feedback on their major writing assignments irrespective of their agreement to participate in the study.

Curriculum

The observed course curriculum represents a supplemental model of BL (Graham 2013). A traditional 15 week 45 hour English composition course was supplemented with a course forum, a digital assignment submission and revision system, and the application of digital tools, such as Prezi. Hosted on Google Sites through an embedded instance of Google Groups, the forum extended classroom space beyond the physical room. According to the instructor, the forum served as a space of modeling and collaborative learning: “In the forum, all of my students have the opportunity to follow each other’s ideas, respond to one another, and collectively generate ideas” (Instructor’s Journal).

Another element of this supplemental model included the use of Google Docs for collaborative annotation of class readings and delivery of digital feedback. Throughout the semester, students shared their work with the instructor through Google Drive folders, which served as their final portfolios. According to the instructor, this assignment submission method and the interactivity of digital feedback, aside from being convenient, reinforced the lessons that writing is a collaborative and continuous process. The instructor required students to use Prezi to compile annotated bibliographies. As a blank canvas, Prezi provided students with the flexibility to organize their sources in ways conceptually meaningful to them while breaking the rigidity of a more traditional alphabetical structure. Overall, this curriculum utilized computer-instruction for both course management and community building purposes, while using particular digital tools for their ability to reinforce lessons about the writing process.

Participants

Twenty-seven students registered for the course. A total of 16 students participated in the study: 12 completed the survey and 4 were interviewed, with no overlap. Nine of the participants were 18; two were 19, and one did not provide their age. Twelve were female and 4 male. Out of the 12 survey participants, 5 (42%) were Latina/Latino, 3 (25%) Caucasian, 3 (25%) Black, and 1 (8%) Mixed race. Five reported working 0 hours per week, while 7 worked between 12 to 35 hours per week.

Overall, they were representative of the college’s freshman class, of whom 43% were male and 57% female, 42% were Hispanic, 25% White, 14% African American, 12% Asian and 1% Native American. Ninety-three percent of the entering class received federal financial aid.[1] Eleven out of 12 students reported having access to a computer and Internet at home. Yet, class observations data showed that only 3 students brought laptops to class and 2 students used tablets. Other students used their mobile phones to engage with digital elements of the course during class time. Out of 16 participants, 4 reported having no prior experience with course websites, 5 reported no prior experience with Prezi, and 3 reported no prior experience with Google Docs. To protect student identities, I use pseudonyms when referring to their responses.

Analysis

Following Braun and Clarke’s (2006) framework for thematic analysis, I employed a data-driven inductive approach to identify themes present in students’ qualitative accounts of their course experiences in the interviews and open-ended survey questions. I focused my analysis on themes associated with student values and elements of the course that they identified as important. While student responses were the primary sources of data, I used field notes and student work to supplement and contextualize these data.

Results

Consistent with existing literature, a majority of participants (15) expressed overall satisfaction with the course. Students found the course to be “outside the box” (Jessica), “very different from any other class” (Maria), and “awesome” (David). A thematic analysis of student experiences revealed that, in their discussion of the digital elements of the course, students tend to put the most emphasis on the elements of care, convenience, and interactivity. Within this analysis, care characterizes students’ interactions with their instructor, convenience is understood as a product of a course designed with careful attention to students’ needs, and interactivity is conceptualized as an opportunity to foster caring relationships among students. Furthermore, a detailed exploration of these themes suggests a complex interaction among the elements of course design, digital tool use, and students’ relational experiences.

Care

The theme of care, broadly speaking, characterizes students’ interactions with their instructor. As a multi-faceted concept, elements of care manifested in the themes of feedback, instructor availability and involvement, and freedom of expression.

Value of Feedback

In online learning environments, students tend to associate timely feedback with care (Zitzman and Leners 2006; Marx 2011). In their interviews, survey responses, and reflective letters (one of the course assignments), students in this study placed value on their ability to receive feedback, suggesting a perceived value of care. When asked about their attitude toward having their work continuously shared online with their instructor, six out of twelve survey respondents mentioned feedback as a key element of this practice. Jean wrote that sharing work online with the instructor “gives me an opportunity to receive feedback.” Similarly, Dana reported being “comfortable [with sharing work] since he is able to always give me feedback.”

Availability and Involvement of the Instructor

Moreover, receiving digital comments and sharing their work online made some students feel like their professor was available and involved, experiences often associated with caring. Expressing that she valued her professors’ availability, Heidi wrote, “he is my first professor but he moves out of his way to meet with us and discuss our papers.” Similarly, Rose noted that digital elements of the course made her feel like the instructor was “very involved in the class” and all the elements of the course were “linked all together.” David clarified this perception of care by interpreting the instructor’s intentions behind digital work: “he probably designed it that way to get a more intimate view of the progress.” According to David, interactive feedback and instructor involvement represented a contrast to the “separate and detached assessment” in other courses. In her survey response, Maria implicitly related digital sharing and comments with care: “I feel like it’s helpful because I know that my instructor is actually reading my work.” Likewise, Bill found digital affordances to be supportive: “it encourages you more when it is so easy to get feedback.” He maintained that the interactivity of digital feedback allowed for an agentic dialogue between him and the instructor, saying that “usually I do respond to his comments or let’s say he’ll have a question and if he is unclear sometime I’ll clarify to him like this is my motive for writing that.” Such dialogue, fostered through digital feedback, became an important experience not only for the students but also for the instructor. In his journal, the instructor noted that digital commenting “emerged as one of the more rewarding digital experiments this semester.” He acknowledged the development of an ongoing dialogue where “students were generally consistent about responding to my feedback in the comment bubbles, and I was therefore able to read their comments and respond yet again” (Instructor’s Journal).

Freedom of Expression

As a part of this dialogue, students valued the freedom of expression that the course’s structure and digital tools fostered. Rose spoke about the freedom of structuring work in Prezi, of it being “like a board so you can zoom out; you can change the shapes of things; you can put many things into that one board, and you can’t do that in a Word document.” David echoed her sentiment, “it’s easy to use; it’s fun the way I can get creative with it, how I want things to connect. When I made an annotated bibliography mine was like the most different from everyone else, like, I saw. Instead of white pages, I had like a galaxy and it was moving around.” Referring to the traditional format of annotated bibliography as “rigid,” Bill stated that, “Prezi allows me to do more because it’s not as rigid as traditional one.”

Valuing freedom of expression also appeared in students’ discussions of the course assignments. In his reflective letter, Peter wrote, “[the proposal] was my favorite project to do because I chose a topic that was very important to me and something that I had an enormous experience with.” When asked about their favorite project, three out of four interviewed students named the literacy narrative, citing its personal nature. Centered on student experiences, the literacy narrative assignment resonated with the students because “it was so personal” (Bill). Bill continued to emphasize that overall the instructor allowed student voices to be heard in the class: “he let’s us voice our own opinions; like today, I shared [an] interview. So I really liked that he like is really open minded and he really listens to all the students in a class.” Juan shared this sentiment in his reflective letter: “I don’t like to participate at all in my other classes, but it was different in this class, you were never really wrong when you said something.”

It is evident from student responses that digital components of the course, namely the digital sharing of work with the instructor and digital commenting, were largely perceived and valued as elements of care. Students valued the opportunity to receive feedback and engage in a dialogue with their instructor. Prompt and interactive feedback afforded by the digital comments was perceived as caring, conveying instructor availability and involvement. Moreover, the emphasis on student expression, whether through digital tools or classroom discussion, can be seen as another element of caring.

Convenience

In addition to these elements of care, students also valued the ease and convenience associated with the digital aspects of the course. In their survey responses, students reported that using Google Docs and the course forum to submit assignments “was easier and more convenient” (Ann) and that it “saved time and money on train rides to [College] and ink” (Beth). Digital submissions made “it easier for me to be able to share my work,” wrote Andrea. For Mary and David, convenience rested on the ability “to type it on the computer and just hand it in through the computer” and to “submit anything at any time,” respectively. While six of the students reported seeing no particular advantages of digital feedback over pen and paper comments, all of the students who found digital feedback more advantageous listed convenience as one of those advantages. With digital comments, students found it easier “to find grammatical errors, spell check, etc.” (Beth) and “to make corrections directly into the work” (Valerie).

While convenience presents itself largely as a utilitarian concept, it can also be conceptualized as an anticipation of students’ needs, a key aspect of caring (Noddings 1984/2003). In this course, the instructor’s knowledge of the student population informed many course design choices, such as requiring digital submissions, providing digital feedback, and avoiding a costly textbook. While reflecting on the digital feedback practices, the instructor wrote, “While time consuming, this structure brings a conversational feel to the revision process without requiring additional in-person work, an important consideration at [Institution], where many students commute long distances and work long hours outside of the school” (Instructor’s Journal). Echoing this sentiment, Rose stated, that “it would take more time for me to go to him and talk to him about the comment and then him reply to me.”

Interactivity and Its Complex Layers

Students also valued the interactivity afforded by the digital elements of the course, a value central to the students’ experiences. Interactivity aids in classroom community building, promoting a caring environment among students. This value represents a complex combination of the perceived communication affordances of the course forum and face-to-face interactions.

Students’ discussions of the course forum focused on communicative and interactive features. For Jessica, having a course forum “made it easier to communicate with the whole class outside of the classroom.” Mary liked “the interaction with everybody.” Reinforcing the value of communication and collaboration, Bill described the course forum as a “really collaborative space.” Similarly, Rose indicated that one of the strengths of the course forum was the ability to share work and “to talk to each other about it.”

From students’ perspectives, the course forum successfully served as a source of modeling and validation. All of the participants valued the ability to see other students’ work to help generate ideas when not sure how to proceed. In her survey response, Linda wrote, “It helped me see everyone’s ideas which I could incorporate into my own.” Similarly, on the forum, Ann was able “to view my classmates’ opinions on the assignment and get a clearer understanding of it.” Beth wrote that, “the course blog helped me do my homework because I got to see examples of others’ before doing mine.” In his interview, David echoed these sentiments: “I do use it to get ideas if I am completely completely stuck.”

Paradoxically, little self-directed collaboration or communication actually occurred on the forum. Communication between students only occurred on the forum when the instructor asked students to comment on each other’s work. Outside of these assignments and contrary to their own responses, students did not engage with the forum as a space for communication. For many, “it was just a homework” (Rose). Further supporting the “just homework” attitude, David responded, “I don’t see it as a thing to reply to; I just see it as just homework.” Because “no one else responds to these posts,” Mary assumed that, “we don’t have to or we should not.” In fact, although students reported communicating with up to 7 classmates sometimes as often as 3 times a week, such communication took the form of emails, text messages, face-to-face communication (in and outside of class), and social media posts. However, none of the 12 students who took the survey listed the course forum as means of communication with their classmates.

Although none of the students reported engaging in self-directed communication with others through the course forum, students reported it as a useful mediator of student interaction that facilitated face-to-face communication. Ten out of 16 participants reported communicating with fellow classmates in person outside of class. Eight of these 10 also reported communicating in class. Some of the students reported that the course forum served as an ice breaker for approaching fellow classmates. For instance, Bill reported that, “sometimes like we will see something on the blog and then we won’t comment about it on the blog directly, but like I’ll see them in class and say ‘hey I really liked your topic.’” He described the forum as giving “us a little bit of incentive especially in like a city school like to communicate more with like your peers.” Similarly, Rose discussed how the course forum allows students to “make friends after a while even by doing homework.” Seeing and engaging with one’s peers’ work online provided a reason to initiate contact “because you are not going to ask someone for their number randomly in class; why would you want my number? So after commenting on your work, you can email them privately if you want and see if you want to meet up.”

Indeed, approximately half of participating students voiced an explicit preference or desire for face-to face communication. For instance, when asked whether in-class peer review can be effectively substituted with an online alternative, 9 out of 13 students responded “No.” Out of those nine, five explicitly stated a preference for face-to-face communication. Beth suggested that online peer review may create more room for miscommunication and would not work “because sometimes you really don’t understand what a person is trying to say.” Bill saw merit in the online peer review model, but still maintained that, overall, face-to-face communication is an important form of classroom interaction because “you are able to see in the class like the emotion of the people or you can see like the enthusiasm of like a person with their topic.” For Bill, the ability to see someone and communicate with them in person corresponded to the ability to “relate to them like physically or their past experience.” The disadvantage of online communication, according to Bill, lies in the potential of losing “your own voice, like the physical voice, not just the words but like someone’s actual personality […] which is why I feel like it’s better to talk in person.”

Overall, students saw perceived interactivity afforded by the course forum as an important part of the course. They emphasized deeply relational aspects of the course design, such as an ability to connect emotionally and intellectually with others. However, at times they contradicted themselves by praising the communicative affordances of the course forum while indicating that they did not engage in self-directed communication through it. Thus, these findings suggest that the true value of the course forum lies in its role as a moderator of student relationships with each other, suggesting its potential effectiveness for building community grounded in mutual caring relationships.

Discussion and Conclusion

In this analysis, I demonstrate how concepts commonly associated with student satisfaction in BL environments can be conceptualized and theorized through the framework of care. Overall, the results of this study are consistent with the existing literature on student satisfaction in BL. For instance, students valued convenience and flexibility, which are almost universally identified as benefits of a blended learning design, both by definition (Graham 2006) and in student responses (e.g., El Mansour and Mupinga 2007). Interactivity — in the form of social presence, community building, and collaboration — represents another element of blended learning commonly linked with student satisfaction and improved outcomes (Garrison 2009; Akyol, Garrison and Orden 2009). However, these findings also reinforce the existing framework of care. Both Noddings (1984/2003) and Rauner (2000) situate care in responsiveness, anticipation of other’s needs, and open dialogue. In this case, the instructor’s pedagogical choices demonstrate an awareness of students’ needs, contributing to students’ perception of convenience. Overall, the instructor created assignments that encouraged interactivity and freedom of expression, building a culture of care and a sense of community in a classroom. These practices resist the static physical design of the classroom and the implications of that design on pedagogy. Care, in turn, represents an important component of student experience by fostering trusting relationships and encouraging student perseverance, particularly in students at risk of dropping out (Cassidy and Bates 2005).

Implications for the Instructors

Emphasizing care in BL course design shifts the discussion from cost effectiveness to human relations. It foregrounds both the importance of considering students’ needs and the deeply relational nature of the learning process, regardless of the mode of delivery. Moreover, emphasizing care takes on greater importance when working with non-traditional college students, particularly first-generation, low-income, and minority students, who might have limited social support. For instance, Roberts and Rosenwald (2001) found that first-generation college students often experience “value clashes and communication difficulties” (99) with their parents, other family members, and friends. These fracturing social relations may take a psychological toll and impact students’ retention. Pedagogies that project care may go a long way in encouraging perseverance by helping these students genuinely engage in the learning process.

In practice, instructors should begin by learning about students’ needs and the local institutional context. Consulting available institutional data and/or conducting a brief survey prior to or during the first week of class to learn about students’ prior experiences with instructional technology, access to technology, and outside-of-class obligations might help instructors adjust their course design to better address the needs of a given class. For example, at CUNY, many students use their cell-phones to engage with the digital elements of their courses (Smale and Regalado 2014). This trend is not surprising considering that CUNY largely serves working class and low-income students. According to Pew Research Center’s project on Internet, Science & Technology, working class and low-income youth often rely solely on a phone data plan for Internet access (Smith 2015). The level of access within a given class, however, may be difficult to predict. In an institution as large and diverse as CUNY, class-level access to technology may vary based on college, time schedule, and program of study, among other factors. Fortunately, in this study, nearly all of the surveyed students had access to the Internet and a computer at home. Yet, throughout the semester, the vast majority of the class as a whole used cell-phones to engage with digital elements of the course during class time. In cases like this, using platforms that are not readily compatible with a wide range of operating systems may impede students’ ability to successfully engage with their class.

Students’ personal access to technology should also be evaluated in light of resources provided by the institution. Digital labs on campus and laptop loan services may supplement personal access, allowing instructors to utilize a larger range of platforms. Moreover, students themselves may be unaware that such programs exist, and instructors can bridge gaps between institutional affordances and students’ awareness. Nevertheless, an instructor teaching an evening class, for example, where most students work full time should be mindful of some students’ inability to take advantage of campus resources. Thus, a care-centric pedagogy must always specifically engage with the context of the individual classroom as well as the local institution.

Instructors can foster interactivity and build community by designing assignments and choosing platforms that promote an open dialogue among the students and extend interactive classroom spaces rather than digitally replicating individualistic, isolationist homework. In this study, students did not actively engage in the forum as a communication platform, but were able to relate each other’s posts to classroom discussions, a practice potentially fostered by the free choice of study topics. In other words, a successful BL curriculum accounts for the interdependence of various elements of the course, where the ethics of care and strong pedagogical principles are supplemented and reinforced by digital tools, but not replaced by them. The potential effectiveness of such a curriculum reaches beyond the immediate learning objectives of a course and may contribute to college success and degree completion. Developing a pedagogy of care offers great potential to foster student development, and blended learning environments possess substantial affordances to develop and enhance such a pedagogy.

Notes

[1] These statistics are taken from a report by the Office of Institutional Research and Assessment, but to ensure the confidentiality of the participants, the name of the college and relevant documents can be revealed only upon request to the author.

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About the Author

Karyna Pryiomka is a doctoral student in the Social/Personality Psychology Ph.D. program and has earned the Interactive Technology and Pedagogy Graduate Certificate at the Graduate Center, CUNY. Drawing on the history of psychology and the philosophy of science, Karyna’s research interests include the relationship between psychological assessments and education policy, validity theory, and the qualitative/quantitative divide in social science research. Her dissertation will explore the relationships among the various forms of evidence that inform college admission decisions. Karyna brings these interests and a blend of critical and digital pedagogies into her teaching of psychology and statistical methods courses at CUNY.

Issue Eleven

A Survey of Digital Humanities Programs

Chris Alen Sula, Pratt Institute School of Information

S. E. Hackney, University of Pittsburgh

Phillip Cunningham, Amistad Research Center

Abstract

The number of digital humanities programs has risen steadily since 2008, adding capacity to the field. But what kind of capacity, and in what areas? This paper presents a survey of DH programs in the Anglophone world (Australia, Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the United States), including degrees, certificates, and formalized minors, concentrations, and specializations. By analyzing the location, structure, and disciplinarity of these programs, we examine the larger picture of DH, at least insofar as it is represented to prospective students and cultivated through required coursework. We also explore the activities that make up these programs, which speak to the broader skills and methods at play in the field, as well as some important silences. These findings provide some empirical perspective on debates about teaching DH, particularly the attention paid to theory and critical reflection. Finally, we compare our results (where possible) to information on European programs to consider areas of similarity and difference, and sketch a broader picture of digital humanities.

Introduction

Much has been written of what lies inside (and outside) the digital humanities (DH). A fitting example might be the annual Day of DH, when hundreds of “DHers” (digital humanists) write about what they do and how they define the field (see https://twitter.com/dayofdh). Read enough of their stories and certain themes and patterns may emerge, but difference and pluralism will abound. More formal attempts to define the field are not hard to find—there is an entire anthology devoted to the subject (Terras, Nyhan, and Vanhoutte 2013)—and others have approached DH by studying its locations (Zorich 2008; Prescott 2016), its members (Grandjean 2014a, 2014b, 2015), their communication patterns (Ross et al. 2011; Quan-Haase, Martin, and McCay-Peet 2015), conference submissions (Weingart 2016), and so forth.

A small but important subset of research looks at teaching and learning as a lens through which to view the field. Existing studies have examined course syllabi (Terras 2006; Spiro 2011) and the development of specific programs and curricula (Rockwell 1999; Siemens 2001; Sinclair 2001; Unsworth 2001; Unsworth and Butler 2001; Drucker, Unsworth, and Laue 2002; Sinclair & Gouglas 2002; McCarty 2012; Smith 2014). In addition, there are pedagogical discussions about what should be taught in DH (Hockey 1986, 2001; Mahony & Pierazzo 2002; Clement 2012) and its broader relationship to technology, the humanities, and higher education (Brier 2012; Liu 2012; Waltzer 2012).

This study adds to the literature on teaching and learning by presenting a survey of existing degree and certificate programs in DH. While these programs are only part of the activities that make up the broader world of DH, they provide a formal view of training in the field and, by extension, of the field itself. Additionally, they reflect the public face of DH at their institutions, both to potential students and to faculty and administrators outside of DH. By studying the requirements of these programs (especially required coursework), we explore the activities that make up DH, at least to the extent that they are systematically taught and represented to students during admissions and recruitment, as well as where DH programs position themselves within and across the subject boundaries of their institutions. These activities speak to broader skills and methods at play in DH, as well as some important silences. They also provide an empirical perspective on pedagogical debates, particularly the attention paid to theory and critical reflection

Background

Melissa Terras (2006) was the first to point to the utility of education studies in approaching the digital humanities (or what she then called “humanities computing”). In the broadest sense, Terras distinguishes between subjects, which are usually associated with academic departments and defined by “a set of core theories and techniques to be taught” (230), and disciplines, which lack departmental status yet still have their own identities, cultural attributes, communities of practice, heroes, idols, and mythology. After analyzing four university courses in humanities computing, Terras examines other aspects of the community such as its associations, journals, discussion groups, and conference submissions. She concludes that humanities computing is a discipline, although not yet a subject: “the community exists, and functions, and has found a way to continue disseminating its knowledge and encouraging others into the community without the institutionalization of the subject” (242). Terras notes that humanities computing scholars, lacking prescribed activities, have freedom in developing their own research and career paths. She remains curious, however, about the “hidden curriculum” of the field at a time when few formal programs yet existed.

Following Terras, Lisa Spiro (2011) takes up this study of the “hidden curriculum” by collecting and analyzing 134 English-language syllabi from DH courses offered between 2006–2011. While some of these courses were offered in DH departments (16, 11.9%), most were drawn from other disciplines, including English, history, media studies, interdisciplinary studies, library and information science, computer science, rhetoric and composition, visual studies, communication, anthropology, and philosophy. Classics, linguistics, and other languages were missing. Spiro analyzes the assignments, readings, media types, key concepts, and technologies covered in these courses, finding (among other things) that DH courses often link theory to practice; involve collaborative work on projects; engage in social media such as blogging or Twitter; focus not only on text but also on video, audio, images, games, maps, simulation, and 3D modeling; and reflect contemporary issues such as data and databases, openness and copyright, networks and networking, and interaction. Finally, Spiro presents a list of terms she expected to see more often in these syllabi, including “argument,” “statistics,” “programming,” “representation,” “interpretation,” “accessibility,” “sustainability,” and “algorithmic.”

These two studies form the broad picture of DH education. More recent studies have taken up DH teaching and learning within particular contexts, such as community colleges (McGrail 2016), colleges of liberal arts and science (Alexander & Davis 2012; Buurma & Levine 2016), graduate education (Selisker 2016), libraries (Rosenblum, et al., 2016; Varner 2016; Vedantham & Porter 2016) and library and information science education (Senchyne 2016), and the public sphere (Brennan 2016; Hsu 2016). These accounts stress common structural challenges and opportunities across these contexts. In particular, many underscore assumptions made about and within DH, including access to technology, institutional resources, and background literacies. In addition, many activities in these contexts fall outside of formal degrees and programs or even classroom learning, demonstrating the variety of spaces in which DH may be taught and trained.

Other accounts have drawn the deep picture of DH education by examining the development of programs and courses at specific institutions, such as McMaster University (Rockwell 1999), University of Virginia (Unsworth 2001; Unsworth and Butler 2001; Drucker, Unsworth, and Laue 2002), University of Alberta (Sinclair & Gouglas 2002), King’s College London (McCarty 2012), and Wilfrid Laurier University (Smith 2014), among others. Abstracts from “The Humanities Computing Curriculum / The Computing Curriculum in the Arts and Humanities” Conference in 2001 contain references to various institutions (Siemens 2001), as does a subsequent report on the conference (Sinclair 2001). Not surprisingly, these accounts often focus on the histories and peculiarities of each institution, a “localization” that Knight (2011) regards as necessary in DH.

Our study takes a program-based approach to studying teaching and learning in DH. While formal programs represent only a portion of the entire DH curricula, they are important in several respects: First, they reflect intentional groupings of courses, concepts, skills, methods, techniques, and so on. As such, they purport to represent the field in its broadest strokes rather than more specialized portions of it (with the exception of programs offered in specific areas, such as book history and DH). Second, these programs, under the aegis of awarding institutions and larger accrediting bodies, are responsible for declaring explicit learning outcomes of their graduates, often including required courses. These requirements form one picture of what all DHers are expected to know upon graduation (at a certain level), and this changing spectrum of competencies presumably reflects corresponding changes in the field over time. Third, formal DH programs organize teaching, research, and professional development in the field; they are channels through which material and symbolic capital flow, making them responsible, in no small part, for shaping the field itself. Finally, these programs, their requirements, and coursework are one way—perhaps the primary way—in which prospective students encounter the field and make choices about whether to enroll in a DH program and, if so, which one. These programs are also consulted by faculty and administrators developing new programs at their own institutions, both for common competencies and for distinguishing features of particular programs.

In addition to helping define the field, a study of formal DH programs also contributes to the dialogue around pedagogy in the field. Hockey, for example, has long wondered whether programming should be taught (1986) and asks, “How far can the need for analytical and critical thinking in the humanities be reconciled with the practical orientation of much work in humanities computing?” (2001). Also skeptical of mere technological skills, Simon Mahony and Elena Pierazzo (2002) argue for teaching methodologies or “ways of thinking” in DH. Tanya Clement examines multiliteracies in DH (e.g., critical thinking, commitment, community, and play), which help to push the field beyond “training” to “a pursuit that enables all students to ask valuable and productive questions that make for ‘a life worth living’” (2012, 372).

Others have called on DH to engage more fully in critical reflection, especially in relation to technology and the role of the humanities in higher education. Alan Liu notes that much DH work has failed to consider “the relation of the whole digital juggernaut to the new world order,” eschewing even clichéd topics such as “the digital divide,” “surveillance,” “privacy,” and “copyright” (2012, 491). Steve Brier (2012) points out that teaching and learning are an afterthought to many DHers, a lacuna that misses the radical potential of DH for transforming teaching and professional development. Luke Walzer (2012) observes that DH has done little to help protect and reconceptualize the role of the humanities in higher education, long under threat from austerity measures and perceived uselessness in the neoliberal academy (Mowitt 2012).

These and other concerns point to longstanding questions about the proper balance of technological skills and critical reflection in DH. While a study of existing DH programs cannot address the value of critical reflection, it can report on the presence (or absence) of such reflection in required coursework and program outcomes. Thus, it is part of a critical reflection on the field as it stands now, how it is taught to current students, and how such training will shape the future of the field. It can also speak to common learning experiences within DH (e.g., fieldwork, capstones), as well as disciplinary connections, particularly in program electives. These findings, together with our more general findings about DH activities, give pause to consider what is represented in, emphasized by, and omitted from the field at its most explicit levels of educational training.

Methods

This study involved collection of data about DH programs, coding descriptions of programs and courses using a controlled vocabulary, and analysis and visualization.

Data collection

We compiled a list of 37 DH programs active in 2015 (see Appendix A), drawn from listings in the field (UCLA Center for Digital Humanities 2015; Clement 2015), background literature, and web searches (e.g., “digital humanities masters”). In addition to degrees and certificates, we included minors and concentrations that have formal requirements and coursework, since these programs can be seen as co-issuing degrees with major areas of study and as inflecting those areas in significant ways. We did not include digital arts or emerging media programs in which humanities content was not the central focus of inquiry. In a few cases, the listings or literature mentioned programs that could not be found online, but we determined that these instances were not extant programs—some were initiatives or centers misdescribed, others were programs in planning or simply collections of courses with no formal requirements—and thus fell outside the scope of this study. We also asked for the names of additional programs at a conference presentation, in personal emails, and on Twitter. Because our sources and searches are all English-language, the list of programs we collected are all programs taught in Anglophone countries. This limits what we can say about global DH.

For each program, we made a PDF of the webpage on which its description appears, along with a plain text file of the description. We recorded the URL of each program and information about its title; description; institution; school, division, or department; level (graduate or undergraduate); type (degree or otherwise); year founded; curriculum (total credits, number and list of required and elective courses); and references to independent research, fieldwork, and final deliverables. After identifying any required courses for each program, we looked up descriptions of those courses in the institution’s course catalog and recorded them in a spreadsheet.

Coding and intercoder agreement

To analyze the topics covered by programs and required courses, we applied the Taxonomy of Digital Research Activities in the Humanities (TaDiRAH 2014a), which attempts to capture the “scholarly primitives” of the field (Perkins et al. 2014). Unsworth (2000) describes these primitives as “basic functions common to scholarly activities across disciplines, over time, and independent of theoretical orientation,” obvious enough to be “self-understood,” and his preliminary list includes ‘Discovering’, ‘Annotating’, ‘Comparing’, ‘Referring’, ‘Sampling’, ‘Illustrating’, and ‘Representing’.

We doubt that any word—or classification system—works in this way. Language is always a reflection of culture and society, and with that comes questions of power, discipline/ing, and field background. Moreover, term meaning shifts over time and across locations. Nevertheless, we believe classification schema can be useful in organizing and analyzing information, and that is the spirit in which we employ TaDiRAH here.

TaDiRAH is one of several classification schema in DH and is itself based on three prior sources: the arts-humanities.net taxonomy of DH projects, tools, centers, and other resources; the categories and tags originally used by the DiRT (Digital Research Tools) Directory (2014); and headings from “Doing Digital Humanities,” a Zotero bibliography of DH literature (2014) created by the Digital Research Infrastructure for Arts and Humanities (DARIAH). The TaDiRAH version used in this study (v. 0.5.1) also included two rounds of community feedback and subsequent revisions (Dombrowski and Perkins 2014). TaDiRAH’s controlled vocabulary terms are arranged into three broad categories: activities, objects, and techniques. Only activities terms were used in this study because the other terms lack definitions, making them subject to greater variance in interpretation. TaDiRAH contains forty activities terms organized into eight parent terms (‘Capture’, ‘Creation’, ‘Enrichment’, ‘Analysis’, ‘Interpretation’, ‘Storage’, ‘Dissemination’, and ‘Meta-Activities’).

TaDiRAH was built in conversation with a similar project at DARIAH called the Network for Digital Methods in the Arts and Humanities (NeDiMAH) and later incorporated into that project (2015). NeDiMAH’s Methods Ontology (NeMO) contains 160 activities terms organized into five broad categories (‘Acquiring’, ‘Communicating’, ‘Conceiving’, ‘Processing’, ‘Seeking’) and is often more granular than TaDiRAH (e.g., ‘Curating’, ‘Emulating’, ‘Migrating’, ‘Storing’, and ‘Versioning’ rather than simply ‘Preservation’). While NeMO may have other applications, we believe it is too large to be used in this study. There are many cases in which programs or even course descriptions are not as detailed as NeMO in their language, and even the forty-eight TaDiRAH terms proved difficult to apply because of their number and complexity. In addition, TaDiRAH has been applied in DARIAH’s DH Course Registry of European programs, permitting some comparisons between those programs and the ones studied here.

In this study, a term was applied to a program/course description whenever explicit evidence was found that students completing the program or course would be guaranteed to undertake the activities explicitly described in that term’s definition. In other words, we coded for minimum competencies that someone would have after completing a program or course. The narrowest term was applied whenever possible, and multiple terms could be applied to the same description (and, in most cases, were). For example, a reference to book digitization would be coded as ‘Imaging’:

Imaging refers to the capture of texts, images, artefacts or spatial formations using optical means of capture. Imaging can be made in 2D or 3D, using various means (light, laser, infrared, ultrasound). Imaging usually does not lead to the identification of discrete semantic or structural units in the data, such as words or musical notes, which is something DataRecognition accomplishes. Imaging also includes scanning and digital photography.

If there was further mention of OCR (optical character recognition), that would be coded as ‘DataRecognition’ and so on. To take another example, a reference to visualization and other forms of analysis would be coded both as ‘Visualization’ and as its parent term, ‘Analysis’, if no more specific child terms could be identified.

In some cases, descriptions would provide a broad list of activities happening somewhere across a program or course but not guaranteed for all students completing that program or course (e.g., “Through our practicum component, students can acquire hands-on experience with innovative tools for the computational analysis of cultural texts, and gain exposure to new methods for analyzing social movements and communities enabled by new media networks.”). In these cases, we looked for further evidence before applying a term to that description.

Students may also acquire specialty in a variety of areas, but this study is focused on what is learned in common by any student who completes a specific DH program or course; as such, we coded only cases of requirements and common experiences. For the same reason, we coded only required courses, not electives. Finally, we coded programs and required courses separately to analyze whether there was any difference in stated activities at these two levels.

To test intercoder agreement, we selected three program descriptions at random and applied TaDiRAH terms to each. In only a handful of cases did all three of us agree on our term assignments. We attribute this low level of agreement to the large number of activities terms in TaDiRAH, the complexity of program/course descriptions, questions of scope (whether to use a broader or narrower term), and general vagueness. For example, a program description might allude to work with texts at some point, yet not explicitly state text analysis until later, only once, when it is embedded in a list of other examples (e.g., GIS, text mining, network analysis), with a reference to sentiment analysis elsewhere. Since texts could involve digitization, publishing, or other activities, we would not code ‘Text analysis’ immediately, and we would only code it if students would were be guaranteed exposure to this such methods in the program. To complicate matters further, there is no single term for text analysis in TaDiRAH—it spans across four (‘Content analysis’, ‘Relational analysis’, ‘Structural analysis’, and ‘Stylistic analysis’)—and one coder might apply all four terms, another only some, and the third might use the parent term ‘Analysis’, which also includes spatial analysis, network analysis, and visualization.

Even after reviewing these examples and the definitions of specific TaDiRAH terms, we could not reach a high level of intercoder agreement. However, we did find comparing our term assignments to be useful, and we were able to reach consensus in discussion. Based on this experience, we decided that each of us would code every program/course description and then discuss our codings together until we reached a final agreement. Before starting our preliminary codings, we discussed our understanding of each TaDiRAH term (in case it had not come up already in the exercise). We reviewed our preliminary codings using a visualization showing whether one, two, or three coders applied a term to a program/course description. In an effort to reduce bias, especially framing effects (cognitive biases that result from the order in which information is presented), the visualization did not display who had coded which terms. If two coders agreed on a term, they explained their codings to the third and all three came to an agreement. If only one coder applied a term, the other two explained why they did not code for that term and all three came to an agreement. Put another way, we considered every term that anyone applied, and we considered it under the presumption that it would be applied until proven otherwise. Frequently, our discussions involved pointing to specific locations in the program/course descriptions and referencing TaDiRAH definitions or notes from previous meetings when interpretations were discussed.

In analyzing our final codings, we used absolute term frequencies (the number of times a term was applied in general) and weighted frequencies (a proxy for relative frequency and here a measure of individual programs and courses). To compute weighted frequencies, each of the eight parent terms were given a weight of 1, which was divided equally among their subterms. For example, the parent term ‘Dissemination’ has six subterms, so each of those were assigned an equal weight of one-sixth, whereas ‘Enrichment’ has three subterms, each assigned a weight of one-third. These weights were summed by area to show how much of an area (relatively speaking) is represented in program/course descriptions, regardless of area size. If all the subterms in an area are present, that entire area is present—just as it would be if we had applied only the broader term in the first place. These weighted frequencies are used only where programs are displayed individually.

Initially, we had thought about comparing differences in stated activities between programs and required courses. While we found some variations (e.g., a program would be coded for one area of activities but not its courses and vice versa), we also noticed cases in which the language used to describe programs was too vague to code for activities that were borne out in required course descriptions. For this reason and to be as inclusive as possible with our relatively conservative codings, we compared program and course data simultaneously in our final analysis. Future studies may address the way in which program descriptions connect to particular coursework, and articulating such connections may help reveal the ways in which DH is taught (in terms of pedagogy) rather than only its formal structure (as presented here).

Analysis and visualization

In analyzing program data, we examined the overall character of each program (its title), its structure (whether it grants degrees and, if so, at what level), special requirements (independent study, final deliverables, fieldwork), and its location, both in terms of institutional structure (e.g., departments, labs, centers) and discipline(s). We intended to analyze more thoroughly the number of required courses as compared to electives, the variety of choice students have in electives, and the range of departments in which electives are offered. These comparisons proved difficult: even within an American context, institutions vary in their credit hours and the formality of their requirements (e.g., choosing from a menu of specific electives, as opposed to any course from a department or “with permission”). These inconsistencies multiply greatly in an international context, and so we did not undertake a quantitative study of the number or range of required and elective courses.

Program data and codings were visualized using the free software Tableau Public. All images included in this article are available in a public workbook at https://public.tableau.com/views/DigitalHumanitiesProgramsSurvey/Combined. As we discuss in the final section, we are also building a public-facing version of the data and visualizations, which may be updated by members of the DH community. Thus, the data presented here can and should change over time, making these results only a snapshot of DH in some locations at the present.

Anglophone programs

The number of DH programs in Anglophone countries has risen sharply over time, beginning in 1991 and growing steadily by several programs each year since 2008 (see Figure 1). This growth speaks to increased capacity in the field, not just by means of centers, journals, conferences, and other professional infrastructure, but also through formal education. Since 2008, there has been a steady addition of several programs each year, and based on informal observation since our data collection ended, we believe this trend continues.

A bar chart showing the number of new Anglophone DH programs each year from 1991 to 2015. A line showing the cumulative total of programs increases sharply at 2008. — Figure 1. Digital humanities programs in our collected data by year established

Program titles

Most of the programs in our collected data (22, 59%) are titled simply “Digital Humanities,” along with a few variations, such as “Book History and Digital Humanities” and “Digital Humanities Research” (see Figure 2). A handful of programs are named for particular areas of DH or related topics (e.g., “Digital Culture,” “Public Scholarship”), and only a fraction (3 programs, 8%) are called “Humanities Computing.” We did not investigate changes in program names over time, although this might be worthwhile in the future.

A stacked bar chart comparing the titles of Anglophone DH programs. The segments that make up each bar are color coded by degree type (e.g., doctoral, master’s, bachelor’s, certificate, other). — Figure 2. Titles of digital humanities programs in our collected data

Structure

Less than half of DH programs in our collected data grant degrees: some at the level of bachelor’s (8%), most at the level of master’s (22%), and some at the doctoral (8%) level (Figure 3). The majority of DH programs are certificates, minors, specializations, and concentrations—certificates being much more common at the graduate level and nearly one-third of all programs in our collected data. The handful of doctoral programs are all located in the UK and Ireland.

A stacked bar chart showing the number of Anglophone DH programs at the undergraduate and graduate levels. The segments that make up each bar are color coded by degree type (e.g., doctoral, master’s, bachelor’s, certificate, other). — Figure 3. Digital humanities programs in our collected data (by degree and level)

In addition to degree-granting status, we also examined special requirements for the 37 DH programs in our study. Half of those programs require some form of independent research (see Figure 4). All doctoral programs require such research; most master’s programs do as well. Again, we only looked for cases of explicit requirements; it seems likely that research of some variety is conducted within all the programs analyzed here. However, we focus this study on explicit statements of academic activity in order to separate the assumptions of practitioners of DH about its activities from what appears in public-facing descriptions of the field.
Half of DH programs in our collected data require a final deliverable, referred to variously as a capstone, dissertation, portfolio, or thesis (see Figure 5). Again, discrepancies between written and unwritten expectations in degree programs abound—and are certainly not limited to DH—and some programs may have not explicitly stated this requirement, so deliverables may be undercounted. That said, most graduate programs require some kind of final deliverable, and most undergraduate and non-degree-granting programs (e.g., minors, specializations) do not.

Finally, about one-quarter of programs require fieldwork, often in the form of an internship (see Figure 6). This fieldwork requirement is spread across degree types and levels.

A stacked bar chart showing whether Anglophone DH programs require independent research as a part of their degree requirements. The segments that make up each bar are color coded by degree type (e.g., doctoral, master’s, bachelor’s, certificate, other). — Figure 4. Independent research requirements of digital humanities programs in our collected data

A stacked bar chart showing the final deliverable requirement (dissertation, portfolio, etc.) of Anglophone DH programs. The segments that make up each bar are color coded by degree type (e.g., doctoral, master’s, bachelor’s, certificate, other). — Figure 5. Final deliverable required by digital humanities programs in our collected data

A stacked bar chart showing whether Anglophone DH programs require fieldwork as a part of their degree requirements. The segments that make up each bar are color coded by degree type (e.g., doctoral, master’s, bachelor’s, certificate, other). — Figure 6. Fieldwork requirements of digital humanities programs in our collected data

Location and disciplinarity

About one-third of the DH programs in our dataset are offered outside of academic schools/departments (in centers, initiatives, and, in one case, jointly with the library), and most issue from colleges/schools of arts and humanities (see Figure 7). Although much DH work occurs outside of traditional departments (Zorich 2008), formal training in Anglophone countries remains tied to them. Most DH concentrations and specializations are located within English departments, evidence for Kirschenbaum’s claim that DH’s “professional apparatus…is probably more rooted in English than any other departmental home” (2010, 55).

A bar chart showing location of Anglophone DH programs within an institution (college/school, center, department. etc.) — Figure 7. Institutional location of digital humanities programs in our collected data

The elective courses of DH programs span myriad departments and disciplines. The familiar humanities departments are well represented (art history, classics, history, philosophy, religion, and various languages), along with computer science, design, media, and technology. Several programs include electives drawn from education departments and information and library science. More surprising departments (and courses) include anthropology (“Anthropological Knowledge in the Museum”), geography (“Urban GIS”), political science (“New Media and Politics”), psychology (“Affective Interaction”), sociology (“Social and Historical Study of Information, Software, and Networks”), even criminology (“Cyber Crime”).

The number of electives required by each program and the pool from which they may be drawn varies greatly among programs, and in some cases it is so open-ended that it is nearly impossible to document thoroughly. Some programs have no elective courses and focus only on shared, required coursework. Others list dozens of potential elective courses as suggestions, rather than an exhaustive list. Because course offerings, especially in cross-disciplinary areas, change from term to term and different courses may be offered under a single, general course listing such as “Special Topics,” the list of elective course we have collected is only a sample of the type of courses students in DH programs may take, and we do not analyze them quantitatively here.

Theory and critical reflection

To analyze the role of theory and critical reflection in DH programs, we focused our analysis on two TaDiRAH terms: ‘Theorizing’,

a method which aims to relate a number of elements or ideas into a coherent system based on some general principles and capable of explaining relevant phenomena or observations. Theorizing relies on techniques such as reasoning, abstract thinking, conceptualizing and defining. A theory may be implemented in the form of a model, or a model may give rise to formulating a theory.

and ‘Meta: GiveOverview’, which

refers to the activity of providing information which is relatively general or provides a historical or systematic overview of a given topic. Nevertheless, it can be aimed at experts or beginners in a field, subfield or specialty.

In most cases, we used ‘Meta: GiveOverview’ to code theoretical or historical introductions to DH itself, though any explicit mention of theory was coded (or also coded) as ‘Theorizing’. We found that all DH programs, whether in program descriptions or required courses, included some mention of theory or historical/systematic overview (see Figure 8).

A table of Anglophone institutions and DH programs showing whether researchers coded ‘Theory’ or ‘GiveOverview’ for the program or required course descriptions. — Figure 8. Theory and critical reflection in digital humanities programs in our collected data

Accordingly, we might say that each program, according to its local interpretation, engages in some type of theoretical or critical reflection. We cannot, of course, say much more about the character of this reflection, whether it is the type of critical reflection called for in the pedagogical literature, or how this reflection interfaces with the teaching of skills and techniques in these programs. We hope someone studies this aspect of programs, but it is also worth noting that only 6 of the 37 programs here were coded for ‘Teaching/Learning’ (see Figure 12). Presumably, most programs do not engage theoretically with issues of pedagogy or the relationship between DH and higher education, commensurate with Brier’s claim that these areas are often overlooked (2012). Such engagement may occur in elective courses or perhaps nowhere in these programs.

European programs

All of the 37 programs discussed above are located in Anglophone countries, most of them in the United States (22 programs, 60%). We note that TaDiRAH, too, originates in this context, as does our English-language web searches for DH programs. While this data is certainly in dialogue with the many discussions of DH education cited above, it limits what we can say about DH from a global perspective. It is important to understand the various ways DH manifests around the globe, both to raise awareness of these approaches and to compare the ways in which DH education converges and diverges across these contexts. To that end, we gathered existing data on European programs by scraping DARIAH’s Digital Humanities Course Registry (DARIAH-EU 2014a) and consulting the European Association for Digital Humanities’ (EADH) education resources webpage (2016). This DARIAH/EADH data is not intended to stand in for the entirety of global DH, as it looks exclusively at European programs (and even then it is limited in interpretation by our own language barriers). DH is happening outside of this scope (e.g., Gil 2017), and we hope that future initiatives can expand the conversation about DH programs worldwide—possibly as part of our plans for data publication, which we address at the end of this article.

DARIAH’s database lists 102 degree programs, 77 of which were flagged in page markup as “outdated” with the note, “This record has not been revised for a year or longer.” While inspecting DARIAH data, we found 43 programs tagged with TaDiRAH terms, and we eliminated 17 entries that were duplicates, had broken URLs and could not be located through a web search, or appeared to be single courses or events rather than formal programs. We also updated information on a few programs (e.g., specializations classified as degrees). We then added 5 programs listed by EADH but not by DARIAH, for a grand total of 93 European DH programs (only 16 of which were listed jointly by both organizations). We refer to this dataset as “DARIAH/EADH data” in the remainder of this paper. A map of these locations is provided in Figure 9, and the full list of programs considered in this paper is given in Appendices.

A map of Europe showing the number of DH programs in each country, based on DARIAH/EADH listings. — Figure 9. Geographic location of programs in DARIAH/EADH data

The DARIAH/EADH data lists 93 programs spread across parts of Europe, with the highest concentration (33%) in Germany (see Table 1). We caution here and in subsequent discussions that DARIAH and EADH may not have applied the same criteria for including programs as we did in our data collection, so results are not directly comparable. Some programs in informatics or data asset management might have been ruled out using our data collection methods, which were focused on humanities content.

Table 1. Summary of programs included in our collected data and DARIAH/EADH data
Country	Programs in our collected data N (%)	Programs in DARIAH/EADH data N (%)
Australia	1 (3%)	–
Austria	–	1 (1%)
Belgium	—	2 (2%)
Canada	6 (16%)	—
Croatia	—	3 (3%)
Finland	–	1 (1%)
France	–	8 (9%)
Germany	–	31 (33%)
Ireland	3 (8%)	4 (4%)
Italy	–	4 94%)
Netherlands	–	16 (17%)
Norway	–	1 (1%)
Portugal	–	1 (1%)
Spain	–	2 (2%)
Sweden	–	1 (1%)
Switzerland	–	6 (7%)
United Kingdom	5 (14%)	12 (13%)
United States	22 (60%)	–