Computational Methods in the Humanities

Coding Tasks

Coding assignments in this course are a technique for learning and studying, and not—as in many other courses—a way of testing whether you've already learned something covered in class or in an assigned reading. Because a crucial skill in Digital Humanities development is the ability to look up how to do something you don't already know how to do — not only using AI / LLM tools, but also published, more authoritative references — these assignments will frequently challenge you to write code that you do not yet know how to write. Students who are used to the homework-as-test model of course design may find this disconcerting (But they haven't told us how to do this!), but professional developers have to look things up all the time, and learning how to look things up is a critical pedagogical goal of this course. There may be times when you don't get the result you want, and in those cases you can still get full credit for the assignment if you've made a serious attempt and if you submit, along with your code, a description of what you tried, the results you expected, the results you got, and what you think went wrong. Getting stuck is part of the learning process and the instructors will be happy to help unstick you as long as you've described your understanding of the problem and your attempts to resolve it on your own.

To help you develop the habit of carefully reading, and then explaining, your code, you must submit at least one relevant, thoughtful comment with each coding assignment. Note: When submitting commentary with your homework assignment, refrain from using any Canvas-specific commenting feature; instead, you should write your message directly in your homework file as a formal comment (we'll show you how). This is the only way to guarantee that the instructors will be able to see it.

The instructors will post solutions to and discussion of programming assignments on this website after the assignment deadline. The instructors will read and evaluate all student homework, and will post an assessment on Canvas, and we will write back to you with individual comments only if your specific submission raises an issue that we don't address in our general posted solution. If we don't return your assignment, that means that we have nothing to add to our posted solution, which you nonetheless need to read, and should you have any specific questions after you've done that, please ask the instructors.

Coding assignments are assessed as check plus, check, and check minus. Don't think of these as grades, since they all receive full credit; they are feedback, for learning purposes, about how well you engaged with the assignment.

This course draws on a wide variety of online resources for its content, which means that many coding assignment descriptions will be hosted on Obdurodon, but some will be posted on Bactriana or Canvas. However, links to all assignments will be posted on the syllabus: students should not wait for them to be posted as Canvas assignments to get started, even though Canvas is where they will ultimately be submitted.

Standing Assignments

Coding Forums

Despite the image of the programmer as a solitary soul bent over a glowing screen in a cubicle, programming is, in reality, a social activity, and real programmers make liberal use of discussion forums to ask and answer questions. Furthermore, despite the classroom tradition where students submit homework to a professor, who grades and returns it, so that nobody else ever sees it, that’s not the way coding works in the real world and it’s not the model in this course. Like real developers, we ask and answer questions in the open. This course component has two principal goals: 1) it provides a forum to ask and answer questions, and 2) it helps course participants become familiar with an industry-standard discussion platform.

Participation in the discussion beyond the minimum requirement is strongly encouraged. Don’t be shy about asking questions in this forum; your instructors do this all the time in their own work, and you can’t learn to code if you don’t learn how to participate in a coding community. And don’t be shy about answering questions, which is both good citizenship and personally satisfying. Much of the classroom time will be devoted to teacher-centered instruction, and the discussion framework offers an opportunity to interact with classmates to cultivate a community in which peers provide insight, solutions, and general discussion. This discussion forum should be the first resource for questions, comments, etc.

As a bare minimum, each student is required to post at least one question, resource, or tip per thematic unit. The post should be thoughtful, clear, and (when helpful) include code bloacks and /or links to Github pages. The poster is required to engage with follow-up both from instructors and fellow students: failure to do so will result in a zero for the assignment.

Project Updates

Periodically throughout the semester students will be required to submit project updates. The specifics of these check-in assignments will vary, but all count toward the total project grade for the semester. Even though the work for these assignmens will generally be collaborative, students must all submit a response for credit.

Grading

The material in this course is inherently challenging, but grading policies are designed to facilitate learning and reward effort: full credit is awarded for coding assignments for which students make an honest effort (receiving at least a check minus); "test" may seem like an intimidating grade category, but is proportionally the least emphasized grading category, and we drop the two lowest grades; and feedback is offered very frequently in the standing assignment and project catetories, offering ample opportunity for improvement.