NewtFire logo: a mosaic rendering of a firebelly newt
newtFire {dh}
Maintained by: Elisa E. Beshero-Bondar (eeb4 at psu.edu) Creative Commons License Last modified: Sunday, 20-Aug-2023 21:50:46 UTC. Powered by firebellies.

Fall 2022 Syllabus (Schedule) Classes meet M W F 2:30 - 3:20pm in Kochel 77.

Read the Course Description

This contains a detailed explanation of course policies and the basis for grades.

Jump Down to the Schedule

The button jumps to the closest day to today's date. Review the schedule as we get started to get a sense of how this course will work on a daily basis.

Tools and Resources

Download and install the following software on your own personal computer(s) as we start the course. These software tools are also available in our campus computing labs.

  1. <oXygen/>. The DIGIT program has purchased a site license for this software, which is installed in Kochel 77 and the Lilley Library computers. The license also permits students enrolled in the course to install the software on their home computers (for course-related use only). When installing this on your own computers, you will need the license key, which we have posted on our course Announcements section of Canvas.
  2. Zoom: Make sure your Zoom installation is up-to-date, and you are ready to connect. (We will use Zoom when we need it for office/project meetings.)
  3. Slack: https://slack.com/help/articles/218080037-Getting-started-for-new-members). Download and install the Slack chat client, configuring your account to use use your Penn State email address (the official address, which looks like xyz123@psu.edu, and not an alias based on your name that you may have set up), so you can join our Slack workspace: DIGIT-coders. When you receive an invitation to join this workspace you should accept.
  4. Be prepared to install other software as announced as we experiment with website infrastructures in this class
Resources for class:
Week 1Class topicsDo before class

M 08-22

 Respond to Dr. B's Poll (see Canvas / Penn State email).

W 08-24

 Introducing a new potential Digital Humanities project: An American Dilemma, with special guest, Dr. Emily Masghati (Behrend: History) Code Review Ex 1: Regex to well-formed XML

F 08-26

 Document analysis and data modeling for An American Dilemma. Problems with the source interface. Code review Reading and discussion from An American Dilemma
Week 2Class topicsDo before class

M 08-29
  • Discussion: robust vs. brittle. Sustainability in code.
  • Code review: git and GitHub. Updating GitHub portfolios
Code Review Ex: Regex for An American Dilemma

W 08-31

 GitHub Pages, static sites, templating. Personal and Team project options. Code review: Revisiting old HTML and CSS. Accessibility and User Experience Readings [TBA]

F 09-02

 Introducing Ruby/Jekyll for GitHub Pages Website Architectures: Exercise 1: Choose a past project to redo with Ruby/Jekyll + components (installation, setup)
Week 3Class topicsDo before class

M 09-05

 Labor Day Holiday: No classes. ...

W 09-07

 Ruby/Jekyll workshop Website Architectures: Exercise 2: Developing components with Ruby/Jekyll

F 09-09

 [Class cancelled: Dr. B is travelling to England for the TEI Conference.] Website Architectures (WA): Personal project milestone: Complete stage of work on revamping personal website with Ruby/Jekyll
Week 4Class topicsDo before class

M 09-12

[Dr. B is in England for the TEI Conference]

Guest instructors: Mia Borgia and Alan Bickel from Larson Texts on life after DIGIT and on Model View Controller web architecture: Part 1

 Readings/Discussion: TBD

W 09-14

[Dr. B is in England for the TEI Conference]

Guest instructors: Mia Borgia and Alan Bickel from Larson Texts on life after DIGIT and on Model View Controller web architecture: Part 2

 Discussion/Response to guest presentations; work on Project milestone

F 09-16

 [Dr. B is in England for the TEI Conference] Discussion of guest instructors Project Milestone 2
Week 5Class topicsDo before class

M 09-19

 Discussion of guest instructors. Continued work with Ruby/Jekyll portfolio sites. Preparation for the Behrend Career Fair.

W 09-21

 Class Cancelled for Behrend Career Fair. Metadata and staticSearch Due by end of day: Discussion post on Slack re Career Fair WA Exercise: get started with staticSearch

F 09-23

 Workshopping Ruby/Jekyll sites. JavaScript for simple interactions Faceted searching, stemming in staticSearch
Week 6Class topicsDo before class

M 09-26

 Guest speaker: Claire Tolbert (Larson Texts) discusses résumés. Résumé workshop
  • Print a copy of your résumé to bring to class for the workshop.
  • Project Milestone 3 (end of the day)

W 09-28

 Guest speaker: Claire Tolbert (Larson Texts) discusses interviews! Revise your print résumé to create two different versions for two different job postings.

F 09-30

 Introducing staticSearch Generator:
  • How does a search interface work? Explore search interfaces, results match highlighting from example Static Search sites.
  • discussion/selection of projects to organize for Static Search.
 Read and annotate with Hypothes.is: Project Endings staticSearch Generator: Parts 1 - 6
Week 7Class topicsDo before class

M 10-03

 How Static Search works: build process. Configuring your computer (ant, environment PATH variables) to build Static Search indexing Project Endings staticSearch Generator: Parts 7-8

W 10-05

 Configuring a Static Search build Static Search work

F 10-07
Week 8Class topicsDo before class

M 10-10
  • Discussion / decision on project sites for staticSearch.
  • Configuring a site: working on a config file
 Project Milestone 4

W 10-12

 Config files and HTML preparation; XSLT or XQuery to update <meta> elements Start experimenting with a config.xml file for staticSearch

F 10-14

 staticSearch configuration Project Milestone 5
Week 9Class topicsDo before class

M 10-17

 Designing a search page for your project site staticSearch configuration; HTML + CSS design work on search interface page

W 10-19

 Static Search efforts WA: HTML, CSS + JS Exercise 3

F 10-21

 [Dr. B is away guest-speaking at Pitt. Class via Zoom] Project Milestone 6
Week 10Class topicsDo before class

M 10-24

 Static Search efforts

W 10-26

 Accessibility Matters: User Experience Design (UXD) in a web architecture context

F 10-28

 Static Search efforts on projects Project Milestone 7
Week 11Class topicsDo before class

M 10-31

 Behrend 75 project introduction

W 11-02

 Behrend 75 team work: front end, middle, backend project development

F 11-04

 Behrend 75 work
Week 12Class topicsDo before class

M 11-07

 Introduction to JavaScript Behrend 75 Project Milestone 1

W 11-09

 Vanilla JavaScript and separation of concerns JavaScript Exercise 1

F 11-11

 JavaScript continued: JavaScript events and methods JavaScript Exercise 2
Week 13Class topicsDo before class

M 11-14

 Web Servers / Services continued Behrend 75 Project Milestone 2

W 11-16

 Visualizing Data: statically and dynamically Code Exercise: XSLT or XQuery to SVG

F 11-18

 SVG work in your projects: data visualizaton, interface navigation, ornamentation Project Milestone 10
Week 14: Thanksgiving

Sun 11-20 - Sat 11-26

 Thanksgiving Holiday Have a peaceful and productive week!
Week 15Class topicsDo before class

M 11-28

 SVG in Projects Exercise: Animating SVG on Hover

W 11-30

 SVG production in Projects Exercise: Links in SVG; Documenting SVG production

F 12-02

 Project Development in Teams Project Milestone 11
Week 16Class topicsDo before class

M 12-05

 Project Development in Teams Prepare for presentations

W 12-07

 Project Development in Teams Prepare for Presentations

F 12-09

 Last day. Project Presentations Project Milestone 12: Prepare to share and discuss your project work with the class / DIGIT Works.
Finals Week: 12-12 - 12-16Do before class

H 12-15

Semester projects due by 11:59pm.

Finish developing projects, and send a post to me on GitHub and Canvas to indicate your team is finished.