The Digital History Working Group offers a platform to discuss how the digitisation of the world affects historical research. We aim to provide a place where the employment of digital methods and computer-assisted research can be discussed and explored for the benefit of researchers. The decision to enter the world of digital methods can seem daunting and scary. Our group seeks to ease this move and to demonstrate that it doesn’t have to be scary or all-changing for one’s research.
Our working group aims to illustrate and discuss the various methods that are encapsulated under the umbrella of digital history and digital methods. This includes, but is not confined to: data organisation, text-mining, distant reading, digital palaeography, visual analysis, (social) network analysis, cartography and geographic information systems, historical data visualisation, web scraping, the use and training of Artificial Intelligence for research purposes, etc. These methods can be employed across all historical periods; thus, the group will not have a chronological focus. The working group aims to discuss the following questions: How can digital methods be beneficial for your research? Which new possible avenues of research do digital methods open? What challenges are present when employing digital methods?
The group aims to encourage discussion among researchers, and we wish to curate our program to help researchers start using or exploring further digital methods. To serve this purpose, our sessions will have varying characters. Some are workshop-based, where we will examine how to use a specific digital tool or method with guidance from an experienced user. We will seek to organise these workshop-sessions based on interest from researchers. Thus, if you are interested in learning about a specific tool or method, reach out to us either by email or in person at a meeting of the working group. We will also organise lectures featuring experts who will present their use of digital methods, explaining how and why they chose them and the benefits they gained.
Digital methods are not limited to being used in historical research; researchers from other departments are, of course, welcome to join our working group.