Making the Humanities Digital

Evaluation & Grading

Course grades will be determined as follows:

• 20 points: Participation (see below).
• 20 points: Critique of a digital humanities tool or project.
• 40 points: Design project.
• 20 points: Final reflective essay.

Points will be converted to letter grades as follows: 100-95: H, 94-90: P+, 89-85: P, 84-80: P-, 79-70: L, < 69: F

Participation, the critique, and the final essay will be graded individually. For the design project you are encouraged to work in groups of up to 4 people, and you will be graded as a group.

Participation

This class is a combination of a discussion-based seminar and a design studio. Both components require that everyone involved fully participate in both our in-class conversations and our collaborative design effort. For the discussion-oriented parts of our meetings, I’ll expect you to have done all the readings and to be contributing your thoughts, questions, and criticisms. For the design-oriented parts, I’ll expect you to come ready to work as if you were in a lab or studio: actively brainstorming, giving feedback, sketching, etc.

That doesn’t mean you need to dominate discussions or micromanage the design process to get a good participation grade. Don’t be “that guy.” If you engage in dialogue with your classmates, put thought into your contributions, and strive to keep things interesting and fun for everyone involved, your participation grade will be fine.

Communicating with me

Email is the best way to communicate with me outside of class. It is particularly well-suited for short-answer and clarification questions.

I will try my best to respond to you within a 24-hour period, but in some cases it may take 2 to 3 days. Please keep this in mind when you are scheduling your own activities, especially those related to exam or assignment preparation. If you wait until the day before an exam or assignment due date to ask me a clarification question, there is a good chance that you will not receive a response in time.

If you need assistance understanding a concept or an assignment, or have another potentially complicated question, then please make an appointment for my office hours. If you ask a question via email that I believe is better suited for in-person discussion, then I will ask you to make an office hours appointment. If you have questions about how your assignment was evaluated, then you must make an office hours appointment. I will not discuss your grades or my evaluation of your work via email.

Honor Code

You are expected to know and respect UNC Honor Code. Collaboration, discussion, and seeking assistance from other students is encouraged in this class and is not inconsistent with the Honor Code. In the case of written work, all words drawn from others must be attributed appropriately.