Digital Humanities Curriculum Development: an iSchools Approach

The iSchools Consortium is a collective of Information Schools with a shared interest in the relationships between information, people, and technology. Both the University of Sheffield and UCL are active members of the iSchools network; the Information School at Sheffield hosted the 2018 annual conference and the Department of Information Studies at UCL offers Master's and PhD programmes in DH. 

Two main educational areas that we seek to advance are those of data science and digital humanities. This presentation presents the findings of the iSchools Consortium committee for Digital Humanities Curriculum Design with a particular focus on education management and administration. We are working to develop a more comprehensive picture of the iSchool approach to DH and to formulate our path forward in this dynamic field. We wish to capitalise on the interdisciplinary methods already embedded in iSchool curricula and to facilitate opportunities for collaboration with other institutional departments and initiatives. To that end, the committee sees itself as having a crucial role in helping to define recommendations for digital humanities coursework and instructional resources as well as envisioning long-term goals and strategies for iSchool degree programmes in the field.

One motivation for this initiative is the increasing number of job announcements asking for DH graduates, which emphasises the importance of curriculum and skills development in this field. Our aim is to see how iSchools can take this forward by asking what our role might be in the DH community. What might be the unique approach of iSchools in DH and what is it that distinguishes an iSchool's DH programme as opposed to one in other faculties and the wider academy? How might accreditation work and would it be advantageous or counter-productive by restricting innovation and diversity of curricula? What is the synergy between DH and the iSchool and what is the role for the latter in this arena? These are the questions addressed here.