DH Toolbox: Winter 2024

13 February: Data Management Therapy for Digitally Curious Humanists

Feeling confused, frustrated, and insecure in your data curation management challenges? You are not alone! In a fun, positive facilitated environment, participants will share their own data curation challenges with other researcher and data support professionals. Dr. Tayler and Fatou Bah will raise your local data support option awareness and work on your feelings about ethics and data security. 

Special Event! Women’s Day Wikipedia Edit-a-thon

The DH Toolbox series will collaborate with the Lesbian and Gay Liberation in Canada project to host a Wikipedia edit-a-thon in celebration of International Women’s Day! Visit the event page for more details!

27 February: Citizens of the web and social media in French as a second language!

  • Marie-Josée Hamel, Full Professor (Official Languages and Bilingualism Institute)

Dr. Hamel’s research focuses on language training and digital literacy in open contexts (Caws et al. 2021). In this workshop, she will share the pillars of this socio-interactional approach adopted to help students, through various types of online tasks, become true citizens of the web and social media in their second language. She’ll share some of her favourite examples of what she’s accomplished over the years, such as articles on Franco-Ontarian cities on Wikivoyage, virtual guided tours of Unusual Ottawa, and influencer-style YouTube videos!

12 March: Creating Open Educational Resources (OER)  

  • Mélanie Brunet, Open Education Librarian (Interim) (Library)
  • Paul-Cezar Tanase, Learning Support Technician (Library)

This session will introduce participants to the process of creating free learning resources that can be reused and adapted without the usual copyright restrictions. Join us to learn about the support offered by the Library, its services, and two applications: Pressbooks for digital publishing and H5P Studio to create interactive learning objects. It will also be an opportunity to discuss how open educational resources can have a positive impact on teaching practices and students. 

Access the presentation slides via the uO Research portal.

26 March: (Un)Familiar Tunes: Radio Programming and the Curation of Canadian Country Music Culture

  • Jada Watson, Assistant Professor of Digital Humanities (School of Information Studies)

In Fall 2018, Dr. Watson launched SongData, a research program that explores the potential for using music industry data to learn more about the formation, development, and evolution of music genres. Through this program, she’s developing approaches for using information about songs and artists to explore the connections between musicians and the broader socio-cultural and institutional frameworks that govern genres. Representation has been a critical topic at the centre of this work, with studies that explore the ways in which data-driven practices within the industry privilege some artists while disadvantaging others. In this session, Dr. Watson will tell us more about SongData’s latest project on the Canadian Country music industry! Tracing data through radio playlists, popularity charts, awards, and festivals, she’ll highlight the role that data play in curating a country music culture, showing how radio programming obscures and even erases contributions of women and BIPOC artists… creating a body of unfamiliar tunes.