Advocacy by Design

Description

This course helps participants consider how their own priorities and values shape the research and design of digital work. For us, a digital humanities that practices critical engagement means centering our priorities and values to make all aspects of our work—research content, project design and development, and community/user interaction—advocate for the people and materials represented within and affected by our work.

Through topics such as feminist design, metadata and information design, and accessibility, participants will gain a set of approaches and methods that they can apply in their own work. Instructors will survey participants before the course to identify tools, methods, and projects of interest. Based on the survey responses, we will learn how to:

• evaluate, use, modify, and critique identified tools and methods and projects;
• begin developing research and development plans for projects that articulate their own priorities for critical engagement;
• practice scoping and prototyping their own projects.

As we work toward these outcomes, we will survey a range of existing critical and applied work related to advocacy, social justice, and Digital Humanities. Course activities will include both reading/discussion and practice-based workshop activities. We place a particular importance on praxis and tacit knowledge, so we will investigate topics through making and critiquing prototypes.