course syllabus, doing digital scholarship, Jankowski, Ljubljana2012, version 3, 11Feb2012

1. Instructor: Nicholas W. Jankowski
University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Social Sciences
Office: C 228
nickjan@xs4all.nl
Academic year 2011/12; second semester: 23 February – 7 June 2011
Note: This syllabus is for Part 2 of the course Internet Practice and is for the period: 17 April – 7 June. Part 1 is taught by Jernej Prodnik
and has a separate syllabus.
Meeting locations:
Tuesdays: FDV 20; 16.00-18.00
Thursdays: FDV 24; 18.00-20.00
Version 4: 11 February 2012
INTERNET PRACTICE: PART 2
DOING DIGITAL SCHOLARSHIP:
DISCOVERING AND USING DIGITAL TOOLS IN ACADEMIC WORK
General Information
This course introduces and provides opportunity to practice using a wide range of digital tools that facilitate academic
practice. Some of the tools are integrated into the services provided by university and specialized research libraries; some
are provided by the publishers of academic journals. Other tools come from commercial companies and academic
institutions: Google, Microsoft, Facebook, the Center for History and New Media (CHNM), and the Oxford Internet
Institute (OII). Yet other tools are contributed by individual scholars and research groups. This course, designed as a
practicum, will introduce a panorama of these tools and initiatives to first-year university students. This introduction is
intended to contribute to the basic palette of research skills expected from students throughout their academic career.
This practicum is Part 2 of the course Internet Practice. Part 1 is taught by Jernej Prodnik and is elaborated in a separate
document. This part of the course is taught by Nick Jankowski and will meet twice-weekly during the second half of the
semester, April-June 2012; see schedule below. One of the weekly meetings, held on Tuesdays, will be devoted to
describing and demonstrating digital tools for scholarship; the second weekly meeting, held on Thursdays, is located in a
computer laboratory and will involve in-class assignments related to the topics of that week.
During this course students will read and comment on draft chapters of a textbook in preparation: Doing Digital
Scholarship: Principles & Issues, Tools & Resources. Some secondary literature will be assigned related to themes in the
book. Much of the course material will be made available on a course website. Students will be expected to maintain
course-related blogs. Homework assignments will be submitted in folders on the course website and will be discussed
during the weekly sessions.
Some of the tools to be considered during the practicum include:
 Reference management tools (e.g., RefWorks, Mendeley, EndNote);
 Tools for annotating (e.g. Zotero), and note-taking (e.g., OneNote);
 Social bookmarking and tagging tools (e.g., RSS, delicious, diigo);
 Sharing and exchange sites (e.g., YouTube, Flickr, Picasa, Jing, Camtasia);
 Tools supporting collaborative work such as web conferencing (Adobe Connect, WebEx, Elluminate), co-authoring
of texts (e.g., Google Docs), and file sharing (e.g., Dropbox);
 Social network sites (e.g., Facebook, Linkedln, Twitter), particularly as used in academic settings;
 Game and virtual world sites as venues for learning and scholarship (e.g., Second Life, OpenSim);
 Virtual collaboration environments (e.g., wikis, MediaCommons);
 Presentation software (e.g., Prezi), venues for publishing (e.g., SlideShare, Scribd), and archiving scholarship (e.g.,
SSRN).
For each week of the practicum literature assignments will be made, along with in-class exercises. In addition, a personal
blog is to be established for this course by each student that will serve as a journal in which students are to reflect on the
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2. topics of the course and share ‘discoveries’ regarding digital tools for scholarship. Posts to this blog may be short and may
address a wide range of issues in an equally wide range of styles: opinions, reflections, reviews, and synopses of readings.
These blogs are designed to present ideas in rough, unpolished form and may relate to the weekly literature assignments.
Further information on this aspect of the course is contained in a separate document entitled ‘Blogging in an Academic
Setting’, which is available on the course website.
Short online quizzes will be periodically held at the end of practicum sessions. Most assignments will be completed
individually, but some collaborative group activities will be included in the schedule. Although a formal seminar paper is
not one of the requirements for this part of the course, students will be expected to prepare the ‘building blocks’ of such
papers: notes on literature, composition of short reflective texts, and bibliographic entries. The practicum will conclude
with recorded presentations (e.g., YouTube videos, slide casts); a selection of these materials will be viewed and
discussed during the last two sessions of the practicum.
Presentations by Professor Jankowski will be in English. Assignments (homework, blog posts, and presentations) are also
to be prepared in English. The seminar is predicated on attendance and active participation, and the grading procedure
reflects these requirements. Contributions to class discussions, preparation of written assignments, and blog postings
provide opportunity for such participation.
Course Website
Materials related to the course (e.g., readings, assignments) will be stored and made available on the course website. A
tour of the website will be given during the first meeting of the course.
Grading
The grade for Part 2 of the course Internet Practice will be based on a weighting of the following components:
 contribution to class discussions 20%
(blogs, discussion forums, class meetings)
 homework assignments 40%
 periodic quiz-style exams 25%
 final presentation 15%
This grade will count for 50% of the entire course grade.
Course instructor
Nicholas W. Jankowski is Associate Researcher at the e-Humanities Group of the Royal Netherlands Academy for Arts and
Sciences (KNAW). He has been researching community and new media since the mid-1970s. During this period, he has co-
edited some half-dozen books on community media, research methodology and new media. Recently published volumes
include: Internet and National Elections: A Comparative Study of Web Campaigning (Routledge, 2007) and e-Research:
Transformation in Scholarly Practice (Routledge, 2009), and The Long History of New Media (Peter Lang, 2011). Jankowski
is initiator and co-editor of the journal New Media & Society. He is founding board member of the European Institute of
Communication and Culture (Euricom) and editor of the Hampton Press book series Euricom Monographs: New Media
and Democracy.
First meeting
The first meeting of the practicum is scheduled for Tuesday, 17 April, in room FDV 20. After an informal introduction by
all attending, Jankowski will provide an overview of the course and digital tools available for doing scholarship. As form of
preparation, students will be invited to complete an online survey regarding awareness and use of digital tools for
academic work. In addition, students will be asked to consider the following question in preparation for this meeting:
What experiences have you already had with online learning tools such as: social networking sites, peer-to-peer
communication, collaborative tools, digital libraries, online literature resources, and social science databases?
Planning
Date Activity
17 Apr. Meeting 1: Introduction to practicum & Doing Digital Scholarship
19 Apr. Meeting 2: Practicum: Exploring library resources & literature databases (e.g., JSTOR, SAGE Journals);
preparing academic blogs
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3. 24 Apr. Meeting 3: Digital libraries: panorama of resources
26 Apr. Meeting 4: Practicum: searching library & institutional databases
01 May Meeting 5: Reference software (e.g., RefWorks, Mendeley, EndNote)
03 May Meeting 6: Practicum: preparing bibliographies with reference software
08 May Meeting 7: Note-taking & annotation software (e.g., Zotero, OneNote)
10 May Meeting 8: Practicum: note-taking & annotation exercises
15 May Meeting 9: Online collaboration tools (e.g., Skype, Dropbox, Google Docs)
17 May Meeting 10: practicum: exercises in using collaboration tools
22 May Meeting 11: : social media and scholarship (e.g., Facebook, IM, LinkedIn, Twitter)
24 May Meeting 12: Practicum: exercises social media & scholarship (incl. social bookmarking tools)
29 May Meeting 13: presenting & publishing (e.g., SlideShare, Scribd, SSRN, Prezi)
31 May Meeting 14: exercises in exploring / using presentation / publication tools
05 June Meeting 13: Presentations of student projects
07 June Meeting 14: Presentations of student projects
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