Digital Humanities 101 - 2013/2014 - Course 8
Digital Humanities Laboratory
Melanie Fournier - Frederic Kaplan
Correction of the bias inmy grading
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Digital Humanities 101 - 2013/2014 - Course 8 | 2013 2o
Semester 1 : Content of each course
• (1) 19.09 Introduction to the course / Live Tweeting and Collective note
taking
• (2) 25.09 Introduction to Digital Humanities / Wordpress / First assignment
• (3) 2.10 Introduction to the Venice Time Machine project / Zotero
•9.10 No course
• (4) 16.10 Digitization techniques / Deadline first assignment
• (5) 23.10 Datafication / Presentation of projects
• (6) 30.10 Semantic modelling / RDF / Deadline peer-reviewing of first
assignment
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Digital Humanities 101 - 2013/2014 - Course 8 | 2013 3o
Semester 1 : Content of each course
• (7) 6.11 Pattern recognition / OCR / Semantic disambiguation
• (8) 13.11 Historical Geographic Information Systems, Procedural modeling /
City Engine / Deadline Project selection
• (9) 20.11 Crowdsourcing / Wikipedia / OpenStreetMap
• (10) 27.11 Cultural heritage interfaces and visualisation / Museographic
experiences
•4.12 Group work on the projects
•11.12 Oral exam / Presentation of projects / Deadline Project blog
•18.12 Oral exam / Presentation of projects
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Digital Humanities 101 - 2013/2014 - Course 8 | 2013 4o
Geographic Information System (GIS) within the DigitalHumanities
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Digital Humanities 101 - 2013/2014 - Course 8 | 2013 5o
What is a GIS ?
”A GIS is a kind of database management system that links each item of data to a
coordinate-based representation of its location, such as point, line, polygone, or pixel” (Ian N.
Gregory 2008).
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Digital Humanities 101 - 2013/2014 - Course 8 | 2013 6o
What is a GIS ?
”A GIS is a kind of database management system that links each item of data to a
coordinate-based representation of its location, such as point, line, polygone, or pixel” (Ian N.
Gregory 2008).
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Digital Humanities 101 - 2013/2014 - Course 8 | 2013 7o
The Historical Geographic Information System (H-GIS)
For approximately 17 years, the GIS and more specifically the ”Historical GIS” appeared,
carrying new potentialities for studying the past (Knowles 2002, 2005, 2008 ; Gregory and Ell
2008 ; Goodchild 2008).
•Geospatial technologies
•Analytical techniques
•Display and analyze information located somewhere on Earth
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Digital Humanities 101 - 2013/2014 - Course 8 | 2013 8o
The Historical Geographic Information System (H-GIS)
For approximately 17 years, the GIS and more specifically the ”Historical GIS” appeared,
carrying new potentialities for studying the past (Knowles 2002, 2005, 2008 ; Gregory and Ell
2008 ; Goodchild 2008).
•Geospatial technologies
•Analytical techniques
•Display and analyze information located somewhere on Earth
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Digital Humanities 101 - 2013/2014 - Course 8 | 2013 9o
Why scholars are insterested in GIS potentialities ?
•Visualization of information in a geographical/geopolitical context
•Examination of those information at different scales
•Finding, describing and explaining spatial patterns (Gregory 2008)
•Addition of collateral data
•Possibility of sharing the data (Goodchild 2008)
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Digital Humanities 101 - 2013/2014 - Course 8 | 2013 10o
Why scholars are insterested in GIS potentialities ?
•Visualization of information in a geographical/geopolitical context
•Examination of those information at different scales
•Finding, describing and explaining spatial patterns (Gregory 2008)
•Addition of collateral data
•Possibility of sharing the data (Goodchild 2008)
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Digital Humanities 101 - 2013/2014 - Course 8 | 2013 11o
What are themain challenges of using GIS within History ?
•Historians skepticism towards computer science (Gregory, Kemp and
Mostern 2001 ; Bodenhamer 2008)
•Historians relationship with geography and cartography
•Management and representation of uncertainty, incompleteness,
errorprone data
•Management of paradata (metadata within the GIS field)
•Access to the sources, documentation of the sources (Grossner 2010)
•Rectification of old maps
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Digital Humanities 101 - 2013/2014 - Course 8 | 2013 12o
What are themain challenges of using GIS within History ?
•Historians skepticism towards computer science (Gregory, Kemp and
Mostern 2001 ; Bodenhamer 2008)
•Historians relationship with geography and cartography
•Management and representation of uncertainty, incompleteness,
errorprone data
•Management of paradata (metadata within the GIS field)
•Access to the sources, documentation of the sources (Grossner 2010)
•Rectification of old maps
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Digital Humanities 101 - 2013/2014 - Course 8 | 2013 13o
Evolution of the projects
The 2004 conference ”History and Geography : Assessing the Role of Geographic Information
in Historical Scholarship” presented and criticized the first generation of projects (http:
// hul. harvard. edu/ publications/ hul_ notes_ 1319/ activities. html ).
The objective is, as the conference did, to give you a good idea of the variety of GIS
techniques for history.
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Digital Humanities 101 - 2013/2014 - Course 8 | 2013 14o
Scannedmanuscripts, transcription and GIS visualization.
Salem Witch Trials Archive - 2002
(http: // salem. lib. virginia. edu/ maps. html )
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Digital Humanities 101 - 2013/2014 - Course 8 | 2013 15o
The problem of administrative boundary changes.
•Nowadays borders/boundaries are seen as standard units.
•The main issues are : they shift through time, the representation of space
is different through time, sometimes it is even impossible to determine
the exact boundaries.
•Different possibilities exist to represent the administrative space
(polygons, polylines, or even points in certain cases).
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Digital Humanities 101 - 2013/2014 - Course 8 | 2013 16o
The problem of administrative boundary changes.
Great Britain Historical GIS - 2001
(http: // www. visionofbritain. org. uk/ ,http:
// www. gbhgis. org/ )
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Digital Humanities 101 - 2013/2014 - Course 8 | 2013 17o
The problem of administrative boundary changes.
China Historical GIS - 2001-2010
(http: // www. fas. harvard. edu/ ~ chgis/ )
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Digital Humanities 101 - 2013/2014 - Course 8 | 2013 18o
The problem of administrative boundary changes.
Collaborative GIS on Italian borders - 2012
(http: // geo-larhra. ish-lyon. cnrs. fr/ ?q=
atlas-historique/ regroupement-de-territoires )
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Digital Humanities 101 - 2013/2014 - Course 8 | 2013 19o
Digital editions of maps, Digital atlases
The Peutinger Map - 2004
(http: // peutinger. atlantides. org/ map-a/ ,
http ://www.cambridge.org/us/talbert/index.html)
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Digital Humanities 101 - 2013/2014 - Course 8 | 2013 20o
Digital editions of maps, Digital atlases
The Peutinger Map - 2004
(http: // peutinger. atlantides. org/ map-a/ ,
http ://www.cambridge.org/us/talbert/index.html)
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Digital Humanities 101 - 2013/2014 - Course 8 | 2013 21o
Digital editions of maps, Digital atlases
DARMC - Digital Atlas of Roman and Medieval Civilization
(http: // darmc. harvard. edu/ icb/ icb. do )
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Digital Humanities 101 - 2013/2014 - Course 8 | 2013 22o
Military History
The Valley of the Shadow - 1993-2007
(http: // valley. lib. virginia. edu/ )
The Battle of Gettysburg - 2013
(http: // storymaps. esri. com/ stories/ 2013/ gettysburg/ )
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Digital Humanities 101 - 2013/2014 - Course 8 | 2013 23o
Military History
The Valley of the Shadow - 1993-2007
(http: // valley. lib. virginia. edu/ )
The Battle of Gettysburg - 2013
(http: // storymaps. esri. com/ stories/ 2013/ gettysburg/ )
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Digital Humanities 101 - 2013/2014 - Course 8 | 2013 24o
Military History
The Valley of the Shadow - 1993-2007
(http: // valley. lib. virginia. edu/ )
The Battle of Gettysburg - 2013
(http: // storymaps. esri. com/ stories/ 2013/ gettysburg/ )
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Digital Humanities 101 - 2013/2014 - Course 8 | 2013 25o
Route planner
ORBIS : The Stanford Geospatial Network Model of the Roman World -
2012 (http: // orbis. stanford. edu )
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Digital Humanities 101 - 2013/2014 - Course 8 | 2013 26o
Modeling Venice Shipping Lanes - Demo with ArcGIS forDesktop 10.1
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Digital Humanities 101 - 2013/2014 - Course 8 | 2013 27o
Some softwares for your projects :
•Quantum GIS http://www.qgis.org/fr/site/
•GRASS GIS http://grass.osgeo.org/
•ArcGIS http://enacsoft.epfl.ch/lasig/
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Digital Humanities 101 - 2013/2014 - Course 8 | 2013 28o
Reconstructing past landscapes and urbanmorphology.
Nolli’s map - 2005 (http: // nolli. uoregon. edu/ preface. html )
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Digital Humanities 101 - 2013/2014 - Course 8 | 2013 29o
Reconstructing past landscapes and urbanmorphology.
Visualizing Venice - (http: // visualizingvenice. org/ about/ l )
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Digital Humanities 101 - 2013/2014 - Course 8 | 2013 30o
Reconstructing past landscapes and urbanmorphology.
Visualizing Venice - (http: // visualizingvenice. org/ about/ l )
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Digital Humanities 101 - 2013/2014 - Course 8 | 2013 31o
CityEngine Demo
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Digital Humanities 101 - 2013/2014 - Course 8 | 2013 32o
Conclusion
•Translating historical sources into a GIS database can be a complex and long process
(Knowles 2008, Gregory 2008).
•GIS provide/create new knowledge about geographies of the past.
•GIS offers an alternate view of the history (dynamic representation of time and place) and
it’s a good reflexive tool (Jessop 2004, Bodenhamer 2008).
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Digital Humanities 101 - 2013/2014 - Course 8 | 2013 33o
Conclusion
•Translating historical sources into a GIS database can be a complex and long process
(Knowles 2008, Gregory 2008).
•GIS provide/create new knowledge about geographies of the past.
•GIS offers an alternate view of the history (dynamic representation of time and place) and
it’s a good reflexive tool (Jessop 2004, Bodenhamer 2008).
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Digital Humanities 101 - 2013/2014 - Course 8 | 2013 34o
Conclusion
•Translating historical sources into a GIS database can be a complex and long process
(Knowles 2008, Gregory 2008).
•GIS provide/create new knowledge about geographies of the past.
•GIS offers an alternate view of the history (dynamic representation of time and place) and
it’s a good reflexive tool (Jessop 2004, Bodenhamer 2008).
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Digital Humanities 101 - 2013/2014 - Course 8 | 2013 35o
References
Gregory, Ian N., and Paul S. Ell. 2007. Historical GIS : Technologies, Methodologies, and
Scholarship. Cambridge University Press.
Grossner, Karl. 2010. Representing Historical Knowledge in Geographic Information Systems.
University of California, Santa Barbara.
Jessop, Martyn.2004. The visualization of Spatial Data in The Humanities. Literary and
Linguistic Computing 19 (3). pp. 335-350.
Knowles, Anne Kelly. 2002. Past Time, Past Place : Gis for History. ESRI, Inc.
Knowles, Anne Kelly, and Amy Hillier. 2008. Placing History : How Maps, Spatial Data, and
GIS Are Changing Historical Scholarship. ESRI, Inc.
http://www.maphistory.info/index.html
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Digital Humanities 101 - 2013/2014 - Course 8 | 2013 36o