Digital Humanities Distributed Lab

sotonDH gained funding from the Student Centredness fund to integrate spaces in the Faculty through online technology to create a single distributed lab. This is now being expanded to connect to other facilities at Highfield currently (music and computer science), and WSA. Social media technology will be tailored to offer students involved in Digital Humanities the opportunity to collaborate and share activities. Teaching and learning within the spaces will be adapted to benefit from the environment with pre-configured webcams for broadcasting lectures and multi-disciplinary seminars.

There will also be wall-mounted LCD touch screens that will provide DH activity updates and message-boards. When not in use for teaching they can revert to ambient display for Twitter feeds etc. Other equipment will include a room of Apple Mac computers configured with Final Cut Pro X for students to edit their own movies and media files.

We are also investing in a selection of film equipment – cameras, sound recording equipment etc for students to loan. In addition there will be a room configured with high specification Windows based PCs for students to utilise all aspects of time based media. Both rooms at Avenue Campus will have updated furniture with additional space for relaxed seating. A companion website will be created to offer students working on similar but disconnected projects an opportunity to network, collaborate and share their research.

Technical interventions will emphasise connectedness and create a persistent awareness of research occurring in the digital humanities across the university. Student-driven projects, emphasising the fun aspects of research, will break down the boundaries between digital humanities disciplines.