The wait is finally over and our third group of Digital Scholarship Summer Research Fellows kicked off their summer this week. We are lucky enough to have funding for five students this year! The pool of applicants this year was incredibly strong and we are so excited to work the students on their unique projects this summer.
L to R: Morgan McMullen ’21, Meredith Newman ’21, Cassie Brown ’22, Lily Li ’21, and Aung Pyae Phyo ’21
This year we really wanted to give the fellows an opportunity to focus on their research and research questions at the beginning of the program so when we get to the digital tools they will already have a firm grasp of their topics and how they want to approach their projects. To that end, our fellows had the opportunity to learn about some project and research management tools on Wednesday that will help them throughout the summer to keep their research running smoothly. On Thursday, each student met with one of the research librarians to jumpstart their research. Based on their feedback these sessions proved incredibly useful and the students already have a good foundation to build their projects. In addition to the meetings with the librarians, APP met with University Archivist, Isabella O’Neill, and Morgan had the opportunity to meet with Wes Bernstein, Digital Pedagogy Specialist for Video to further supplement their respective research.
Thursday also provided the fellows an opportunity to discuss the “Whys” and “Whats” of the field and practice of Digital Humanities and how we approach Digital Scholarship here at Bucknell. We had a great conversation and I expect it is a conversation we will revisit as the fellows dive deeper into their projects.
To wrap up the week we had Digital Pedagogy Specialist, Brandon Karcher, in to talk to the students about writing for an audience. Brandon led the students through an exercise to get them thinking about what is important about their projects and how that will get conveyed to their respective audience. I think Brandon really challenged the students to think about who their audience is going to be and how there audience may influence and change how they are able to talk about their projects.
Next week is the first full week of the program and it is sure to be just as jam packed as the first three days!