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taylorcate / NuttingVariorum

This is the public repository for The Digital Variorum of Wordsworth's "Nutting," created by Taylor Brown—Textual Studies and Digital Humanities Master's student at Loyola University Chicago.
https://taylorcate.github.io/NuttingVariorum/
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Week 2 Assignment - DIGH 501 #5

Closed taylorcate closed 5 years ago

taylorcate commented 5 years ago

Statement of Topic:

In this project, I will transform an existing digital edition—of my own creation—into a fully linked, version-controlled, interactive website and digital flipbook which calls upon the various versions of the poem as potential paths for users to follow.

Methodological Questions:

  1. Is Textual Studies work suitable for or, at least, adaptable to a public, developer platform such as GitHub?
  2. Will it be advantageous to markup the versions of the poem in TEI-XML? Will there be enough time to transform that markup into something that invites users into the site?
  3. Is Book Creator the appropriate platform to construct the digital flipbook? See project four, Animate Poem for notes and links regarding Book Creator.
  4. Will a simple GitHub Pages site be enticing enough for users to want to visit?
  5. If I am not permitted to use the manuscript images of the poem, will a variorum edition that doesn't have facsimile images of the manuscripts be appealing to anyone?

Interpretive Questions:

  1. Is a digital edition of Wordsworth's poetry useful or desirable in today's academic and political climate?
  2. Can a poem about one boy's experience be universally transferable?
  3. Is a flipbook too childish? And, if so, is the complexity of studying versions too much for an application that only attracts young users?
  4. Every edition has an argument, so what's mine? Universally: we all exist in many versions, and only in reflection do we see how those versions make up the people we are today. Pragmatically: we learn and retain information better when we feel as though we have some part in its creation or its ordering.
  5. Is calling it a "Digital Variorum" already overly presumptuous of audience and, therefore, pushing potential non-academic users away?
taylorcate commented 5 years ago

Landscape Scan:

Investigated Website, For Better For Verse

Answers to Questions:

  1. This project is a tool and database of selected texts. The site is interactive and pedagogical in its construction but has an integrated database from which the tool pulls.
  2. The project was authored by Herbert Tucker, professor of English at the University of Virginia, and sponsored by the UV Department of English and Scholar's Lab.
  3. The background and timing of the project are not described in the documentation—at least not on the project's website.
  4. The project's mission is to help users learn to scan verse. The tool could be very helpful for students of English trying to memorize the meter of various poems as it functions a bit like a study tool. I feel, functionally, the tool succeeds; however, there are design elements that interrupt the ease of learning.
  5. The level of transparency in this project is very low. There is a great deal written about the tool, how to use it, and the importance of scansion, but almost nothing about the creators, timeline, trials, or development.
  6. The project seems finished, however, I think a second iteration or resuscitation of design may benefit it.
  7. The website was built using bootstrap and the tool embedded therein. I think the documentation is severely under-linked and that not much time was spent utilizing the dynamism of the digital environment.
  8. The user community would probably be majority graduate students and professors, however, I could see a professor assigning this to undergraduates as well.
  9. Can you find the project cited? The University of Victoria includes the project in their Pedagogy Toolkit.
  10. The argument I see this project defending is: the mechanics of verse are complex and we should demystify them with the tools we have before interest in it is gone forever.
  11. There are no social media handles present on the site. The only promotion is for the UV Department of English and Scholar's Lab. My guess is Herbert Tucker is promoting the project through his personal scholarship.
  12. The site is a bit convoluted. The tool is front and center on the splash page and it is not clear how you proceed to use it. The instructions are stashed away on a static webpage two tabs away from the tool itself and they're combined with general information about the importance of scanning. The tool itself is difficult to see because the contrasts aren't great enough to distinguish syllables in the words and the icons are small and seemingly arbitrary.
  13. I think what's at stake is people's interest in scansion as an appreciative art. There are shortcomings, but this tool could really be useful for those studying meter. I think if some effort was made to improve the design of the site and incorporate some sort of project social media presence, they would find a great deal more success drawing unidentified or unanticipated users in.