Digital humanities degrees and supplemental credentials in Information Schools (iSchools)

3.2.1Website surveys

Universities publicize their DH programs through their websites – targeting perhaps mainly their own current and prospective students, but also reaching many potential audiences. These websites provided us with details of the structure of each DH program, thus making them a rich source of data. However, manual time and effort were required to interpret and collate data as each website presents relevant information in a different way, sometimes with different terminology. The iDHCC conducted initial data collection from websites in March 2019, investigating universities on all populated continents. Committee members recorded DH programs within both iSchools and other units in universities, including at institutions that lack iSchools. Each committee member primarily cataloged programs and regions they were already familiar with, so this was an ad hoc survey.

Although we prefer comprehensiveness in our study, several factors led to incomplete data collection. As an unfunded project, resources were limited. This manual website survey was done voluntarily, with committee members adding information as they had time in their already overwhelmed schedules. Additionally, many worldwide university websites lack information in languages known to iDHCC members. Thus, the goal for the manual ad hoc survey was not comprehensiveness, but rather just to get a general sense of the range of types of DH education that already exist. Although not ideal for our study here, we agree that getting a general sense of the available options is important. With our limited resources, we attempted to fill in the gaps of this initial ad hoc survey with the following data collection efforts.

3.2.2Online DH course registry

We supplemented the initial website survey dataset by examining the educational offerings listed in the CLARIN-DARIAH registry (https://dhcr.clarin-dariah.eu/). CLARIN, which stands for “Common Language Resources and Technology Infrastructure” and DARIAH, introduced above, are both European Research Infrastructure Consortiums (ERIC). CLARIN teamed together with DARIAH to create a registry that curates information about DH courses across Europe, with some coverage beyond. This source also has data challenges. Although it is the only comprehensive online catalog we found, it mostly focuses on European educational offerings. Furthermore, while this registry lists “DH courses,” the interpretation of this term is quite broad – and may include individual classes or entire programs. Several programs closely related to DH are also listed, such as computational linguistics, media, digital culture, and artificial intelligence. We filtered the results based on an explicit mention of “digital humanities,” “computational humanities,” “humanistic informatics,” and closely related terms in course titles. Although this data source provides uneven detail on the individual programs, its wide reach and ease-of-use made this an important part of our analysis at a high level.

3.2.3Online questionnaire survey

The iDHCC aimed to document DH activities at iSchools worldwide, in order to a) help expose planned and existing DH education programs at iSchools and b) encourage other iSchools to consider implementing DH programs. The committee therefore developed a brief online questionnaire to collect self-reported details from individual iSchools. The requested information included a DH program title, establishment year, the department or unit of the university responsible for the program, a link to the program webpage, a contact person, the types of credentials or degrees offered, specializations within DH, and collaborations with other parts of the university (see Appendix 1). Two separate forms gathered information about existing programs versus programs in the planning stages. The Sungkyunkwan University Data Lab administered the survey, which was created in November 2019 and pilot tested by several iDHCC members who entered information about their home iSchools.

The iDHCC emailed the survey to the heads of iSchools on January 9, 2020. Initial response rates were somewhat lackluster, so between May and October of 2020, we carefully targeted a new batch of individual emails at colleagues known to engage with DH at each iSchool. These emails tended to be sent out by iDHCC members who represented the target region. Also, based on the initial data collected, in June 2020 the committee decided to add the second form to allow iSchools to describe DH programs still in the planning stages. The uneven response rate, the varied details in each response, and the fact that multiple responses documented DH programs at their university but not within their iSchool, all make this a problematic dataset. Nonetheless, we have good targeted details for specific iSchool programs.

3.2.4North american iSchool website survey

Noting the limitations of the other data collection efforts, particularly in terms of their lack of comprehensiveness, and our own time constraints, we decided to undertake one comprehensive survey of websites of iSchools in a single region. We chose the North American region because of its deep history in the iSchools Organization and our own familiarity with the region. We searched all university websites in North America with iSchools to look for any DH-related topics. Of course, our data collection here was limited to the information universities have decided to publicly share. As we emphasize in our conclusion below, we hope others will build on our work by gathering additional comprehensive datasets about other regions.

The end result of bringing together all these public website-based data collection efforts – the initial manual ad hoc survey, the online registry and questionnaire, and the North American survey – is our current study, which can only provide a picture of worldwide DH education and degrees that is incomplete and rough but also, we believe, useful and timely.

4.2.1Online questionnaire survey

Out of 117 total iSchools, representatives from 36 iSchools filled out one of the two forms in the online questionnaire prior to October 15, 2020 (see Appendix 1 for the questionnaires). One of the forms was targeted at existing DH engagement (n= 32) while the other requested information about planned DH programs (n= 4). The 4 iSchools in the planning stage for DH programs include 2 in China (Shanghai University and Wuhan University), 1 in South Korea (Sungkyunkwan University), and 1 in the United States (Kent State University). Several iSchools in Europe wrote by email to inform us that they neither currently have a DH program nor plan to start one in the foreseeable future (n= 6), or are too early in the planning stages to contribute to the survey (n= 2). Thus, the response rate among all iSchools was about 37.6%, with some sort of response from almost two-fifths (44 out of 117). We also postulate that some iSchools did not fill in the online questionnaire or correspond with us because they have no existing or planned DH. For an inventory of the 32 iSchools that reported some type of existing engagement with DH in the online questionnaire, please see Table 1 below. The ways each iSchool engaged with DH varied widely, including: having faculty doing DH research, offering DH courses, collaborating with DH programs in another part of the university, or offering an iSchool degree or supplemental credential in DH.

4.2.1.1 Digital humanities credentials and programs

Among the 32 iSchools that filled in the online questionnaire describing DH engagement, some reported the official degrees and credentials outlined in Table 2 below. In total, 18 iSchools replied ‘yes’ to the question about whether their program or university issues a degree or credential in DH. Although the online form asked separate questions regarding the names of the program and of the degree, the fields were open text rather than multiple choice, therefore we received a wide range of values. Sometimes the name of a university or specific unit within the institution was input in the field for the “name of program.” Therefore, we combined the two questions – whether they had a DH program and whether they issued a degree in DH – in this analysis. Where possible, we tried to verify the information on a given website or to contact the person who entered the data.

4.2.1.2 DH program start years

The iSchool questionnaire participants were also asked to specify the year their DH program began. Figure 1 graphs the results of this question. The temporal pattern in the establishment of DH programs associated with iSchools follows the general trend of the development of the DH research field. Thus, the programs represented in our dataset began slowly in the 2000s and increased significantly in the 2010s. The earliest schools to introduce DH curricula were all in Europe – the University of Glasgow (2001), the University of Amsterdam (2003), and the University of Borås (2008). Although these initiatives may not specifically reference “Digital Humanities” in the program or credential title, they all integrate DH into many courses (cf. Table 2 above). The first iSchool program that explicitly used the term “Digital Humanities” in its title was established in 2010 at University College London (UCL), followed in 2011 by the University of California at Los Angeles and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and in 2012 by the University of Washington. Most of the DH programs reported in our dataset were developed after 2014, and, as mentioned above, a handful are still in the planning stages so they are counted with 2020.

Figure 1.

Quantitative groupings of iSchool DH programs by year of program start, based on data reported in the iDHCC online questionnaire.

4.2.1.3 Collaborations beyond the iSchool

Several of the DH educational programs outlined by the iSchool representatives in the online questionnaire are not hosted by the iSchool itself. The online form asked each iSchool about their collaborative efforts with units in their university beyond the iSchool. We can see from Fig. 2 that the majority of iSchools collaborate on DH education with other units (19 out of 32, or 59.4%). A much smaller portion specifically indicated that they do not actively collaborate on DH education (4 out of 32, or 12.5%), though this is likely changing all the time. For example, Dominican wrote “not currently” in this field, implying the possibility of future partnerships. The remainder of the iSchools provided no reply (9 out of 32, or 28.1%) as this was not a required field.

Figure 2.

Indication of collaboration reported by the iSchools through the iDHCC online questionnaire.

In terms of the details for how these different intra-university divisions collaborate with each other, we observe a wide variety of relationships. On the one hand, the iSchool may provide or accept course credits towards a DH degree. On the other hand, there may be a centralized DH center, to which the iSchool contributes classes or other expertise. The centralized DH center may also involve the university library. In many cases DH degree programs are situated in a department or faculty external to the iSchool, so the iSchool may engage with those external programs. Finally, in several cases the DH credential is combined with another degree, such as a masters in history, which means that these degrees may be inside or outside of the iSchool.

4.2.1.4 iSchools with DH in the planning stage

Each of the 4 iSchools in advanced planning stages intends to create a program that explicitly mentions digital humanities in the title. Kent State University indicated that it will start a program without a terminal degree in 2021, whereas the rest will start programs in 2020 – with Sungkyunkwan and Wuhan planning to offer a degree, but not Shanghai. Rather than a standalone degree, Kent State intends to establish two choices for students to complement their masters programs – a pathway in digital humanities or a summer school in digital conservation. Sungkyunkwan aims to offer DH education at all three educational tiers, with a BA in digital humanities, an MA in digital humanities, and a PhD in digital humanities. Wuhan, however, plans to offer an MS in digital humanities.

Two of the 4 iSchools in advanced stages of planning intend to officially engage with collaborators beyond their home iSchool. Sungkyunkwan is aiming for a broad audience by laying the groundwork for possible cross-university registration and virtual course sharing. They hope to support virtual and in-person student or faculty exchanges, including with the Sungkyunkwan College of Arts and Sciences’ DH Lab and groups at other universities, like Kent State. The iSchool at Sungkyunkwan is creating an iCollege that will serve as the center for all interdisciplinary teaching and research on campus. All humanities majors will be encouraged to do a dual major in DH, while social science students will be encouraged to take a dual major in social informatics. At Kent State, the pathway in digital humanities will include several courses from the applied data science minor, which is being planned separately and will also be hosted by the iSchool.

4.2.2North american website survey

As of October 2020, there were 51 iSchool members located in North America, covering the United States and Canada. In the Fall of 2020, we undertook a detailed manual survey of iSchool websites in order to find any information about DH (see Appendix 3 for details not listed in the tables here). The main result indicates that a relatively small percentage of iSchools directly offer their own DH credential, with only 8 of the 51 directly offering a DH credential (see Table 3). Five of these had also self-reported in the iDHCC survey – reflecting perhaps that those who chose to answer that questionnaire were in fact the only programs currently engaging in DH. Among the 8 with credentials, 6 iSchools offer their own supplemental graduate credential, most often described as a certificate but also referred to as a specialization or pathway. Additionally, the University of Oklahoma iSchool has a joint DH graduate certificate with administrative units outside the iSchool and the Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis iSchool offers a joint undergraduate minor with other units outside the iSchool.

Among the 51 North American universities that host iSchools, 32 of them had some sort of official DH program either in a central administrative unit like the library or in another academic division, usually a humanities department (63%, or almost two-thirds). About one-third of those DH programs engaged the iSchool in some publicly apparent way (11), of which 2 of these also had an official DH program within the iSchool (the University of Oklahoma and the University of Texas at Austin, mentioned above). We found that at least 9 iSchools offer dual degrees with humanities programs, and so these may have some affinity with DH (see Table 4). For example, several iSchools offer a joint masters degree between history and iFields like library or information sciences. It may be the case that some of these joint programs existed prior to the rise in popularity of the term “digital humanities,” so that if they were to be developed today they might promote themselves as DH. Interestingly, most of these universities have another unit at the university that explicitly conducts research in DH or offers degrees in DH.

Much more challenging to ascertain with precision is how engaged individual faculty members in each North American iSchool are in DH. We were able to gather information that indicates that at least 23 iSchools have faculty members involved in DH in some way – whether through research or by teaching individual DH courses. There were at least 14 iSchools that listed courses that were specifically branded as DH, many of these in the iSchools that explicitly offer a DH credential as listed above.

Thus overall, we see the same patterns as outlined in the prior section about the iDHCC online questionnaire. DH is not usually offered in an iSchool, instead being offered by another administrative unit at the university. Several iSchools offer dual degree programs, which may have existed since before DH became popular. In general, iSchools are more likely to have individual faculty who engage in some way with DH rather than the iSchool implementing any official program. The other observation is that among the few iSchools that offer a DH degree, none of them are terminal degrees, rather they are all supplemental credentials, which was the preference we outlined before for North American DH.

5.2.1Degrees and supplemental credentials

As mentioned above, 4 iSchools reported in the online questionnaire that they are planning to offer their own DH programs, thus highlighting the potential for iSchools to implement the degrees and supplemental credentials we have documented here. Partnerships with humanities departments can be useful, but iSchools should take on a prominent leadership role in implementing DH either as part of these partnerships or on their own. The specific degrees or credentials that an iSchool should establish will depend to some extent on geography, as mentioned above. Given that many iSchools only focus on graduate-level education, our primary recommendation is to offer a graduate certificate or a full masters degree. If, however, an iSchool tends to work at the undergraduate level, then a full bachelors or a minor in DH could be added to the curriculum. We do not see much difference between a masters of science (MS), a masters of arts (MA), or masters of philosophy (MPhil) – or between a bachelors of science (BS) or a bachelors of arts (BA) – and we wonder how the differentiation would be justified in each case. Perhaps an MS or BS would be preferred to highlight the technical nature of the degree as the arts aspect of the degree would already be captured by the “humanities” in DH. We cannot recommend that any university offer a doctoral degree at this time as there may be complications for placing students who earn such a degree, given the lack of DH departments. We also do not recommend ad hoc educational models such as summer schools or continuing education as they cannot offer the depth of experience needed to master the skills in this field. Further recommendations could be guided by future research and evaluation of the relative success of different degree programs.

5.2.2Partnerships

At a high level, a university will benefit the most when a wide variety of strengths are leveraged and combined from all sectors of the community. Since iSchools have significant experience and knowledge to offer to DH programs, they can valuably boost any DH effort. The iDHCC survey demonstrated that several iSchools already have existing collaborations with external units. These programs interconnect in a wide variety of ways – from cross-listing courses, to engaging in advanced research together, and supporting shared degrees and credentials. Partnerships can be valuable, but we should emphasize that iSchools should avoid serving in a subordinate capacity within official interdisciplinary relationships. Collaborations should be seen as an opportunity for iSchools to receive important university-wide recognition for their work. In particular, one area where we see iSchools adding a missing component to DH programs is in the support of a broad implementation of DH while simultaneously underpinning research with deep technical knowledge. When a DH program is hosted by a specific humanities department – such as English or linguistics – it often becomes very focused on a specific set of questions and methods to the exclusion of other important DH topics. An iSchool could act as a facilitator of collaboration across many different subdisciplines and support technical work on a wide range of data types. For example, one could foresee a role for an iSchool in bringing together text-based researchers with those working on material culture – thus bridging the divides between the different software, workflows, data types, and research questions inherent to each area of study.

Among the North American universities with iSchools, the part of the university most engaged with DH tends not to be the iSchool itself, but rather an administrative unit in another area. At these universities, humanities departments or centralized units like libraries, are usually the leaders in implementing DH education. Future research could compare this structural trend to those in other geographical regions of the world. Cases where DH has already been established, but iSchools are not yet a central player, show two potential avenues for engagement between iSchools and DH – first through the dual degrees we documented at some of these iSchools and second through leveraging the traditional role iSchools play in training librarians (Sula, 2013). Dual degree programs often take the form of a masters degree in a domain such as history together with a masters degree in an iField such as information science. The main downside to such dual degrees is, of course, the costs for the students – both temporal and financial. Furthermore, these programs may lack true integration of ideas. Despite these drawbacks, however, they may still serve as good stepping-stones for the future development of more integrated degrees. The prospect for iSchools to help train specialists to work as DH professionals in libraries is quite appealing, especially since iSchool degrees often qualify students for job placement in libraries.

As members of iSchools, we believe that iSchools have a lot to offer to DH research and teaching, particularly given the traditional focus on human-computer interactions. Therefore, we hope that iSchools will continue to actively seek out potential partnerships with humanities departments and other units at their universities.

5.2.3An eye towards employability

As iSchools consider implementing new degrees and credentials, they also need to consider possible career paths for their graduates. There are several potential groups of students who might be attracted to undertake DH education in iSchools. For example, students with bachelors degrees in humanities may be interested in a masters degree with a strong focus on information technologies, recognizing this knowledge as highly desirable in the job market. Another potential audience may be GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums) professionals looking to update their technology and information skillsets. Elementary, middle, and high school teachers may also want to learn more about digital methods and digital transformations of society to help better prepare our children. Information technology professionals from many backgrounds – database administrators, web developers, robotics programmers, etc. – may be looking for a career change where they can bring their existing skills into humanities fields. Any of these audiences would already feel welcome in joining an iSchool program. Considering each of these potential DH student groups, there are some interesting prospects for students after they complete their degree. For example, a challenge facing the GLAM and cultural heritage sector is the lack of technology-literate team members. Potential employees generally either know technology really well but find it hard to understand the application context, or vice versa (Billore & Golub, 2017). Therefore, carefully curating both skillsets through a DH degree in an iSchool may raise the employability of people with humanities backgrounds and may provide a pathway into the humanities for people with technology backgrounds.

One may also foresee several new roles undertaken in existing jobs or even the creation of entirely new kinds of jobs. Obvious examples include the need for programmers, web developers, and project managers within DH centers or on DH projects; librarians who provide data management guidance, metadata expertise, or other digitization-related advice; school teachers who can integrate technologies into the classroom; and academics or researchers in the humanities or related fields. Examples of potential jobs found on the Digital Humanities Now website (https://digitalhumanitiesnow.org/category/news/job/) include DH project managers, DH librarians, DH center coordinators/directors, technical developers, tenure-track positions in DH, and DH post-docs. Hopefully, the unique blend of technology and humanities skills that an iSchool could impart during a DH degree program would make students competitive for such jobs.

5.2.4Terminology

Perhaps the biggest challenge we found during our research was the wide range of terminology and definitions used by the different programs. This can make it difficult to equate specific degrees, tiers, or types of intra-university engagement across different universities and continents. The field of DH is continuously evolving these days, and we anticipate that it will not settle over the course of the next decade either. However, we also anticipate that more and more humanities scholars will take part in tasks that could be classified as DH. Digital methods are pervading every part of our lives, including our academic work. For the benefit of students, we recommend uniformity in the names of the degrees and credentials to follow mainstream trends, particularly so that potential employers will easily understand the qualifications of candidates. For example, many people outside academia may not know what a “pathway” means as part of a credential, but they may be familiar with the more common concept of a “graduate certificate.” Therefore, to avoid a fragmented field, the most common terms should be used for naming DH degrees and credentials. For a supplemental credential at the graduate level, the term “graduate certificate” should be used instead of any of these terms: concentration, specialization, pathway, track, minor, diploma, and badge. At the undergraduate level, the very common term “minor” should be used for a supplemental credential in DH, and the following terms should be avoided: certificate, concentration, specialization, honors degree, badge. Although there may be an argument for some regional differentiation in these terms, in most cases these are standard across the world.