Course Details
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End of term feedback
I take your feedback on this course very seriously! The university will have general course evals open later this week, but your feedback on some questions more specific to this class will be very helpful for me. Your name, email, or IP address is not recorded with this form, and I will not look at responses until after grades are submitted.
I would also appreciate your time identifying your classmates who have been the most helpful for you this semester. This form does ask for your name, but I will not identify anyone’s responses to anyone else in class. I will use your responses on this form for bumping up grades of anyone others in class found particularly helpful, but no one will be penalized based on these responses.
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Final Project Guidelines
Your final project should be quantitative, argument-driven and interactive. The details are up to you. A project which is more heavily qualitative might only have one or two interactive visual elements; a heavily interactive project might have less essay text.
At a minimum, your project proposal should identify the dataset/s you’ll be working with, your team, and your goals. Your proposal must include:
- a data critique
- an outline of data cleaning you anticipate might be necessary
- a brief secondary bibliography of other works related to your data
- an outline of possible research questions or anticipated argument (think grant proposal)
- an outline of goals for possible data visualizations and reader interactions
- an outline of each persons’ responsibilities and roles if proposing a team project
- a timeline of project milestones, in addition to the April 9 wireframe due date and May 16 final due date
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First Day of Class
Dr. Kane has to be out of town for our first day of class, so in lieu of our normal first day of class meeting, please review and complete the items below. Paper syllabi are available in the History Department office. The reading/assignment schedule and course policies are also available online.
- Download the software or create the accounts listed in the course requirements post.
- Make an introductory post in our course Slack channel.
- Read the articles assigned for January 24 for your degree track (Everyone = undergrads, MA and PhD students, Grad = MA and PhD students only). Post about your thoughts on the readings in the #readings_discussion Slack channel. You can respond to the discussion questions I’ve posted, post your own questions, or discuss other aspects of the readings. Please post your responses by the end of our normal class time, 11:35 on Tuesday January 24.
- Begin the Basic HTML & CSS assignment. This assignment is due Thursday January 31, so try to get through Lesson 1 and at least part of Lesson 2 by our next meeting on Tuesday January 29. We will discuss any problems in class on Jan 29, so it will be helpful for you if you have attempted a large part of the assignment.
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Team Project Guidelines
For the final project, you may choose to work with a team. Teams will be self-selected and may be 2 to 4 members. If you commit to a team project, you may not switch to an individual project.
Project & Visual Design Lead
This person is responsible for coordinating deadlines and ensuring a cohesive looking final product. This includes the creation of a stylesheet for team members to follow, in collaboration with other team members.
Data & Visualizations Lead
This person is responsible for coordinating the cleaning of the chosen dataset and coordinating the creation of all data visualizations for the final project. This person must work closely with the Writing and Code Leads.
Code & Layout Lead
This person is responsible for writing an HTML page from scratch and coordinating embeds with the Data Lead. This person is responsible for implementing the visual design of the project in CSS.
Writing & Analysis Lead
This person is responsible for coordinating drafts of the essay text. This person is primarily responsible for smoothly integrating analysis and reference to figures or embeds in the essay.
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Data
“Records of the Reformed Dutch Church of Albany, New York, 1683–1809.” https://mathcs.clarku.edu/~djoyce/gen/albany/refchurch.html. [Download]
“Founder’s Online Metadata.” National Archives, December 11, 2017. https://www.archives.gov/open/nhprc/dataset-founders-online. [Download]
Benjamin Franklin, “Post Office Book, 1748-1752.” American Philosophical Society. https://diglib.amphilsoc.org/islandora/object/post-office-book-1748-1752#page/1/mode/1up [Download]
Billy G. Smith, “Almshouse Admissions Philadelhia 1796-1803.” https://repository.upenn.edu/mead/42/ [Download]
Billy G. Smith, “Philadelphia Census of Almshouse 1807-1810” https://repository.upenn.edu/mead/2/ [Download]
“Directory of the City of Albany, 1815.” Albany Public Library. [Download] (NB: There is no external ‘about’ for this data)
“US Census, City of Albany 1850-1940.” https://data2.nhgis.org/main [Download extract] (This is a VERY large spreadsheet, use only if you have a speedy computer!)
John Hammond, “Revivals in New York and Ohio, 1825-1835.” https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR07754.v1 [Download NY extract]
Wendy Lucas and Noel Campbell, “George Washington’s Shipping Invoices from London Factors 1754-1772.” https://repository.upenn.edu/mead/25/ [Download textiles extract data] [Download key]
“African Names, African Origins: Transatlantic Slave Trade.” http://www.african-origins.org/. [Download]
“England’s Immigrants 1330 – 1550.” https://www.englandsimmigrants.com/. [Download]
“University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology – Online Collections – Data.” https://www.penn.museum/collections/data.php. [Download early modern extract]
Albany County National Historic Places Register [Download]
Sharon Howard. “Middlesex Convicts Delivered For Transportation 1785-92.” Zenodo, November 21, 2015. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.34086. [Download]
“Eastern State Penitentiary Admission Books.” American Philosophical Society. https://search.amphilsoc.org/collections/view?docId=ead/Mss.365.P381p-ead.xml [Download]
Wendy Lucas and Noel Campbell, “York County Probate Records 1700-1800.” https://repository.upenn.edu/mead/26/ [Download data] [Download key]
Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman, “Slave Sales and Appraisals, 1775-1865,” https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR07421.v3 [Download]
“Whaling Crew List Database.” https://www.whalingmuseum.org/online_exhibits/crewlist/about.php [Download]
“The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database.” http://www.slavevoyages.org/voyage/search# [Download]
Evert Wendell, Account Book. [Download] (NB: there is no external ‘about’ for this data, but a published version is available as To Do Justice to Him and Myself)
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Course Requirements
Required software (please download and install these on a computer you can bring to class):
- A text editor like Atom, Sublime Text, or Komodo Edit (not Komodo IDE).
- Tableau Public
- OpenRefine
- Zotero
- An internet browser that is NOT Internet Explorer or Safari
Required accounts:
- A working Gmail account that you can easily log in to
- A Zotero account. Join the course Zotero group.
- A Slack account. You must sign up with your Albany email! Slack is a private group chat platform. You can use Slack in a browser or in the Slack app, both are fine.
- An account for the course blog.
- Please choose account names that are safe for work and identifiable as you. This does not need to be your full name!
Software you might want to download later in the semester, depending on your final project: