I’ve recently finished reading an entire semester’s worth of entries of the blog for the course History 696: Introduction to History and New Media, taught by Mills Kelly at George Mason University. It looked like a very interesting course, conducted as a graduate seminar with students required to post entries on the course blog. Not only is it a good example of the use of a blog in the classroom, it offers some interesting insights on digital scholarship as well as pointers to worthwhile web sites.

From one of the grad students:

Digital scholarship becomes exciting for its makers in a more selfish way as well. It allows the scholar to present more of his or her research and ideas. Not in some tacked on, rarely looked at appendix (everyone knows you don’t even need your appendix!), but in an integrated, and, consequently, more relevant fashion. Both textually and graphically, the medium creates a facility for transmitting knowledge which other forms lack, and provides a freedom of presentation to the scholar previously unavailable. It also upsets the hierarchy of publishing, opening access to new and untapped audiences, while encouraging old ones to experiment with new forms. While its definition is far from solidified, it is clear digital scholarship has promise.

The line that really stands out in that statement on digital scholarship is “Both textually and graphically, the medium creates a facility for transmitting knowledge which other forms lack, and provides a freedom of presentation to the scholar previously unavailable.”

A look at some of the other grad courses that history students at GMU are taking, such as “Digital History Documentary Filmmaking” and “Creating Digital History”, should make one wonder what type of information resources and technology support services these future faculty will be needing and expecting from their universities.