Curriculum

The Minor in Digital Humanities seeks to equip students with critical thinking and technological skills, while providing hands-on experiences through workshops and internships where students can apply what they are learning in the classroom to projects on campus and in the community. Although housed in the English Department, the minor welcomes students from all majors.

Students in the minor will learn to define complex problems and apply technologies effectively and critically toward solutions, while accounting for the social and cultural ramifications of those technologies. Students will also acquire skills in collaboration, written and spoken communication, web design, project management, and presentation and portfolio building.

Learning outcomes include:

• hone critical thinking and problem-solving skills,
• gain skills using digital tools and methods,
• gain experience working in project-based teams,
• explore electives drawn from multiple departments and programs,
• create rich, multimedia digital portfolios that showcase their acquired skills and accomplishments.

For more information, contact Nikolaus Wasmoen, nlwasmoe@buffalo.edu. 

Inspired by the recent documentary The Social Dilemma, a group of students have started the Society and Computing Club, dedicated to examining the implications of computing on society at large. This club is meant to be interdisciplinary, so they are looking for members of all majors across UB.

In general, the club will look at algorithms, machine learning, big data, human computer interaction and how they affect our society. Some topics include (but are absolutely not limited to): social media and its effects on mental health and political polarization, how algorithms can perpetuate racial and gender bias, the law, and current events surrounding data privacy rights.  

If any of the above or related topics interest you, please visit the club charter to find more club specifics, and follow the instructions to fill out the interest form.

Professional Writing and Digital Communication is a flexible program designed to serve students who are interested in pursuing careers in technical, professional, and digital communication and students who see the development of communication skills as advantageous to their professional and educational goals.

There is a two-course Micro-Credential and a four-course Certificate. Students do not need to be pursuing another graduate degree to pursue these credentials, though in many cases, courses used for these credentials can also be used to satisfy requirement of other degrees at UB. Skills courses can be taken without registering from the Credential or Certificate program.

Our program has two closely aligned missions: to prepare students to enter careers as communication professionals, and to provide students with what are often called the “soft skills” of communication that make a difference in one’s long-term career. It is designed to give students a competitive advantage in entering professions such as technical writing or social media specialties, or any field demanding adept writing skills, keen rhetorical awareness, and flexible digital literacy, by providing them with writing skills, digital literacy, and proven methods for adapting and succeeding in new communication situations.

Similarly, for those pursuing graduate degrees in the arts, humanities, and social sciences, our program offers an opportunity to adapt one’s disciplinary research and communication skills for a broader range of public and professional audiences and careers.

Our program views digital communication as foundational to the curriculum and includes a digital focus with four key elements:

• Developing skills to produce a range of multimedia, digital objects—document design, visual communication, web design, usability, video and audio podcasting, etc.;
• Creating and managing complex data resources;
• Understanding and interacting with social media, mobile media, and other web technologies as mechanisms for reaching and interacting with audiences;
• Learning practices for online collaboration and project management in an increasingly global and diverse workplace.

Further information, program requirements and to apply to the Certificate in Professional Writing and Digital Communication and the Micro-Credential in Digital Composing

For more information, contact William Solomon at wsolomon@buffalo.edu.

Visualizing Objects, Places, and Spaces: A Digital Project Handbook - What are the essential steps needed to plan and execute a digital project? Beth Fischer (Postdoctoral Fellow in Digital Humanities at the Williams College Museum of Art) and Hannah Jacobs (Digital Humanities Specialist, Wired! Lab, Duke University) have set out to gather and share this information with researchers and instructors in the early stages of digital project development. The outcome-in-progress is a peer-reviewed open resource we are designing to fill the gap between platform-specific tutorials and disciplinary discourse in digital humanities.