Course Requirements

[Note: There will be no exam.]

Most of the recommended readings for the course are in an electronic format and can be printed if desired from the electronic file. See the Selected Resources.

Readings and Skills Development:

Students are expected to become familiar with the reading material listed in the syllabus in order to develop the various skills that are needed to facilitate the timely completion of their projects. Most readings can be accessed electronically and can be printed from the electronic file if a paper copy is desired. The course requirements allows the self-motivated student to experiment with numerous aspects of historical editing and computer technology. Although the course is designed to enhance in the student the development of certain skills, both in documentary editing and in the hypertext media, students should be warned that a great deal of independent work is necessary to complete the course.

Class Project:

Each student will participate in building an historical hypertext edition designed by the instructor and created by the whole class. The focus for the student is to experiment with some of the various aspects of historical editing and computer technology that are not necessary to the creation of the student's individal project and to allow the student to gain some insight into the division of labor involved in most modern documentary editing projects. The class project also serves as preparation for the individual projects.

Individual Projects:

Each student will select an historical document or group of documents from among a group of primary source materials located in the Special Collections Department of the University of Virginia Archives that relate to the 19th-century history of either the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, and/or Albemarle County. The selections must include handwritten manuscripts and be suitable for publication in an electronic format. When transcribed, these documents should be a minimum of thirty typed pages (double-spaced); students will work together in groups of three to proofread one another's transcriptions from the digital images of the manuscript pages that are to be included in the presentation of the project. Thus, it is imperative to complete the document selection part of the course as soon as possible so that the Special Collections Department can provide the raw digital images. The documents selected must be approved by the instructor, who will then facilitate the scanning of the images with Special Collections. In addition, each student must identify and computerize some other appropriate images that relate to the manuscript material. The Electronic Text Center at the University of Virginia will provide equipment and expertise as needed on a scheduled basis. Students will work together in groups of three to proofread one another's transcriptions. The final hypertext edition must contain a minimum of thirty typed pages of text.

Early in the semester the class will visit the Electronic Text Center, the University of Virginia Department of Special Collections, and the Alderman Reference Room for training sessions, and the Multimedia Resource Center (see Schedule). Part of the classwork will involve briefly looking at the history of modern documentary editing and learning the basic editorial procedures currently practiced in the field of historical documentary editing. These procedures include (but are not limited to) the design of the project, the document selection process, the setting of editorial policy, rules of transcription and proofreading, methods of annotation and copyediting, and choosing platforms for publication and dissemination. Thus the student will gain an overview of the fundamental methods and challenges faced by all historical documentary editors. The major part of the classwork will consist of designing and building an electronic documentary edition along the lines of these editorial procedures, as described in the previous paragraph. This will include learning how to navigate the Internet, in particular the World-Wide Web (WWW), in order to access materials that will be useful for the course.

This homepage locates for access materials to be used in the course as well as materials developed and disseminated by the course members. Communication among the class members and the instructor should take place as much as possible through the use of the majordomo list HIUS-401.

IATH WWW Server