Welcome & Staff Details

Welcome

Welcome to your BA in Digital Humanities and Information Technology. The course team hopes that you will use this opportunity to create new knowledge collaboratively and to develop original thinking that will benefit yourselves, your own wider communities and the knowledge society.

You are beginning an adventure, joining a group of students in a programme unique amongst Irish universities. Over the coming months and years you will seek to discover what is it to be human in the digital age, and the answers will help to shape how we see ourselves and others as humanity becomes more connected by technology.

You will develop practical skills to flourish in the digital age and explore the impact of digital technology on culture, power and identity in society.

This degree blends humanities and IT in a way that no other degree in Ireland does. Some of the individual modules are well established, some are new and the overall programme is unique.

Digital Humanities: new challenges and opportunities

Digital Humanities is probably very different from your previous learning experiences: it offers new opportunities but also some significant challenges in adjusting to a radically new way of learning.

For undergraduates joining the digital humanities program is part of the transition from school to the real world and that in itself is a major change. University is the start of your years as a productive creator of new knowledge in the world of work; it is not just big school and the adjustment to your new identity and as an adult in society is challenging.

Undergraduates will be coming into the university from a school environment that is very focused on individual rote learning and on answering examination questions. The learning process in university is very different: you are expected to take responsibility for your learning and to interact with your colleagues in much more collaborative and group-based work in a responsible and professional way.

Traditional academic programs are based on well-defined disciplinary areas of study like English, History, Geography or Biology. They tend to focus on content knowledge rather than the process of creating new knowledge. Even though many students take notes digitally and almost everyone writes essays using Word or Google Docs the actual working methods are not fundamentally different from those used in the mediaeval scriptorium.

Obviously, digital humanities is digital. Regardless of where you come to digital humanities from, you will probably not have been expected to use digital tools as a regular integral part of your daily work. In digital humanities you are expected to use a wide range of digital tools in your daily studies and this requires you to be willing to explore how to use new digital tools on your own or in tutorial, how to apply traditional humanities methods through digital tools, and how to balance digital skills with interpersonal collaboration effectively. It is important to be aware that our approach to using digital tools is deeper and more demanding but it is focused on equipping you for a digital future.

Staff

Dr Mike Cosgrave, m.cosgrave@ucc.ie, @mikecosgrave

Shawn Day, shawn.day@ucc.ie @iridium

Dr Máirín MacCarron, mairin.maccarron@ucc.ie @bedenetwork

Dr Orla Murphy, o.murphy@ucc.ie @omurphy16

David Murphy, d.murphy@cs.ucc.ie

Dr James O’Sullivan james.osullivan@ucc.ie @jamescosullivan

Gavin Russell - g.russell@cs.ucc.ie

Ann Riordan - a.riordan@ucc.ie

DH Office Location

2.22 O’Rahilly Building

College of Arts, Celtic Studies & Social Sciences

Phone: 021 4 902 359