The courses include hands-on training, research internships in ongoing research projects, as well as theoretical reflection on the promises of ‘the digital’ for your own discipline. Practical computational training will sharpen your analytical skills and enhance your job opportunities in the future.
To organize this minor, VU Amsterdam works closely together with the KNAW Humanities Cluster in Amsterdam, where students participate in cutting edge digital humanities projects.
Humanity students
Humanity students do not need preliminary computational skills but will enhance their career opportunities by:
- becoming more familiar with computational techniques and software;
- exploring a whole new world of e-resources and e-data;
- acquire skills for data modeling and analysis;
- train hands-on useful basic programming skills;
- use advanced visualizations in research and presentations;
- participate in ongoing research projects in the booming fields of Digital Humanities and Social Analytics.
Computer Science students
For Computer Science students, humanities and social science data sets are excitingly complex and also a chance to explore innovative digital technologies. This minor offers the opportunity to
- work with and develop solutions for complex and linked data sets;
- expand on state-of-the art natural language processing tools and methods;
- investigate and develop innovative visualization and analysis methods;
- embed your computational research in multi-disciplinary and socially relevant projects;
- develop your own reading and writing skills, and critical thinking about your role in other research fields and society at large.
Social Science students
Social Science students will realize that social behaviour (searching, shopping, travelling, dining, dating, discussing politics, social networking) increasingly can be studied through digital data. This minor gives them the opportunity to:
- use data analytics to study public opinion, social behaviour and communication;
- learn how to scrape, create, interpret, analyse and visualize different types of data;
- to explore the challenge of working with big data and computational methods.
Throughout the minor, you will engage in critical reflection on the tools and methods used, and explore the way digital techniques influence current research in your own discipline.
The Digital Humanities and Social Analytics minor consists of 5 courses, making up for 30 EC. If you already have programming skills (students from the Bachelor’s programme Computer Science) you can choose an alternative course from a selection of Humanities and Social Science courses, after consultation with the coordinator of the minor. The last course in period 3 entails a short internship.