The Master of Science in Digital Humanities helps graduates from Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences programmes to develop digital competencies that will allow them to add digital dimensions to their own domain expertise. It aims to explicitly link these competencies to research questions, case studies and applications related to the domain expertise of the students.
Graduates of this programme will be able to bring their own domain expertise to a significantly higher level of functionality, using digital tools and techniques. Building both on the expertise they obtained from the programme and their prior expertise in Humanities, Social or Behavioral Sciences, graduates will be well placed to open many new digital applications to a much wider community. Moreover, those who wish to move to a professional profile involving more advanced digital competencies, are well prepared to do so.
The programme is organized around a number of clusters of course units. The central clusters are the Application Domains cluster and the Tools for the Digital World cluster. Supporting clusters are the Introductory Digitization Components cluster, the Advanced Digitization Components cluster and the Management Component. The heart of the research activities is situated in the Master’s thesis.
The Master’s Programme is conceived as a one year, international and multidisciplinary advanced master programme (master-after-master). The programme is unique in Flanders and one of only a few in Europe. The programme is firmly framed in an explicit collaboration between the Faculty of Arts, the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, the Faculty of Social Sciences and the Faculty of Sciences - Department of Computer Science. As such, it is supported by experts in Digital Humanities applications, who supply research expertise for the programme, as well as by experts in digital techniques and tools, who provide a sound technical basis for the students.
Digitization affects in many ways how future scientists in Humanities and Behavioural Sciences will conduct their research. Also, graduates from Humanities and Behavioural Sciences programs enter a professional world in which digitization becomes the standard, be it in publishing, arts, libraries, teaching and many others.
The Master of Science in Digital Humanities program aims to prepare graduates from Humanities and Behavioural Sciences programs for these challenges. It aims to help such graduates to develop digital competencies that will allow them to add digital dimensions to their own domain expertise. It aims to explicitly link this knowledge and these competencies to case studies and applications related to the domain expertise of the students. It will train them to master information structures and functionalities of data, programming structures and technique to produce scripts for digital applications, tools for improving access and interactive use of data and the development of new digital applications. It will train them how to manage projects related to digitization and introduce them to emerging new digital technologies and their applications.
As an advanced master program (master-after master), it is assumed that the students entering this program have already achieved the general academic competencies defined for any master's program. Nevertheless, it is also within the aims of the program to further strengthen these competencies, within the specific context that Digital Humanities offers.
More specifically, graduates understand the basics of Digital Humanities, databases and query languages, scripting languages, the role of IT in management and of some of the emerging technologies in Digital Humanities. They are able to formulate research goals, determine trajectories that achieve these goals, collect and select information relevant to achieve the research goals and interpret collected information on the basis of a critical research attitude. They are able to communicate scientifically. They are able to model a database and use SQL, to use a scripting language, to apply tools for Digital Humanities and to study applications in Digital Humanities. They have the attitudes of valuing and fostering creative, critical and independent thinking, of applying an interdisciplinary and participative approach in innovative development and of striving towards opening the digital world to a broader society.
Academically, researchers in the Humanities, Social or Behavioral Science are confronted with the need to apply digital tools to facilitate and enhance their research. The program enables graduates to enhance their research in the Humanities, Social or Behavioral Sciences through non-trivial uses of digital tools and techniques. This may include modeling and querying databases, accessing data, interconnecting andquerying web resources, extending tools with scripts to provide extra functionality, text-encoding and e-publishing, mining repositories, data visualization, analyzing social networks, adopting, adapting and enhancing e-learning environments, improvingusability of human-computer interaction. As such, graduates are very well placed to take on the challenges that novel research positions require.
Professionally, graduates of the Humanities, Social of Behavioral Sciences enter professional environments where connecting the company’s business with digital tools and techniques has become standard. Here as well, the program enables its graduates to put to use non-trivial digital techniques in their professional occupations, including e-media, publishing, arts, history, culture, music, libraries, e-education or interactions for end-user applications. Thus, graduates who want to pursue a career in the usual sectors for graduates of the Humanities, Social or Behavioral Sciences will be much better prepared to cope with the digital techniques that are currently applied there.
More generally, graduates of this program provide society with professionals and researchers who are able to bring their own domain expertise to a higher level of functionality, using digital tools and techniques. Building both on the expertise they obtained from the program and their prior expertise in Humanities, Social or Behavioral Sciences, are well placed to take part in opening the digital world to a larger community.
Graduates of this program who wish to move to a job profile involving more advanced digital competencies, are prepared to do so and will help to close to gap in an IT-focused labor market. This will require extra training at the company and aims at positions such as project analysts, project managers, service managers.
The MRes Pathway in the School of Humanities offers interdisciplinary training in critical, curatorial, historical and theoretical approaches to research in art and design. The pathway will foster experimentation, risk-taking and critical and creative thinking through humanities research, with a distinctive ‘art school’ ethos. Unique to the pathway is an emphasis on practice-led Humanities research: writing, curating, and designing research projects that are public-facing, contribute new knowledge and action around contemporary concerns, develop robust platforms for PhD and other subsequent research and can be applied across a rich range of professional careers.
MRes Humanities encourages interdisciplinary and experimental approaches to arts and humanities research. The broad base of expertise offered by the School of Humanities means that we can support research interests in art, design, photography, architecture and urban studies, fashion, the crafts, film, graphics, sound, performance, technology and emerging media. Given our location in a world-leading research intensive art and design university, our work is directly informed by our close relationship to contemporary practice and future-thinking in art and design. The School has an international network of partners, including museums, galleries and archives and arts, publishing and media organisations. Across professions, our graduates’ work is informed by critical practice, research and curatorial methods.
The Mres combines independent research and with training in research methods and skills. Students formulate and develop an independent study programme, supported by one-to-one tutorials with a personal research supervisor. Final outcomes for the independent study programme may include either a thesis or project. In addition, students will complete a portfolio of research outcomes. These might include devising arts proposals for exhibitions and public programmes, curating and programming live events, preparing texts for publication, and creating digital content such as blogs and podcasts. The portfolio will include a group project, designed and delivered collaboratively by the cohort of MRes. students.
MRes RCA Humanities students also undertake broad training in the research methods and skills used across research-led careers in the arts and humanities. Lectures, seminars, intensive workshops and projects led by the College and School’s internationally active faculty introduce students to a broad range of research practices and techniques which can be used in the independent study programme.
MRes Humanities will equip students to progress to doctoral research, or to pursue careers in the arts and the creative industries, whether through independent practice, consultancy or employment in arts organisations. The programme stresses entrepreneurial skills alongside intellectual growth. School of Humanities graduates have a strong track record in obtaining leadership roles in the arts, whether in academia, museums and galleries, cultural programming and management, journalism, publishing and criticism, or as independent practitioners. Our graduates shape as well as facilitate the future of practice, policy and strategy in cultural sectors worldwide.
The launch of the new MRes comes as we recognise the increasing role that research-informed thinking and practice plays in these fields internationally, and the RCA’s unparalleled ability to offer a training ground and networks to enhance developing careers.
Key features of the programme:
Visit our website for more information on fees, scholarships, postgraduate loans and other funding options to study Digital Humanities at Swansea University - 'Welsh University of the Year 2017' (Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2017).
Digital Humanities at Swansea has research strengths in innovative digital applications and critical studies of digital culture in several fields, where researchers in Arts, Humanities and Social Science areas are collaborating with Computer Scientists. These fields include applications and devices for the UK and international heritage sector, intellectual and literary history, digital editing, innovative mapping applications, applied linguistics and translation, digital mass media and experimental media, online cultures, digital pedagogy, digital security, war and crime, and societal impacts of digital technologies in both the rich and poor worlds. We are home to the Centre on Digital Arts and Humanities (CODAH), which connects arts and humanities, social science and computing researchers.
An MA by Research in Digital Humanities gives you the chance to pursue a project based around your own passions and interests, leading to a qualification which can open the door to an academic career or boost employment prospects outside academia (typically in the private sector, the Civil Service, or education).
The MA by Research in Digital Humanities will give you the freedom to explore a topic of your choosing and develop a methodology under the close supervision of two experienced academics but without attending regular classes as required in taught programmes.
You will be supervised closely by two experienced academics in your field. Typically, you will meet them fortnightly in the first term and at regular intervals thereafter. Meetings are logged and goals agreed each time.
All research students in Digital Humanities are required to attend skills and training courses at College and Institutional level. They give presentations to other research students and staff at departmental seminars and the annual departmental postgraduate symposium in June and the College of Arts and Humanities conference in October. Advanced research students may have opportunities to teach undergraduate tutorials and seminars. You have a budget (currently £200 per year) to attend conferences outside Swansea.
Digital Humanities boasts a dynamic research and teaching environment which has already won attention and funding from outside bodies such as the Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol, the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Wellcome Trust and the EU, most recently a multi-million EPSRC grant for “CHERISH-DE”.
COAH staff with relevant expertise are located within all the COAH Departments (Languages, Translation and Communication; English Language and Literature; History and Classics; Political and Cultural Studies). COAH staff work closely on digital research with staff in other Colleges, especially the College of Science (home to Computer Science, Geography), the College of Human and Health Science (Psychology, Public Health, Health Data), the College of Law (Criminology).
Computer Science research at Swansea has particular strengths in human-computer interaction, ubiquitous computing, devices for resource-constrained communities, medical applications and informatics, visual computing, data visualisation, theoretical computer science.
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