Abstract:

The Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages has, for the last five years, run a University Certificate in Humanities Computing for Languages (CHUCOL). The course is dedicated to empowering undergraduate and graduate students, post-doctoral scholars and staff in their use of technology. Students engage not only with the practicalities of working with computers in order to enhance their transferable skill set, but also with such issues as technology in society, the concept of the digital self and the form of modern digital culture. We believe the course is unique in UK Higher Education in so far as it's a fully-fledged Certificate in the field of Digital Humanities that welcomes students, staff and researchers at all stages in their academic career from first year undergraduate to eminent professor. By the end of the course, which is assessed through two practical projects, CHUCOL students can confidently engage with a range of Web 2.0 technologies as well as produce their own digital content. Students value the course because it focuses on the needs of arts and humanities scholars whose existing skill sets may vary and because it engages with technology, not as an end in itself as is the case with many computing courses, but as a tool. Further, colleagues from other institutions within Cambridge, including our Computer Laboratory, contribute to the course to make it a thoroughly interdisciplinary and inter-institutional venture and they too enjoy the challenge of addressing such issues as why technology in the arts and humanities isn't easy.

The aim of this paper is to discuss what drove us to develop CHUCOL in the first place, what we believe it brings to the Faculty, our plans to expand it beyond the realms of our own institution and the challenges and rewards that continuing to develop the course with such a broad user base present.

Keywords:

Digital humanities, training, computing, technology, arts.