{"id":49,"date":"2020-04-15T21:35:23","date_gmt":"2020-04-15T21:35:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/historydesignlab.org\/blog\/?page_id=49"},"modified":"2025-05-01T17:09:06","modified_gmt":"2025-05-01T17:09:06","slug":"about","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/historydesignlab.com\/blog\/","title":{"rendered":"About"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The History Design Lab (HDL), an initiative of the History Department at Oberlin College, offers students of any <\/strong>major the opportunity to engage in collaborative and creative efforts to excavate stories about the past with an emphasis on using digital methods and tools to convey knowledge of the past to a broad audience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The HDL is hosted on Oberlin’s campus in Rice Hall 313. This dedicated space is for students to use as they work on projects including but not limited to: recording podcasts, building historical maps using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) tools, developing digital archives and museum exhibits, as well as experimenting with methods ranging from text analysis and network visualization to learning responsible uses and applications of Artificial Intelligence (AI). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lab facilitates, manages, and oversees several projects and initiatives: the publication of the student historical blog and journal, On Second Thought<\/a>; the African American Women’s Intellectual History Project<\/a>, where students created a public archive about the intellectual work of African American women who either attended or are closely affiliated with Oberlin College and Conservatory; the HIST 264: History Design Lab Practicum course – a two-credit class wherein students in HIST 388: Women at War develop digital projects based on their archival research; and digital humanities events such as “Mapping the Past,” wherein students and faculty participated in a two-hour workshop learning how to use QGIS for historical research and analysis at Oberlin’s Geospatial Lab. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oberlin History faculty likewise use digital tools in consultation with the HDL in their classes. Nine students in Dr. Caroline Newhall’s HIST 372: Reckoning with Reconstruction, 1863-Present produced digital visualizations to accompany their research projects for Fall 2025, while several students are enrolled in HIST 388 and HIST 264 this Spring and are developing digital projects for their course website. Several student groups in Dr. Nicholas Bujalski’s course, HIST 440: Europe’s East – Orientalisms from Russia to the Balkans, are in the process of recording podcast episodes as part of their final projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you’d like to learn more or become involved with the History Design Lab, please check out the Lab’s newly-launched Instagram, History_Design_Lab_Oberlin, and\/or contact Professor Caroline Newhall at cnewhall@oberlin.edu. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The History Design Lab (HDL), an initiative of the History Department at Oberlin College, offers students of any major the opportunity to engage in collaborative … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":158,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-49","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/historydesignlab.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/49","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/historydesignlab.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/historydesignlab.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historydesignlab.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historydesignlab.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/historydesignlab.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/49\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":239,"href":"https:\/\/historydesignlab.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/49\/revisions\/239"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historydesignlab.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/historydesignlab.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}