Digital Humanities Practicum
MLL 774 - ENG 613 | University of Miami | Spring 2023

The Digital Portfolio

For the DH Practicum will need to create your Portfolio, which can be a website in GitHub Pages. To do this you will need to consider a number of requirements that your site will need to meet.

List of requirements for your website

There are three essential elements to take into account:

  • Navigation: we must establish beforehand what navigation structure our website will have.
  • Design: what design elements we want to include. You should think about a general template, taking into account colors, fonts, backgrounds, images, page layout, styles, divisions, etc.
  • Content: what will be the content (in text) that we will provide.

When creating our web site, we must keep in mind the critical and ethical value of our technological choices: why use one tool and not another? why use one markup and not another? etc. Remember that all content or design must have a function.

The mandatory pages and therefore the minimum navigation for your site should be:

  • Home - This is the home page, the one the user will see when accessing your site, it should be named index.html.
  • About me - In this section you should introduce yourself, your data, your studies, and interests.
  • Projects - All the work we do during the course should be posted in this tab. Internally, you should create a generic welcome page with links to each of your projects.

You can add one or two more tabs to your site, or as many as you consider relevant. For example, maybe someone would like to add his CV.

If you want, you can duplicate your site in another language.

Above all, remember:

  • Your name must appear clearly, as well as your contact details.
  • The purpose of your site should also be brief, clear, and easy to find.
  • Contain the date of the last update.

Some of the topics we will focus on will be:

  • Are there the basic pages and content?
  • Is there a clear layout and navigation scheme?
  • Is everything written correctly?
  • Are there any typographical or display errors?
  • Has attention been paid to the design, is it pleasing, and does it help the navigability of the site?
  • What are the main problems you have encountered?
  • As users, what could be improved? Talk with your peers.

It is also important that you start thinking as well in your scholarly presence online and future analytics. Start by creating an ID footprint by:

  1. Creating an ORCID, https://orcid.org/ and add all your publications.
  2. Other types of related open platforms that will index your work: DataCiteCommons or Google Scholar
  3. Upload your presentations and datasts in open platforms such as Zenodo or MLA Commons.

Now it’s the time that you choose a template for your portfolio, BUT always keep it minimal, please!! You have two options, the first one is to find an HTML template, or -I suggest this- to choose a Jekyll infrastructre. In both cases, the site will be an static site and it will be hosted in your GitHub account and published in GitHub Pages.

  1. You can use an HTML templates:
  2. or use a Jekyll template (recommended)

Portfolio Examples:

Here are some names that have personal pages, as eportfolios, that I find interesting and that could inspire you: Devon Peticolas, Jentery Sayers, Steven Jones, Alex Gil, Alondra Nelson, Jonathan Reeve, Lauren Tilton, Dennis Tenen, Amanda Starling Gould, Lindsay Thomas, Nora Benedict, Kristen Mapes

Additional bibliography: