Repository for the website for History 5444: Digital History Methods in Spring 2026 at Virginia Tech. The course is taught by Jesse Sadler.
Visit the course website at https://jessesadler.github.io/vt5444s26/.
This course introduces students to computational methods for analyzing data to develop historical interpretations. It goes through the entire data life-cycle: finding, creating, cleaning, analyzing, visualizing, interpreting, and integrating these interpretations into historical research. The course uses free and open source programming languages and tools designed for data analysis, specifically the R programming language. This approach has a steeper learning curve than point-and-click tools that provide an alternative method for creating digital projects. However, it puts the user in control, fosters transparency and reproducibility, and follows the guidelines of minimal computing. No previous experience with programming or data analysis is necessary. Over the semester students will work through a series of examples using provided datasets, and then they will have the opportunity to apply the methods to their own research, culminating in the creation of a project website.