(Please see attachment for formatted abstract and works cited)

Digital Humanities Workshops in Canada

Overview

This year’s CFP encourages us to consider “pedagogy, teaching, and learning” as a key theme related to “untranslatability.” This panel considers translation (and untranslatability) in terms of knowledge translation and mobilization, focusing on digital humanities workshops. Yann Audin’s presentation considers the challenges and rewards of translating knowledge across disciplines. Arun Jacob offers hands-on instructional practices for leading workshops, using examples from a workshop on Open Educational Resources.Parham Aledavood describes translating events to new locations and new audiences, noting how DHSI “respond[s] to rapidly shifting research and training demands.” In the final two presentations, Kim Martin and Laura Estill and Margaret Vail consider equity strategies in our knowledge translation efforts as we organize digital humanities workshops.

These panelists include workshop instructors and organizers, showcasing graduate student, faculty, and librarian voices.

Paper 1

“0s, 1s, and Pseudocodes: Digital and Material Abstractions in Programming Workshops”

Yann Audin

When teaching technical skills to humanities students, one question jumps to mind: *Where should we start?* This proposition discusses a small scale pedagogical experiment: the first day of a workshop was done without computers, with thought and cardboard-based experiments, and handwritten pseudocode.

The Workshop occurred in the Fall 2025 at the University of Montreal with a small group of PhD students. Its intended goal was to give the participants the necessary knowledge to write Python scripts as well as the skills to design and realize their own small scale Python projects. Teaching took place over three consecutive Fridays for a total of 24 hours in class.

The first element that was introduced to the workshop was an extensive explanation of digitality as a material, physical medium. This allowed the students to conceptualize the computer as a collection of simple, understandable processes working in parallel and in successive layers of abstractions from the bit to the screen. Three of the 24 hours were set aside to present binary information, how logic gates combine to perform complex operations, the relation between Assembly and material processes, and how machine languages relate to higher level programming languages. However, despite the very theoretical nature of the subjects covered, this part of the workshop relied heavily on practical work such as the use of physical bit---simple pieces of cardboard with "0" on one side and "1" on the other---used for binary addition and comparison.

Secondly, the workshop focused heavily on handwritten pseudocode and handmade diagrams for ontologies.

In total, a third of the workshop's 24 hours were used to teach how computers work and how to write pseudocode using a blackboard, loose paper, and pieces of cardboard with 0s and 1s. The workshop then resumed with actual programming.

Although there are no actual conclusions to be shown as a result of this workshop (limited sample size, lack of a control group, and other biases), two observations are worth noting :

1. The expected effect was attained: The group understood Python as a tool to implement ideas rather than as an end in itself;

2. An unintended consequence was noticed: Students were showcased creativity in their project, coming up with ideas that were then conceptualized as code, rather than simply using the tools shown in class.

Finally, it seems that the main issue with teaching programming to humanities students is *NOT* the syntax: literature students are able to learn most of it through trials and errors, and can rely on documentation, forums, peers, teachers, and LLM-powered debugging to get it right. The main challenge in teaching programming to humanities students is not and should not be technical, but rather conceptual.

Paper 2

“License to Lead: Transforming Students into Open Education Experts”

Arun Jacob

As the landscape of scholarly communication shifts toward openness, information professionals must move beyond a theoretical understanding of Open Educational Resources (OER) and Creative Commons (CC) licensing. This presentation reflects on the successful implementation of a specialized workshop designed for graduate students in information studies, highlighting the instructional strategies that bridged the gap between academic theory and professional practice. We found that the most effective approach combined the yack of high-level policy discussion with the hack of "hands-on" curation. By guiding students through the real-world complexities of locating, evaluating, and applying CC licenses to digital content, the workshop demystified the legal frameworks often perceived as barriers to open access. Key to the session’s success was the integration of interactive ethical case studies, which prompted students to navigate the nuances of authorship and equitable knowledge distribution. This presentation will detail how connecting open licensing to core library competencies—such as digital librarianship and instructional design—increased student engagement and confidence. Attendees will leave with a proven framework for running their own workshops to teach open practices, including strategies for addressing the evolving role of librarians as advocates for equitable access in both research and institutional environments.

Paper 3

“Digital Humanities Summer Institute (DHSI) in Transition”

Parham Aledavood

DHSI is an internationally recognized summer institute offering intensive, week-long training in digital humanities methods, tools, and critical approaches. In 2025, DHSI entered a new chapter through its transition from Victoria (University of Victoria) to Montreal (Université de Montréal), a move that involved not only logistical reorganization, but also a rethinking of how an established institute can adapt to a new institutional ecosystem, linguistic context, and evolving disciplinary needs.

This presentation reflects on the transition itself as a case study in maintaining continuity while embracing change. It examines the practical and structural challenges of relocation such as administrative workflows, registration infrastructures, space and scheduling constraints, and the redistribution of responsibilities across a new host institution, a new “trading zone” (Svensson 2011). Beyond logistics, the Montreal edition has foregrounded questions of access, inclusion, and linguistic plurality. Introducing French-language courses within a historically anglophone institute has required new forms of communication, outreach, and coordination, while challenging the hegemony of the English language in DH practices (Risam 2019).

Finally, this presentation considers how DHSI is responding to rapidly shifting research and training demands, particularly in an academic environment increasingly reacting to recent developments in AI. As AI becomes embedded in research workflows, the institute faces both a growing need for practical skills training and renewed urgency around critical discussions of ethics and methodological transparency. By connecting transition work, bilingual expansion, and emerging curricular priorities, this presentation highlights DHSI as a living infrastructure, one that must continually recalibrate in response to the communities it serves and keep the spirit of collaboration and community building alive (Siemens et al. 2023).

Paper 4

“Balancing the Digital with the Human: The DH@Guelph Summer Workshops”

Kim Martin

Modelled loosely on the DHSI, the DH@Guelph Summer Workshops celebrated its 10-year anniversary in May 2025. From the outset, DH@Guelph has endeavored to be inclusive: we’ve always solicited workshops from a wide range of community members and selected workshops with diversity embedded into the course material. We also keep our classes quite small (max 15 students), maintain awareness of accessibility requirements for all participants, and have developed a Code of Conduct to which all instructors and students are expected to adhere.

However, there is always room for improvement when it comes to diversity, equity, and inclusion. As anti-racist, anti-queer, and intersectional communities face growing challenges around the world, we must work to create and maintain workshops that are safe and respectful for all. This interactive presentation will discuss several methods through which the speaker, Kim Martin, alongside co-directors Susan Brown and Paul Barrett, have been intentional in fostering an inclusive community at the DH@Guelph Summer Workshops, and ask the audience at CSDH for feedback on how we might improve further.

Paper 5

“In Person Yet Rural?: Logistics of Digital Humanities Training in Nova Scotia”

Magaret Vail and Laura Estill

Based on the successes of the Digital Humanities Summer Institute (DHSI) in Victoria, British Columbia (Siemens, Arbuckle, and El Khatib 2023; cf. Aledavood’s paper), we started DHSI-East (Estill 2023), an in-person four-day digital humanities event based at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia--clear on the other side of Canada.

This presentation focuses on the logistical aspects of organizing an in-person event in rural Nova Scotia that attracts attendees from local, regional, national, and even international institutions. There are many barriers to travelling to Antigonish, Nova Scotia, not least of which ae time and funding, as well as lack of transit and accessibility. That said, these are the same barriers that can prevent attendees from rural locations traveling long distances for other workshops. This presentation emphasizes the importance of travel grants as a way to support attendees and enact an ethics of care (Schulz 2022). This paper draws on participant feedback, existing literature about digital humanities training and academic event organizing, and our experiences as co-organizers to show the value of grant funding used to bring people together and make connections.