Collaboration Tools: WE1S participants also collaborate through the Ryver team communications platform, a PBworks site, and the project Google team drive. For remote conferencing, WE1S uses Zoom (instructions). (For “instant” meetings started by Alan Liu, join at: https://ucsb.zoom.us/j/7600211662)

About WE1S Mission and Context

• (1) WE1S Prospectus — This prospectus is a shortened distillation of the original grant proposal submitted by WE1S to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
• (2) Summer Research Questions [preliminary draft] — These questions will evolve through team brainstorming during the summer.

About WE1S Technical Methods

The main digital humanities method used by WE1S to understand pubic discourse on the humanities is “topic modeling” — an important computational “machine learning” approach shared with other areas in the social sciences and the sciences. WE1S is also experimenting with other text analysis methods that extend, complement, or provide alternatives to topic modeling, including “word embedding” (or “word vectors”).

WE1S is implementing the above methods by developing a workflow system (Workspace and Manager) that is innovative as a paradigm for open, reproducible research in the digital humanities but that borrows for its nuts-and-bolts from common basic methods in the digital sciences, social sciences, and humanities. These nuts and bolts include the use of Markdown, scripting languages, serialization protocols (such as JSON), Jupyter “data science” notebooks, “containerization” solutions such as Docker, and versioning repository systems such as Github.

It is not important that all WE1S participants be hands-on with the project’s core technical or nuts-and-bolts methods. But for basic literacy about what is involved as participants analyze the results of topic modeling or listen to demos and presentations about the project’s technical platform, some preliminary reading is useful. Participants who are new to WE1S are asked to read (or, in the case of some web sites, browse) the following materials to gain orientation:

Topic Modeling

• (3) David M. Blei, “Probabilistic Topic Models” (2013)  — (read only to end of p. 79, before the math begins)
• (4) Edwin Chen, “Introduction to Latent Dirichlet Allocation” (2011)
• (5)Ted Underwood, “Topic Modeling Made Just Simple Enough” (2012)
• (6) Andrew Goldstone’s interface for exploring topic models. The Signs model has some extra, later-developed features. Especially helpful in learning how to work with these models is the guide page on “Interpreting the topic model of Signs“
  • topic models of 100 years of literary criticism journals
  • topic models of 40 years of the Signs journal of “Women in Culture and Society”

• (7) John Mohr and Petko Bogdanov, “Topic Models: What They Are and Why They Matter” (2013) . This article is paywalled. UCSB students have free access through campus network or from off-campus through the UCSB VPN or Library Proxy server. CSUN students can access the article here through the campus network or VPN. There is also an open-access manuscript version.

WE1S Platform for Interpretation of Topic Models

• (8) Topic Model Observatory Guide [requires project participant password] — FAQ guide to the visualization interfaces that WE1S uses to interpret topic models
• (9) Interpretation Protocol — a set of Qualtrics surveys that guide and record various steps of interpretation (flowchart of planned survey modules)

Pre-orientation meeting for RAs who are new to WE1S
(last week of June, date TBD)

RAs who are new to WE1S will be credited for 6 total hours of work for reading advance orientation materials and a pre-orientation meeting with a project PI . The date of the pre-orientation meeting is TBD (probably the last week of June).

Orientation week (July 1, 2, 3)

• Monday (Orientation Day 1) — (CSUN group will be physically at UCSB this day)
  • AM Session (10am-1pm)
    • Introductions
    • Orientation and status-of-project presentations by PIs
    • Formation of AM and PM teams
  • PM Session (2-4pm)
    • Initial planning meetings for AM & PM teams
  • Social Event (approx. at 4:30 pm): carpool to the bar at Beachside Cafe (map)
• Tuesday (Orientation Day 2) — During part of this day, the CSUN and UCSB groups will be in video conference with each other through the Zoom platform.
  • AM
    • Topic Model Observatory hands-on workshop
    • Interpretation Protocol hands-on workshop
  • PM
    • Planning meetings for AM & PM teams (continued)
• Wednesday (Orientation Day 3) — During part of this day, the CSUN and UCSB groups will be in video conference with each other through the Zoom platform.
  • AM — Preparing for the workflow in the coming weeks
    • Process of brainstorming and “operationalizing” research questions for week 2 of the camp.
    • Getting familiar with available topic models that can be used in the summer (preparing to use Interpretation Protocol modules 1-2 to get an overview of models).
    • Workshop led by Lindsay Thomas on using the WE1S Workspace Jupyter notebooks to produce additional visualizations for models that are missing some visualizations.
  • PM
    • Planning meetings for AM & PM teams (continued)
• Friday (WE1S project leaders only) — PIs, postdocs, and project managers meet if needed to discuss results of the week and fine tune plans for the summer research camp. (This meeting will be called only if necessary.)

Regular Weekly Schedule in July-early August

AM sessions: 10am – 1pm   |   PM sessions: 2pm – 4pm

• AM Teams (Research Questions)
  • During each week, each AM team addresses one research question. (However, in the first full work week [week 2], the AM work will also occupy the PM time.)
    • Monday morning: brainstorming session for the following:
      • Fine-tune a research question and “operationalize” it (design how to answer it practically) with available topic models and interpretation protocol modules.
      • Prepare for useful context a set of companion or follow-on questions that might be pursued later.
      • Conduct initial exploration of a topic model(s) with the research question in mind.
    • Tuesday-Wednesday: Teams work on interpreting topic models. (In mid-week, the research question can be revisited to see if it needs to be revised.)
    • Thursday: Each team produces a short report answering its research question.
• PM Teams (Special Tasks)
  • PM team work
• Thursday “Summit meetings”
  • All-hands meetings at the end of each week for project participants at UCSB and CSUN to share findings, ideas, problems and to plan together.

Summer Capstone Conference (August 2)

• Advance work for the conference (week before Aug. 2)
  • WE1S Advisory Board receives from the PIs a report on developments since last year. (Paragraphs written on various parts of the project will also feed into the second-year progress report due in fall.)
  • Advisory Board also receives an agenda for a two-hour meeting with WE1S summer participants on Aug. 2, plus a set of two or three questions that the summer group decides they need guidance on (so that the Board can listen to the team presentations during the capstone conference with the questions in minds).
• Friday, August  2
  • 10 am: WE1S summer participants (including members of the CSUN group) arrive in the DAHC to set up.
  • 11am – 1pm: Zoom meeting with Advisory Board
    • 11 – noon: Lightning presentations by the summer AM teams (1-slide only presentations of research highlights, including one key finding; no introductions or transitions)
    • noon – 1pm: Discussion with the Board
  • Lunch (1 – 3 pm): catered lunch and socialization
  • 3 – 5 pm: All-hands WE1S wrap-up meeting
    • Discussion of work going forward
    • Designed “triage” session of project goals that need to be set aside to complete the project in its third and final year.