Discovering the Past through Data: Promoting the Design and Analysis of Original Data-sets in History Undergraduate Courses in Hong Kong

Abstract

This article discusses the objectives and outcomes of a project to enhance digital humanities training at the undergraduate level in a Hong Kong university. The co-investigators re-designed a multi-source data-set as an example and then taught a multi-step curriculum about gathering, organizing, and presenting original data to an introductory history course for undergraduates in a broad-based admissions social science program. Undergraduates learned how to develop feasible topics, to search for data in different types of sources, to compile the data in spreadsheet format, and to describe the significance of the data for further research. This pilot curriculum enhanced the customary training for history students in the host institution which focuses primarily on qualitative analysis.