Next semester, Visiting Assistant Professors Crystal Hall and Mohammad Irfan will co-teach an interdisciplinary course entitled “Introduction to Digital and Computational Studies” (DCS). The course will focus on the context of computer science applications in the humanities.
Where Intro to Computer Science (CS) focuses on the fundamentals of programming, Intro to DCS will focus on the context for computation. “[DCS] does not go from comp sci to problem. It goes from problem to comp sci,” Irfan said.
Irfan, who also teaches Intro to CS, will supply the computer science perspective of the course. Hall, a professor of the digital humanities with an emphasis on the Italian Renaissaince, will focus on the practical applications of computation.
“Computer science is just one part of digital and computational studies. We really see it as a gateway for students who want to use programming or digital tools in an English major or a government major,” Hall said.
While Intro to DCS does include some basic programming in Python, it will not substitute Intro to CS as a prerequisite for other Computer Science courses. Intro to CS focuses on computational thinking and the fundamentals of programming, and it prepares its students for Data Structures, another course in the Computer Science department. Students will still need to take Intro to CS in order to take later CS courses.
However, Hall and Irfan note that the two introductory courses can serve as complements to each other.
“We imagine that students who are really excited about computer science will perhaps take both courses in tandem,” Hall said.
Intro to CS teaches students to write computer code and uses one programming language throughout the semester. Intro to DCS, however, uses a variety of computational tools, only one of which is programming.
Topics in Intro to DCS include spatial analysis, text analysis and social networks as well as the societal impact of these technologies.
“Co-teaching is also a great way of saying this isn’t a computer science course; it’s not a history course; it’s not a foreign language course; it’s a little bit of all of those ideas,” Hall said.
The course is modeled on Gateway to the Digital Humanities, which Professors Eric Chown and Pamela Fletcher taught two years ago. Irfan and Hall are concerned about the course’s visibility because it is listed as an Interdisciplinary course in Polaris, which students oftentimes do not see.
Irfan is currently teaching another DCS class called Social and Economic Networks, which mostly contains students majoring and minoring in disciplines other than Computer Science.
While there is no programming in Social and Economic Networks, it does cover some upper-level algorithms like Von Neumann or graph partitioning.
There is an informational session for Intro to DCS on April 14 at 7 p.m. in the VAC, room 303.