Complexity Explorer Santa Fe Institute

Foundations & Applications of Humanities Analytics

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Lead instructor: David Kinney & Simon DeDeo

WHAT TOPICS ARE INCLUDED IN THIS FAQ:

GENERAL INFORMATION • SCHEDULE • TIME COMMITMENT • COURSE MATERIALS • HOW TO USE THIS COURSE • QUIZZES VERSUS ASSIGNMENTS • CERTIFICATES • COLLABORATION • PROGRAM COST • PREREQUISITES • TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS • SUBTITLES & TRANSCRIPTS • ENROLLMENT • RE-USE & RE-PURPOSING • ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS

GENERAL INFORMATION

  • The course comprises 9 chapters and 5 guest lectures. Chapters each include approximately an hour of didactic lecture, a "test-your-knowledge" quiz and a chapter assignment. Guest lectures include about a 20-minute seminar, a Q&A-style discussion, and a "test-your-knowledge" quiz. 
  • All coursework is conducted in English (see SUBTITLES & TRANSCRIPTS below for more on language accessibility).

SCHEDULE

  • This is an entirely self-paced course which you may work through at your convenience. 

TIME COMMITMENT

  • Participants should expect to spend an average of 4 hours per week watching lectures and completing assessments. Chapter weeks will require more time in order to complete the assignment and peer reviews; guest lecture weeks will require less time given that they have no assignments.
  • The course can be completed asynchronously – to some extent. If learners would like to earn a certificate of completion (see below), they will need to complete assignments and peer-reviews by the deadlines indicated.

COURSE MATERIALS

  • All necessary materials for the course are provided from within ComplexityExplorer. The videos are also available on our YouTube channel. 
  • No textbook is required.  The lectures will be complemented by suggested readings that will be provided in Supplementary Materials. 

HOW TO USE THIS COURSE

  • From within ComplexityExplorer, you will be guided through the course in a linear path. In each chapter, you will encounter a "Chapter overview" with learning objectives and a glossary, then a lecture video, then a "test-your-knowledge" quiz and answer explanation, and finally a chapter assignment. This sequence of content is designed to guide learners gradually through concepts and self-assess their understanding along the way. With that said, learners are welcome to navigate the content in the sequence that works for them.

QUIZZES VERSUS ASSIGNMENTS

  • Quizzes are intended to help you assess your understanding of the material. Explanations for quiz answers are provided.
  • Assignments consist of one or more essay-style questions or exercises. The assignments in this course provide an optional opportunity to deepen your knowledge and interact with your fellow learners. 

CERTIFICATES

  • How can I receive a certificate of completion? We are not offering certificates of completion for this course. 
  • Can I get university credit for this course? Not through Complexity Explorer or the Santa Fe Institute. If you are enrolled at a university and find the course valuable, you can make your professors aware of the course and suggest they incorporate the content into a for-credit course.

COLLABORATION

  • What are the rules on collaboration? You are welcome to discuss anything with anyone! The FAHA course forum is a platform for participants to discuss the course content, quizzes, assignments, etc.
  • What is FAHA course forum? The FAHA forum is a place for course participants to post questions, answer other people's questions, and discuss the course material or related topics. You can find the forum under the "Forum" tab in the course menu toward the top of the page.

PROGRAM COST 

  • How much does it cost? The course is available at no cost to participants due to the generous support of the National Endowment for the Humanities (USA). Additional course production support was provided by generous donors to Complexity Explorer and the Santa Fe Institute, in service of SFI's mission to bring complexity science to a broad audience. Complexity Explorer could not exist without your donations, so thank you!

PREREQUISITES

  • Who is the intended audience and what are the prerequisites? Anyone is who is interested in the general field of digital humanities and more specifically, how computational text analysis can be used to explore human culture and experience. While the course is primarily intended for scholars from a humanities perspective, it may be valuable for researchers from more quantitative fields, too. There are no prerequisites.  This course will likely be useful for students with a couple of years of undergraduate study (or equivalent) and beyond. 
  • Do I need to know how to write computer code? There is no coding required for the course. At the conclusion of the course, we will offer some resources for participants who want to learn Python and natural language processing tools as well as an optional tutorial. 

TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS

  • Do I need special software to complete the course? No, ComplexityExplorer works on standard web browsers. The video content embedded within ComplexityExplorer is hosted on YouTube and thus may encounter firewall blocks, so download options are available (see below). 
  • How do I get the videos to play at a different rate?  Our videos are streamed through YouTube, which provides an option to control the playback rate.
  • Can I watch the videos without YouTube?  Yes, you can download all of the videos from AWS and watch them locally. (see next point)  PLEASE NOTE: This option may not be available at this time for all videos.
  • Can I download the videos? Maybe. Click on the "Download" button if it appears above the video screen within the Complexity Explorer course. PLEASE NOTE: This option may not be available at this time for all videos.

SUBTITLES AND TRANSCRIPTS

  • Are subtitles available?  YouTube AI-generated subtitles are available in English for most lectures and are reasonably accurate. Additionally, ComplexityExplorer hosts an ongoing effort to create subtitles in different languages. (You are invited to volunteer to subtitle here. ) If subtitles are available for a given video they can be accessed from the YouTube "CC" menu button.  
  • Can I download a text transcript of the video? For any video that has subtitles available, there will be a plain text transcript (in .txt format) available for download, for each subtitle language available.  When you click on Subtitles & Transcripts you will be given all of the language options available, and you can choose to download either the subtitle or the transcript, or both.  

ENROLLMENT

  • Do I have to enroll to take the course?   Yes, enrollment is easy. We do not share your data with anyone and you are welcome to unenroll from the course at any time (see below).
  • How do I enroll?  Click the “Enroll” button in the upper right section of the course homepage (immediately below the "Home", "About", "Explore", etc. menu). You will be guided through the short enrollment process. 
  • How do I unenroll? If you decide that you would like to unenroll for whatever reason, this option is available through the text button labeled "Unenroll" in the upper right section of the course homepage (immediately below the "Home", "About", "Explore", etc. menu).
  • I don't want to take the course for a certificate and I don't care about exams. Can I access the content without enrolling? Yes, you can find all of the course lectures on our YouTube channel, under the "Foundations & Applications of Humanities Analytics" playlist.

RE-USE & REPURPOSING 

  • In what ways am I allowed to use these resources?  All the materials on this site are available for your use for any non-commercial purpose. All materials (videos, code, write-ups, etc.) are covered by the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ ). This states that you may copy, distribute, and transmit the work under the condition that you give attribution to ComplexityExplorer.org, and your use is for non-commercial purposes.

TYPOS, BAD LINKS, OTHER THINGS THAT SHOULDN'T HAPPEN?

  • Please let us know! Contact admin@complexityexplorer.org for any sort of technical issues that you encounter during the course. The ComplexityExplorer team does its best to transfer the wonderful content delivered by our instructors onto the course platform with high fidelity, but inevitably, things occasionally go wrong. Sorry!

ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS