Collaborative Digital Projects in the Undergraduate Humanities Classroom: Case Studies with TimelineJS

Spencer D. C. Keralis, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Courtney E. Jacobs, University of California, Los Angeles
Matthew Weirick Johnson, University of California, Los Angeles

This article presents case studies for the use of TimelineJS in two types of courses: sophomore-level humanities survey courses at the University of North Texas (UNT), and senior capstone history seminars at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), both large land-grant research institutions. The case studies offer a framework for assignment scaffolding (including iteration and reflection), FERPA rights management, and describe models of faculty-librarian collaboration in assignment design and implementation. These assignments provide students an introduction to basic metadata and HTML markup skills and empower them to explore the historical contexts of primary sources by visualizing the chronology of historical periods.

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