PROJECT 3:  Tottel: A Social Knowledge Experiment (250 points)

Our end-of-the-semester project will be a collaborative experiment to make a social, digital edition of Tottel’s Miscellany. After evaluating other digital editions for pros and cons, we will work to digitize, edit, and reframe Tottel for a contemporary audience of future students and scholars. The final exam will include a 2-page reflection piece on goals and expectations for the project as well as future plans for expansion.

Invention

You will be split into groups to work on transcribing, annotating, and introducing sections of the text. As a class, we will discuss collaboratively what platform might be best for our work. We will think about issues such as navigation, design, accessibility, and innovation, as well as ways to ensure all contributions are properly credited. As we begin to outline our target audience, our discussion will also include a consideration of copyright and licensing. Much of this work will be a combination of in-class discussion and online blogging (blogs #9-12).

Design

Although we might aim at cohesion, each group will be free to embrace a platform of their choice. As you think about how and why to create an online edition of Tottel, you might want to get creative: perhaps live readings of the sonnets would be nice? Maybe the sonnets need new titles? Are you reorganizing the structure of the original, adding more context to it, or transcribing it clean (what Lean Marcus might call “unediting”)? These choices are all up to you, although you will have to justify them in your reflection and your editors’ introduction online. Your group will be evaluated on the following criteria:

• Clarity: the group’s goals and editorial choices are clearly articulated in the “about” or “home” page of the edition
• Design: the edition is easy to navigate and is visually appealing
• Analysis: edition includes some kind of critical apparatus such as annotations, links to scholarly articles, or connections to other relevant texts (these examples are not exhaustive; feel free to think of other ways to enhance the text)
• Creativity: you may – and are encouraged to – produce original work (paintings, photos, poetry, music) to accompany your work. This work need not be digital: analog, material, and offline creations are also welcome (we will discuss how to incorporate surrogates into your digital work).

Grading and Deadlines

Blogs (Weeks 10-15): graded separately; designed to help you achieve the goals outlined above

Tottel Edition “Beta” Version (Week 15): 100 points

Final edition (Week 16): 100 points

Reflection final (Week 17): 50 points