An Inter-Disciplinary Approach to Web Programming: A Collaboration Between the University Archives and the Department of Computer Science

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An Inter-Disciplinary
Approach to Web
Programming: A
Collaboration Between the
University Archives and the
Department of Computer
Science
Janet Marie Bunde
bunde@nyu.edu
New York University, USA
Deena Engel
deena@cs.nyu.edu
New York University, USA
Computing in the Humanities, an
undergraduate course at New York University,
represents a unique collaboration between
the Computer Science Department and the
University Archives. The final assignment
required students to select, digitize, and
contextualize materials from the Archives’
collections in an interactive website. The design
and implementation of the course incorporates
four current and important trends in both
disciplines. First, the professor and archivist
worked closely together before and during
the course, integrating the archival research
component into the core mission of the course.
Second, the students’ projects provided both
increased subject access and dynamic Web
content to the repository and meaningful work
to the students. Third, this course produced
students who “bridge” the needs of humanists
with the capabilities of technology. Fourth, this
course illustrated the growing importance of
web programming in undergraduate computer
science education.
1. Trend 1: Archives and archivists
in the undergraduate classroom
Archiving journals and conference
presentations have increasingly focused on
the experiences of archivists at educational
institutions who seek to integrate archival
resources into the undergraduate curriculum.
Notably absent from this literature, however, is
any mention of collaboration between archivists
and professors in computer science or related
departments.
Before the course began, the professor,
undergraduate librarian, and University
archivists discussed the structure of the course.
The librarian and assistant University archivist
co-lectured for one class session. The students
who elected to work in the University Archives
for their final projects were also required to meet
with the assistant archivist before embarking
on their research. These meetings ensured that
students would have sufficient resources at the
Archives to conduct their primary (visual) and
secondary (textual) research. Students from the
class were also required to digitize photographs,
documents, and audio materials as part of the
assignment.
At the end of the semester many students
who had used the University Archives for
their project turned in their assignments for
publication on the University Archives website.
In doing so, the difference between a class
project and a project published on the Internet
under the authority of the University Archives
became clear.
2. Trend 2: Projects increase
access to archival materials and
provide meaningful work for
students
The projects produced by students in this
course reflected the students’ interests in the
University Archives’ collections—interests that
do not necessarily coincide with the digitization
and processing priorities of Archives staff.
Archives staff can use this information to
determine what researchers might look for
in our collections and use this information
to influence future digitization and processing
priorities. Additionally, by digitizing materials
from across collections centered on a particular
theme, the students actually increased access for
other users.
By allowing students to curate their own
mini-collections, the repository opened up
new opportunities to interpret these materials.
This interpretation represents an instance of
what Tom Nesmith describes as the “new
description...a much more thorough contextual

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mapping of pathways through the masses
of records [that] add[s] evidential value to
the records” (Nesmith, 2007). By juxtaposing
student projects with finding aids prepared
by the Archives, a viewer of the University
Archives website can compare the students’
interpretations and the context of the records
that were digitized. This contextualization is
essential to understand these projects and
the records they feature rather than provide
additional “background noise of the World Wide
Web” (Eamon, 2006). Future collaborations
might include students working with the
Archives-generated XML itself to discover
new methods of embedding information, or
modifying the schema or stylesheets to include
different information.
3. Trend 3: Nexus between
computer science and archives
The course introduced new users to
the repository and creates new areas of
collaboration between archivists and faculty.
Students enrolled in the course learned
rudimentary archival research skills and, most
importantly, were introduced to the same issues
archivists wrestle with on a daily basis when
providing materials to users.
Many articles written in the past decade mention
how online digital collections and delivery of
finding aids online have become rote rather
than exceptional for most repositories. Yet at
the same time there have been few overtures
by archivists to bridge this digital divide at
the undergraduate or even at the graduate
level. In her 2005 survey of archival job
postings, Michelle Riggs found that employers
increasingly require knowledge of EAD and the
markup languages HTML, XML, and SGML.
She urges archival education programs and
library science programs to offer instruction that
matches employer demand (Riggs, 2005).
By introducing students with programming
skills to research in an archive, this course also
sought to create students who understand and
can combine the capabilities of technology with
the needs of a researcher. Corinne Jörgensen
laments that the professionals who create
access systems for digital resources, and those
who access those resources, do not speak to
each other or reference each other’s research
(Jörgensen, 1999).
4. Trend 4: Emerging importance
of web programming in
undergraduate computer science
education
The Computer Science Department
undergraduate program at New York University
offers both a Computer Science major and
minor as well as a minor in Web Programming
and Applications. The department encourages
faculty to create courses in web programming to
meet the needs of students in both the CS major
and minor programs.
Web programming has been increasing in
importance in university Computer Science
Education. “Despite its reputation in some
circles, web programming is conceptually deep;
it gives a simple way to learn event-driven
programming, to become conversant in many
languages, learn the client-server paradigm,
interact with databases, and more” (Stepp,
2009). Students with only one semester of
studies in implementing websites and one
semester of a high-level programming language
such as Java or Python can build complex and
interactive websites. We can thus reach students
across a variety of disciplines, as this project
offers a rich opportunity for inter-disciplinary
studies. Both early CS majors and CS minors
have an opportunity to focus on the content
of the sites as well as the technology and
programming required to build them.
Programming and technology requirements for
this project included:
1.
XML and XSLT (using text editors without
a WYSIWYG interface) for the collection
catalogues
2.
PHP and JavaScript as well as advanced
XHTML and CSS for the user interface
3.
Original podcasts and work with appropriate
multi-media objects related to the collections
At the University of Houston, Clear Lake, faculty
used the following goals to design programming
assignments for web programming coursework
(Yue, 2004):