Although I could not participate physically this week in class, the subjects and tech activities were incredibly useful and interesting to me. This module felt very much as if I was adding things to my DH toolbox, or rather, upgrading my toolbox to the caboodle of my dreams. I thrive with structure and organization, but I will also admit that going back to recreate new ways of achieving that is always intimidating to me and so I often remain in (semi) organized chaos. This module was a perfect excuse for me to get over that fear and just play around!
Prior to this, I was somewhat familiar with Basecamp because of RRCHNM, but I really only knew it as a user or viewer, not as a creator or collaborator. In creating our fake project plan, my group split up tasks, each of us putting in a different group of to-dos. We then thought about the long timeline and considered what individual due dates we wanted to assign these items and to whom. I have not yet worked on a collaborative DH project but I imagine that this atmosphere and thought process is shared in those spaces. I’m not sure why, but I’m not aesthetically obsessed with Basecamp. I do like the meter on the homepage displaying overall project progress and the organization of to-dos, but I found the message board, chat, and automatic checkins a little bit unnecessary. Just my personal taste, but messing around with Trello, I found that it made more sense in my brain. To my lament, I discovered that Trello isn’t completely free and open source, so in the future I imagine I’ll just be customizing Basecamp to make it less frilly. That being said, if all I need is an organizer of my thoughts and not a beautiful looking schedule, Trello may still be the way I go.
I found myself really relating to a lot of what Jess wrote in her post about being in some ways averse to these organizational systems. She talked about sometimes not wanting to be more efficient, and liking to walk with her dog and think through her ideas. Like she said, I’m not on grant funded timelines currently and have the luxury of lesser efficiency, but I can’t deny that I enjoy allowing my thought process to be free flowing. My version of dog walking is talking to my mom; She’s heard every random thought and iteration of project ideation for my whole life and our exchanges have become a central part of my process. I also will write brain vomit on little notes for myself on scraps of paper or back pages of books all over my house. Although I’m not typing it into an online space or putting these threads to pull on a to-do list, my little notes have become essential knowledge managers and place markers in my research.
In all, I don’t think project management has to eliminate these deeply human ways I’m sure many of us engage in our research. For me at least, I believe that using a structured project management system will let me not worry about timelines and staying on track, giving me more brain space for conceptual thinking and asking questions.
Data management also helps my brain focus on the fun part and I think of the entire module, this is what I needed most. The comical video and readings (although dense) really forced me to think about the embarrassingly risky ways I’ve stored my research and data. I did mess around a bit with DMP Tool, but ended up spending most of my time rejuvenating my Zotero. Admittedly, my Zotero has been primarily a dump for (almost) everything and has remained unorganized chaos for as long as I’ve had it downloaded. I put a file system in place, created a file naming system which I plan to use for future uploads, and I think a realistic goal for myself is to make sure that all of my research findings are actually stored there at the end of each semester when I’ve finished projects/papers, and to back up that version of things on an external drive.
Overall, this week’s learning was highly beneficial although somewhat uncomfortable. For me, it was like the DH version of actually folding and putting away my laundry (a horrible tedious task that leaves me feeling so clean, organized, and ready to go).
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