Assessing the Impact of an Undergraduate Digital Humanities Summer Research Program

This presentation examines the lasting impacts of an undergraduate digital scholarship research program on the participants. We surveyed past Digital Scholarship Summer Research Fellows (DSSRF) to understand how their participation and the skills they acquired were applicable to their subsequent coursework and career paths, and how the program influenced their thinking about scholarship. DSSRF is an eight week, librarian-led summer fellowship which introduces students to digital humanities tools and methodologies, and equips them with the skills necessary to undertake an independent, digitally-based research project. Thus far, there has been limited research on the impact of digital humanities summer research programs. We have previously relied on informal assessment of the program, but through this survey will conduct a more formal assessment and gather student reflections. We believe sharing this information with the broader digital humanities community will be informative to others facilitating or considering developing undergraduate summer research programs