Digital Humanities Graduate Certificate
Relaunching Fall 2026!
About the Certificate
Digital technology has revolutionized the production and sharing of knowledge. The emergence of digital humanities (DH) has transformed humanities disciplines and public humanities institutions such as museums and libraries by introducing digital technology to humanities research methods and pedagogy as well as to best practices in the public humanities. Further, by applying a humanist critique to digital technology, DH offers new understandings of the power and significance of technology in the academy and beyond. As a result, DH has become a valuable component of graduate training and job placement.
UF’s nine-credit, interdisciplinary graduate certificate in DH provides students with a broad-based study of DH practices; an in-depth experience of DH within a specific discipline; and the opportunity, through its capstone studio course, to produce a portfolio tailored to the student’s own discipline and career goals. This certificate equips students with digital skills for humanities research and teaching, preparing them for careers in academia, cultural institutions, and tech.
The certificate is open to any graduate student at UF and draws on existing courses in a number other colleges. Up to 3 credits of Breadth or Depth coursework completed prior to applying for the certificate may count with approval.
Please schedule a consultation with Dr. Clarissa Carr to see how the certificate can support your goals.
Coursework
The Digital Humanities Graduate Certificate requires completion of 9 credit hours culminating in the production of a digital portfolio. One of the Digital Breadth or Digital Depth courses must be take outside of a student’s home department.
Ex: Elective course or DH survey course (in-development) with two-week modules on topics displayed on the opposite page.
A student may meet this requirement by taking an approved graduate level course offered by any department (including departments outside the Humanities, though courses not pre-approved by the Certificate Working Group must be approved before completion of the certificate to count). The purpose of this seminar is to introduce students to theories, methods, and/or technologies relevant to the digital humanities and provide opportunities to experiment with several different digital tools for conducting and/or teaching humanities research.
Ex: Existing course or independent study in your home department.
A student may meet this requirement by taking an approved graduate level digital course offered by any department (including departments outside the Humanities, though courses not pre-approved by the Certificate Working Group must be approved to count toward the certificate). The purpose of this seminar is to engage the student more extensively in the use of specific tools and methods within a specific research or pedagogical context.
The Digital Humanities Graduate Studio course (HUM6836) is the capstone of UF’s Digital Humanities Graduate Certificate. Designed for advanced graduate students who have completed substantial coursework in the emerging field of digital humanities, who are prepared to be self-directed in their studio practice, and who seek opportunities to work with digital humanists from other disciplines on individual and jointly-authored projects, the studio offers a unique opportunity to apply student research and teaching interests in the emerging field of digital humanities.
The studio is team-taught by a rotating faculty member from a UF humanities department in CLAS and a librarian from the George A. Smathers Libraries. Like all studio courses, HUM 6836 is fundamentally a creative community wherein students and faculty collaborate for what John Dewey called experiential learning, and what contemporary scholars call learning-in-action.
Class sessions and studio time will take place in the CHPS Digital Humanities Lab. Class sessions may also include guest speakers from various resource centers on campus in support and as part of the making/creating process.
Students will be encouraged to pursue their individual interests for their digital humanities projects. In addition to a few informal presentations and writing assignments, students will produce a Digital Portfolio comprised of four elements:
- a brief scholarly bio (describing research areas and interests) and a CV;
- a discussion that addresses the specific contribution the student’s digital projects make to their research, pedagogical or professional interests,
- two to three digital projects from the student’s depth and breadth courses; and
- a digital project prepared by the student during the Digital Humanities Studio. This project should represent a semester’s worth of work, and may take one of several forms:
- a digital study that arises from or complements the student’s traditional research project (thesis, dissertation chapter, scholarly article, exhibit, or scholarly presentation), or
- a syllabus with related digital work that arises from or relates to the student’s teaching interests, or
- a standalone digital project
Digital Humanities Areas of Study
How the Digital Humanities might overlap with your research:
Digital Texts & Cultural Memory
Departments may include, but are not limited to: Classics, English, Languages, Religion, Libraries
Methods and Tools:
- Text Encoding
- Distant Reading
- Corpus Analysis
Examples of student work:
- Apply text mining or Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) to a selected corpus
Space, Place, & Mapping
Departments may include, but are not limited to: History, Anthropology, Design, Philosophy, Religion
Methods and Tools:
- GIS Mapping and StoryMaps
- Architectural Modeling
- Environmental Humanities
Examples of student work:
- Create a map or spatial narrative using historical data
Visualizing Knowledge
Departments may include, but are not limited to: Art History, Museum Studies, Libraries, Journalism, History
Methods and Tools:
- Data Visualization
- Metadata Ethics
- Visual Archives
Examples of student work:
- Build a network graph or visual archive
Digital Storytelling & Media
Departments may include, but are not limited to: Digital Worlds, Journalism, Religion
Methods and Tools:
- Interactive Narratives
- Podcasts and Video Essays
- Digital Exhibitions
Examples of student work:
- Create a short digital story or media artifact
Making & Modeling
Departments may include, but are not limited to: Engineering, Design, Classics, Anthropology, Digital Worlds
Methods and Tools:
- 3D Modeling
- Game Design
- Virtual Reconstructions
Examples of student work:
- Prototype a virtual reconstruction or speculative design
Ethics, Access, and Public Humanities
Departments may include, but are not limited to: Philosophy, Religion, History, Libraries
Methods and Tools:
- Open Access and Licensing
- Indigenous Data Sovereignty
- Community Archives
Examples of student work:
- Design a public-facing DH component or write a critical reflection
Frequently Asked Questions
For the Digital Humanities Certificate, the Digital Humanities is defined as providing UF graduate students with opportunities to learn the craft and theory of working with digital tools and emerging practices of digital scholarship, as well as produce digital projects in the humanities on several different scales. We begin from the premise that the body of scholarship encompassed by the digital humanities takes many forms and serves a variety of purposes, including:
- Aesthetic: Making use of digital tools and methods to support new practices of literary, poetic, or artistic expression that call attention to both the shared aesthetic aims and the break between digital media and physical media.
- Pedagogical: using digital media in the classroom to explore content and research questions associated with the humanities, through the use of data mining software, digital games, mapping programs, 3D imaging, etc.
- Archival: using databases and other online systems to collect, preserve, and present materials for the use of future humanities scholars.
- Methodological: harnessing the affordances of digital technologies to develop new approaches to humanities scholarship, from mapping the circulation of historical ideas or figures to using large-scale data collection to bear on the study of language.
- Professional: exploring new digital forms of interacting and collaborating with colleagues across the disciplines, presenting research and scholarship, with, and distributing research findings in the humanities.
In each instance above, we recognize that the digital humanities makes creative use of digital technologies to advance the study of both inherited experience and intellectual innovation. We emphasize how the humanities provide a crucial context for understanding the past, present, and future of human experience while recognizing the digital technologies and cultures that our students encounter in their research, teaching, and professional lives.
The certificate will train graduate students to collaborate on what Jeffrey Schnapp of Harvard University has called “lower case” digital humanities projects: work done by individuals or small teams working with technical experts (often computer and information scientists, including librarians) to not only produce projects that enhance traditional humanities methods and training but also apply them effectively to disciplines traditionally considered distinct from the humanities, such as computer science and engineering.
Students earning this certificate will gain sufficient experience working with a variety of digital technologies to conduct humanities research and present research effectively to a variety of audiences. They will gain the necessary background to utilize emerging computing and data analysis tools appropriately and teach others to work with these tools and navigate associated theoretical and disciplinary questions.
UF’s nine-credit, interdisciplinary graduate certificate in DH provides students with a broad-based study of DH practices; an in-depth experience of DH within a specific discipline; and the opportunity, through its capstone studio course, to produce a portfolio tailored to the student’s own discipline and career goals. This certificate equips students with digital skills for humanities research and teaching, preparing them for careers in academia, cultural institutions, and tech.
If you are interested in the certificate, please book a consultation with CHPS Digital Scholarship Specialist, Dr. Clarissa Carr.
First meet with the CHPS Digital Scholarship Specialist to discuss your certificate plan and complete an “Intent to Pursue” form.
Next, you will formally apply through the UF Office of Admissions. Select College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the name of the certificate is “Digital Humanities (LAS_GCT04).” There will be a $30 application fee. Up to 3 credits of a Digital Breadth or Digital Depth course may count towards your certificate prior to formally applying.
Students may petition to have a course that is not already listed count toward the Certificate. For consideration of a course, the student should contact the CHPS Digital Scholarship Specialist with a copy of the course syllabus and/or description of relevant coursework and an explanation of why the course should count. Petitions must be submitted by the mid-point of the semester in which the course is being offered and will be approved on a case-by-case basis. Petitions are welcome and approved in most cases.
Course offerings change very frequently, with growing numbers of courses relevant to the digital humanities. If know of a class that should count, please contact the CHPS Digital Scholarship Specialist.
As of 2025, the DHGC is housed in the Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere. Previously, the certificate was organized by a committee. Here are the past committees:
2021-2023:
- (Co-Chair) Laura Gonzalez, (English)
- (Co-Chair) Dori Griffin (Art and Art History)
- (Co-Chair) Neil Weijer (Curator of the Harold and Mary Jean Hanson Rare Book Collection)
- Seth Bernstein (History)
- Perry Collins (Libraries, Digital Partnerships and Strategies)
- Nancy Rose Hunt (History and Center for African Studies)
- Emrah Sahin (Center for European Studies)
- Kristy Spear (Honors Program)
- Fatimah Tuggar (Art and Art History)
- Motunrayo Ogunrinbokun (Student representative)
- (Ex officio) Elizabeth Dale and Laurie Taylor
2019-2021:
- (Chair) Eleni Bozia (Classics and Digital Worlds)
- Perry Collins (Libraries, Digital Partnerships and Strategies)
- Alix Johnson (Anthropology)
- Kristen Galvin (Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere)
- Laura Gonzalez (English)
- Dori Griffin (Art and Art History)
- Neil Weijer (Curator of the Harold and Mary Jean Hanson Rare Book Collection)
- Anastasia Pantazopoulou (Classics) (2019-2020)
- Brianna Anderson (English) (2020-2021)
- (Ex officio) Elizabeth Dale and Laurie Taylor
2017-2019:
- Eleni Bozia (Classics and Digital Worlds)
- Elizabeth Dale (History and Law)
- Terry Harpold (English)
- Hélène Huet (Libraries)
- Whitney Sanford (Religion)
- Jack Stenner (Art + Technology)
- Emily Brooks (Graduate student in the English Department)
2015-2017:
- Eleni Bozia (Classics and the Digital Worlds Institute)
- Elizabeth Dale (History )
- Terry Harpold (English)
- Jack Stenner (College of Arts)
- Laurie Taylor (Libraries)
- Dhanashree Thorat (Graduate student in the English Department)