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Spring 2025 Syllabus (Schedule) Classes meet M W F 10:10 - 11am in Lilley Library 006.

Read the Course Description

This contains a detailed explanation of course policies and the basis for grades.

Jump Down to the Schedule

This link jumps to the closest day to today's date. Review the schedule as we get started to get a sense of how this course will work on a daily basis.

All the Tools You Need As We Begin:

Download and install the following software on your own personal computer(s) on or before the first day of class. These software tools are available in our campus computing labs, too.

  1. <oXygen/>. (You will probably have this installed from DIGIT 100 or 110.) The DIGIT program has purchased a site license for this software, which is installed in Burke 153, Kochel 77, the Lilley Library computers, and Witkowski 109, as well as the computer labs in Hammermill. The license also permits students enrolled in the course to install the software on their home computers (for course-related use only). When installing this on your own computers, you will need the license key, which we have posted on our course Announcements section of Canvas.
  2. AntConc: (You may have this installed from DIGIT 100.) Free corpus text analysis tool.
  3. We will ask you to install Python version 3.8 or higher on your computer, and install PyCharm Edu to assist in learning and writing Python code with syntax checking. Follow instructions and links from Pycharm ( https://www.jetbrains.com/help/pycharm/quick-start-guide.html#meet ) paying attention to what you need for your own computer systems. Feel free to download and explore Pycharm Edu on your own before we start working with it together: https://www.jetbrains.com/pycharm-edu/. Also, configure Anaconda so it is available to work within Pycharm following this guide: https://www.jetbrains.com/help/pycharm/conda-support-creating-conda-virtual-environment.html. (We will provide guidance on this in class.)
  4. Zoom: Make sure your Zoom installation is up-to-date, and you are ready to connect. Sometimes we will record portions of class meetings and tutorial sessions for future reference to share over Zoom. Look for these in Canvas Announcements and use the Zoom menu option in Canvas to access these meetings.
  5. We will use GitHub for for sharing code and for project management. Create an account (choose the free options) at the https://github.com and install the GitHub client software for your operating system on your own machine on your computer. (We will explain how to use git and GitHub this in our course.)
  6. We will use the Slack chat platform for discussion and for asking questions (see https://slack.com/help/articles/218080037-Getting-started-for-new-members). Download and install the Slack client, configuring your account to use use your Penn State email address (the official address, which looks like xyz123@psu.edu, and not an alias based on your name that you may have set up), so you can join our Slack workspace: DIGIT-coders. When you receive an invitation to join this workspace you should accept.
  7. Later in the semester we may ask you to install a local copy of the eXist-db XML database, which you can download from https://exist-db.org/.
  8. Not much coding experience? Don’t worry! Past students in this course who never saw anything like markup or XML code have designed projects (like these) and even spoken about them at academic conferences! You will learn to develop your own digital tools and how to manage digital projects as teamwork.

Class Web Resources:

Week 1 Class topics Do before class

M 01-13
  • Welcome! Intro to the course and theme of text analysis and re-mediation, and visualization.
  • Hands-on warm-up with Scaleable Vector Graphics: SVG in oXygen XML Editor.
  • Genuary activities.
 Respond to Dr. B’s Canvas announcement, install/update oXygen XML Editor.

W 01-15

 Data to numbers to shapes with legible, human-readable SVG code.
  • Install/update oXygen XML Editor if you have not done so already.
  • SVG Exercise 1: Orientation
  • Join / reactivate the Digit Coder's Slack

F 01-17
  • Class protocols for handling code files: GitHub and version controlled file management. Making a branch on the textAnalysis-Hub. Review adding, pulling, adding, committing, and pushing.
  • Gentle XPath orientation / review: Pulling data from Digit 110 projects to plot in SVG
Week 2 Class topics Do before class

M 01-20

 Martin Luther King Day: No classes. ...

W 01-22

 Git Branching and Pull Requests SVG + Git Branching Exercise

F 01-24

 Orientation: Programming your visual design: XSLT to SVG SVG Exercise 3
Week 3 Class topics Do before class

M 01-27
  • Contemplating the flow of text to image via code.
  • Improving designs / layout on websites: XSLT to SVG
  • Preview Regular Expressions (Regex) unit
 XSLT to SVG Orientation Exercise, with Git PR Practice

W 01-29
  • Structuring and regularizing data from documents with markup.
  • Introduce document analysis with Regular Expressions: the dot, the backslash, numbers (\d, repetition indicators, matching on lines, and autotagging. Greedy and non-greedy matching.
  • Preview Intro to Regular Expressions
  • Choosing a license for your project GitHub repo.
 XSLT to SVG Orientation Exercise 2, with Git PR Practice

F 01-31
Week 4 Class topics Do before class

M 02-03

 Regex greedy and non-greedy matches. Regex Exercise 2. As you work on this, consult our Intro to Regular Expressions and the Regular Expressions Quick Start.

W 02-05

 Regex in XSLT / xsl:analyze-string
  • Regex Exercise 3
  • (By the end of the day): Five Days of Git: Part 1: Record completion on Canvas as part of GitHub Test

F 02-07
  • Semester project ideas
  • Validity for a project: what is a schema? What is schema validation?
  • Validation for Google Sheets
  • How to write a Relax NG schema (review for some / intro for others)
  • Regex Exercise 4: applying xsl:analyze-string
  • Five Days of Git: Part 2: Record completion on Canvas as part of GitHub Test
Week 5 Class topics Do before class

M 02-10
  • Good projects: ideas, sources, teamwork expectations: discussion
  • Relax NG: data types and mixed content
  • Troubleshooting and debugging Relax NG
  • Five Days of Git: Part 3: Record completion on Canvas as part of GitHub Test
  • Relax NG Exercise 1 (before class)
  • Five Days of Git: Part 4: Record completion on Canvas as part of GitHub Test

W 02-12
  • Introduce Regex Test
  • Relax NG schemas for project management
  • Project ideas
  • Relax NG Exercise 2 (before class)
  • Five Days of Git: Part 5: Record completion on Canvas as part of GitHub Test

F 02-14
  • Review / discuss project proposal assignment
  • Relax NG: Common problems (mixed content, repetition indicators). Simplifying your code. Documenting your schemas
  • Respond to Requirements to Initiate Semester Projects
  • Project proposals part 1: Post proposal ideas in Slack Project Proposals + Discussion
  • Relax NG Exercise 3
Week 6 Class topics Do before class

M 02-17

 Form project teams!
  • Project proposals part 2: Respond to Slack Project Proposals + Discussion before class
  • Complete Regex Test

W 02-19
  • GitHub Pages review / Project websites
  • Setting up bash profiles, shell script aliases
  • Looking ahead: Building project text corpora: Resources and approaches to scraping
  • Copyright, proprietary ownership, legality issues
  • Project Milestone 1: Set up Project GitHub + Slack channel, arrange regular team meeting times

F 02-21
  • Shell scripts
  • Checking / troubleshooting Java installations
  • TBD: XPath / XQuery or Web Scraping Intro
  • Shell Script Alias assignment
  • Part 1: Installations for Java, XProc / ixml
Week 7 Class topics Do before class

M 02-24

 Document analysis and XSLT for Web Scraping
  • TBD: XPath / XQuery or Web Scraping Exercise
  • Installation prep for XProc and ixml: Install CoffeePot and Markup Blitz on your local machine, following our instructions at Configuring XProc and ixml processors. We recommend CoffeePot for new users because it offers more debugging options than Markup Blitz, but Markup Blitz is likely to be faster (and often much faster) with very large input files.

W 02-26
  • Document analysis and XSLT for Web Scraping
  • Prep for ixml
  • Read Norm Tovey-Walsh’s Invisible XML introductory tutorial and annotate with Hypothes.is
  • Install either XML Calabash 3 or MorganaXProc-IIIse on your local machine, following our instructions at Configuring XProc and ixml processors. You will not be able to complete the XProc portion of this unit if you have not installed at least one of these processors.

F 02-28

 Class on Zoom: Special guest Dr. David Birnbaum introduces Invisible XML (ixml): crafting your own grammars
  • Complete readings / annotations
  • Test installations of Coffee Pot / Markup Blitz for today. (For Monday, you'll need Calabash or Morgana)
Week 8 Class topics Do before class

M 03-03

 Class on Zoom: Dr. David J. Birnbaum presents XProc 3.0 Dr. B is attending a Symposium in Tokyo this week.
  • Read + Consult Norm Tovey-Walsh’s Writing Invisible XML grammars.
  • Develop and test your own grammar for your own small plain-text document, using either the online jωiXML Invisible XML Workbench (which requires no local installation) or, if you installed them, your local version of CoffeePot and Markup Blitz. Submit your ixml grammar and your plain-text input document.
  • Read + Annotate with Hypothes.is: Part A: Fundamentals (sections 1 - 6) of Martin Kraetke’s XProc 3.0 Tutorial (see the outline at the bottom of that page). You will not be able to follow Monday’s class if you haven’t read this part of the tutorial.
  • Check / test installations of either XML Calabash 3 or MorganaXProc-IIIse on your local machine, following our instructions at Configuring XProc and ixml processors.

W 03-05

 Class on Zoom: Topic [TBD]:
  • Class on Zoom: Topic [TBD]: Eliminating ambiguity in ixml. Will ixml work in my project?
  • Building a pipeline with XProc
  • Read/annotate the remainder of Martin Kraetke’s XProc 3.0 Tutorial. Your goal is to acquaint yourself with the content without memorizing it at this stage, so concentrate on the parts that are likely to be of wide use (especially XSLT Transformations in XProc), but notice what else is there so that you can Look Stuff Up as the need arises.
  • Create your own XProc pipeline with at least two steps. One possibility is to use two XSLT transformations that are chained together to produce a single output or two that read the same input and create different output, but feel free to use non-XSLT steps, as well. Submit your primary input document (if there is one), your XProc pipeline document, and any secondary input that your pipeline may require (e.g., if you have an <p:xslt> step that reads an external XSLT stylesheet, include that stylesheet in your submission).

F 03-07

 Project team workday Project Milestone

Sun 3-09 - Sat 3-15

 Spring Break Enjoy this week!
Week 10 Class topics Do before class

M 03-17
  • ixml / XProc vs. Python in projects: Pipelines for text processing, discussion of next steps
  • Checking / troubleshooting Pycharm and Python installations
  • Pycharm Edu tutorial work together. Manipulating strings wtih Python, and Pythonic data structures (lists, tuples, dictionaries).
 [TBD] Readings on AI, large language models, word embeddings.

W 03-19
  • Python tutorial Q/A: tinkering.
  • Python at command line vs. in the Pycharm IDE (or oXygen, VS Code, etc)
  • Pycharm Edu tutorials: through Strings unit (submit evidence of completion via screen capture on Canvas).

F 03-21

 Getting started with Natural Language Processing (NLP) with Python: installations/imports: nltk, spaCy, gensim Pycharm Edu Community tutorials: Complete the Tutorial through the Condition expressions unit (submit evidence of completion via screen capture on Canvas).
Week 11 Class topics Do before class

M 03-24
  • Word embeddings and the concept of cosine similarity: a humanities perspective
  • NLP and large language models, vs. customized, specialized modeling.
 Pycharm Edu Community tutorials: Get at least partway through Classes and Objects unit.

W 03-26

 Writing your own Python: Web scraping with Beautiful Soup and LXML e-tree Finish Pycharm Edu Intro to Python tutorials: Classes and objects, Modules and packages, File input and output. Submit evidence of completion via screen capture on Canvas.

F 03-28
  • Revisiting pipelines: scraping, cleaning, preparing outputs
  • NLP: Named Entity Recognition (NER), sentiment analysis: problems and possibilities
 Python exercise 1: web scraping / NER and/or sentiment analysis
Week 12 Class topics Do before class

M 03-31
  • Moving between unstructured and structured documents for data modeling. XQuery and Python pipelines.
 Python exercise 2: NER / word embeddings (cosine similarity exercise)

W 04-02

 XQuery data pulls XQuery Exercise 1

F 04-04

 Visualizing / troubleshooting / problem solving. Applying to projects.
  • Python exercise 4: tinkering with / visualizing topic modeling
  • Readings / examples re limits of NLP libraries, language / time barriers
Week 13 Class topics Do before class

M 04-07

 Processing / Visualizing XQuery data eXist-dB / XQuery output and Cytoscape project prep: Installations

W 04-09
  • XQuery and Python methods: Network Analysis vs. Topic Modeling
  • XQuery FLWOR statements
  • XQuery to TSV or JSON for network analysis
 Network Analysis Exercise 1: structured data extraction

F 04-11
  • XQuery work on FLWOR statements
  • Network statistics: degree, closeness, eigenvector centrality measures. Path steps. The concept of eccentricity and distance.
 Network Analysis Exercise 2: Cytoscape import / visualization
Week 14 Class topics Do before class

M 04-14

 Network Analysis: Debugging the source files via visualization Network Analysis Exercise 3: Refining and exporting network visualizations

W 04-16
  • Introduce Python / XQuery Test
  • Schematron, Python Assertions, and other debugging methods
 Looking for trouble: Project bug-finding exercise

F 04-18

 Python and XML handshake: Saxon C Library: XPath, XSLT, XQuery in Python ...
Week 15 Class topics Do before class

M 04-21
  • Project documentation and reflection: What do you know? What is not certain? Documenting the limits.
  • Mermaid.live / markdown to flow diagrams

W 04-23

 Return to SVG: Project visualizations Documentation: Flow diagram exercise

F 04-25

 Catch-up day. Python / XQuery Test
Week 16 Class topics Do before class

M 04-28

 Putting it all together: Discussion, analysis, documentation, web work. Ethics in public-facing digital data representation. Project development sprint, prep for DIGIT Works presentation

W 04-30

 Team sprint day in class Project development sprint, prep for DIGIT Works presentation

F 05-02

 Last Day! Project Milestone: Teams deliver DIGIT Works presentations Prep for presentations
Finals Week: May 5 - 9 To Complete

W 5-07

Semester projects due by 11:59pm

Finish developing projects, and send a post to me on GitHub and Canvas to indicate your team is finished.