136033 SE Creating Web Experiences for the Digital Humanities (2025S)

The digitization of cultural heritage and historical data has opened up unprecedented possibilities for humanities researchers. Today, we have instant online access to vast databases drawn from museum collections, archives, and libraries. Researchers can retrieve and utilize data and materials from anywhere in the world, at any time.

This seminar explores how gamification techniques can be used to create engaging experiences for studying these topics and materials. We will examine technologies that support the development of such web-based experiences and analyze existing examples of gamification and serious games in education and the humanities.

The seminar's central goal is to design and develop a unique web-based experience, which will be hosted online. Using an iterative process, we will gather user feedback to refine our project. Through this approach, students will become familiar with workflows commonly used in real-world software design.

As part of the seminar, we will introduce web technologies, allowing students to choose a technology stack based on their prior experience and knowledge. Additionally, we will experiment with large language models (LLMs) for both code and content creation.