Team Charter: Re-Addressing the Past

Group members: Adam Cary-Swanson, Lenn Kong, Yoel Klein

Re-Introducing the Project

For the final project, we have shifted our focus in a slight, perhaps not-so-slight manner. Instead of looking at the Carleton Archives and examining certain works of art, we have committed to the idea of collecting historical Carleton postcards and analyzing them through data we collect. We aim to re-colorize the postcard with DeepAI, re-photograph the image on the postcard, and visit Carleton College’s Bookstore to view current postcards. We will compare the old postcard with the re-photographed image of its location, as well as the current postcards from the bookstore. To display our work, we will use create a map of the postcard’s locations with ArcGIS Online. We will also create a timeline with Timeline JS to provide chronological context and showcase the different versions of the postcard. Finally, we will put it all together on WordPress.

Values

Our shared values include communication, organization, and collaboration. Our goal is to put together what we learned about digital humanities in a meaningful way that helps us learn about Carleton’s history. 

Values and Expectations

From the start of this project, we have communicated to each other how important it is that we stay on top of deadlines. Each member of the group plays a vital role in ensuring that our project exceeds what is asked of us, so being able to stay on top of our individual work is essential. We also want our project to be collaborative and not too individualized, so it is expected that we help others with their specialized work and don’t let these portions be isolated because we understand that not every part of this project will be of equal time commitment. We are expected to communicate with each other if we cannot complete a task on time or need help. Our values include communication, organization, and collaboration. It is important to have communicate, plan ahead, and work as a team. Our goal is to put together what we learned about digitral humaities in a meaningful way that helps us learn about Carleton’s history.

Communication

We believe in-person communication is the most effective way of communicating. This is why we will make sure to communicate during group work time in class and schedule in-person meetings to check-in and decide collectively on the next steps to take. We have created both an email group and a text group chat so we can stay in touch with each other about the final project. We will also make sure to communicate our availability in order to know when the best times to meet are. However, we do understand that scheduling conflicts are inevitable, so it is important to recapitulate the contents of the meeting and get new information across to the member that wasn’t able to make it.

Handling Disagreements

We all collectively want what is best for our final project, so we are all trying to be conscious of other people’s ideas, even if they are different from our own. If disagreements arise, it is important for each person to lay out the reasons why they think their method might be more practical/effective. This will be evaluated by the whole group, and everyone can pitch in and most likely can find a happy compromise. It is important for all of us not to take it personally if someone disagrees with our idea, and not to be set in our own aims before listening to others’ opinions. 

Dividing Responsibilities

Collective Responsibility

Each member will select three pictures from Carleton College’s digital postcard collections. For each historical image, we will 1) extract the relevant data, finding the date and location, 2) re-colorize it, 3) re-photograph it, and 4) compare the original colorized image with the new present-day image by providing a brief descriptive analysis of the change of the campus over time in each location. We will also visit the Carleton Bookstore to find the current postcards available for further comparison. 

Individual Responsibility

This project will also consist of specialized digital humanities components of the project using the data we collected: an ArcGIS map (using locations) and a timeline (using dates), which will be presented on a WordPress site. We have divided our individual responsibilities based on these specialized components. This is our tentative plan:

Lenn: Map

Adam: Timeline 

Yoel: Website 

However, it is important to note that these roles aren’t absolute. Everyone will still be expected to contribute to each other’s role/responsibilities and work collaboratively. The roles are in place to highlight each member’s main focus, not only focus.