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Digital Humanities

The Digital Humanities is the collaborative and interdisciplinary application of new technologies to humanities research. It expands the traditional forms of scholarly communication. This guide is a colleciton of resources compiled in the hopes of helping

Visualizations, Web Projects, Text & Organizing

Qualitative Analysis Software

RQDA is a free and open source qualitative analysis software, developed as a package of R Project. Typical users include economists, sociologists, and marketing researchers. It works on Windows, Linux & sometimes Mac OS X

Pros Cons
  • Free / open source
  • User interface is straightforward and easy to use for first time learners
  • Works collaboratively with R and R-studio software
  • Only supports data in plain text format
  • There has been little recent software maintenance or development
  • History of crashing on Mac OS X operating system
  • Requires download of R or R-studio (both open source)

 

Import and Export File Compatibility 

Import: Text files (.pdf, .txt). Note: Only PDF highlights can be imported)

Export: .rqda file format

 

 

The Science of Science Tool (Sci2) is a qualitative analysis tool for the study of science. Typical users include scientists, social science researchers, and federal agencies. Free Open Source software that works on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

Pros Cons
  • Provides a platform for preparation, analysis, or visualization of data.
  • Includes a variety of advanced analysis algorithms for temporal, topical, geospatial, and network data
  • Capable of graph generation with aging, scaling, random, and other specification
  • Free / open source
  • Found to have numerous software bugs. However, the official website provides a platform to report these for future development. 
  • Specifically developed for the sciences; not as practical for additional areas of research

Import and Export File Compatibility 

Import: Text files (.csv, .net, .mat, .bib), Endnote files (.enw), Edgelist files (.edge), Graphic files (.nwb), Web-based files (.xml, .graphml) & additional formats (.isi, .scopus, .nsf)

Export: Text files (.pdf, .mat, .net), Web-based files (.xml, .graphml) & Graphic files (.jpg, .ps, .nwb)

Taguette is a free and open-source tool for qualitative research. You can import your research materials, highlight and tag quotes, and export the results. Use the free version hosted by NYU or download and host your own copy.

Pros Cons
  • Simple to use.
  • Still being actively maintained as of 2021.
  • Easy to export.
  • Download self-hosted version to analyze sensitive data.
  • Free / open source
  • No support for audio, images, or video.
  • Free hosted app should not be used for sensitive material.

Import and Export File Compatibility 

Import: .pdf, .docx, .txt, .odt, .md, or .html.

Export: QDC (REFI-QDA standard), CSV (spreadsheet), XLSX (Microsoft Excel), DOCX (Microsoft Word), HTML, and PDF.

Quantitative Analysis Software

Google Fusion Tables provide an open source, cloud-based, quantitative analysis software, specifically designed for map creation. Typical users include geographers, sociologists, political scientists, and other social sciences. 

Pros Cons
  • Available in Google Drive as a cloud-based program, allowing for convenient collaboration
  • Produces options for visualizing data using graphs, charts, and thematic maps
  • Ability to merge data from multiple sources
  • Appropriate for map building purposes only
  • Data must include locational data
  • Datasets can not exceed 100 MB; each user is only allotted up to 250 MB of data

 

Import and Export File Capabilities

Import: Excel or Open Office files (.xls, .xlsx, .ods), Text files (.txt, .csv) & Web-based (including Google Maps/Google Earth (.kml) and Google Spreadsheets)

Export: Google Maps (.kml) & as embedded web link

Gephi is an open source quantitative analysis software. Typical users include scientists and the social sciences.

Pros Cons
  • Easy graph import and export
  • Many options for visual encoding
  • Various layout algorithms to choose from
  • Computation of graph statistics
  • User interface navigation needs improvement
  • Some visual glitches
  • Version is prone to have system bugs here and there

 

Import and Export File Capabilities

Import: Text files (.csv, .net, .dot), Web-based files (.graphml) & additional formats (.tlp, .gml)

Export: Excel files (.xls, .xlsx), Text files (.csv, .pdf, .net), Web-based files (.graphml, .svg, .gexf) & additional formats (.gdf)

Julia is an open source quantitative analysis software. Typical users include scientists, mathematicians, and engineers. 

Pros Cons
  • Can be run via web browser, no download required
  • Syntax is similar to other coding languages (such as C and R), making learning intuitive for beginners with coding experience 
  • More suited for those with some background in coding
  • Software may be less intuitive for MATLAB users due to high number of syntax similarities with varying meanings

 

Import and Export File Capabilities

Import: Text files (.csv, .tsv, .wsv, .txt)

Export: Text files (.csv, .dat)

OpenRefine (previously known as Google Refine) is an open source pre-analysis software, built for cleaning and transforming messy data. Typical users include the social sciences, humanities, and profit/nonprofit corporations. 

Pros Cons
  • Useful when working with messy data that needs to be cleaned or transformed before use
  • Connects to database APIs
  • Dataset merge capabilities
  • Infinite number of undos/redos
  • The actions taken to a dataset can be extracted and later applied on additional datasets
  • Has web-based interface
  • Uses programming language GREL which is less known and not always intuitive for beginners
  • Is not convenient for data entry; datasets should be uploaded into the program
  • Is less suited for large datasets; single columns cannot be collapsed for better viability 

 

Import and Export File Capabilities

Import: Excel files (.xls, .xlsx), Text files (.csv, .tsv), Web-based files (.xml, .html, .rdf) & additional formats (.json, .tar, .tar gz, Google Spreadsheets, Google Fusion Tables)

Export: Excel files (.xls, .xlsx), Text files (.csv, tsv), Web-based files (.html) & additional formats (.json, .tar, .tar gz)

Python is an open source quantitative analysis software for both first-time and experienced coders. Typical users include the social sciences, arts, engineers, government agencies, academia, and profit/nonprofit corporations. 

Pros Cons
  • Flexible and intuitive programming language
  • Syntax allows users to express concepts in fewer lines of code
  • Access to supportive Python community for Q&A
  • Can lack in speed and efficiency in comparison to other software

 

Import and Export File Capability

Import: Excel files (.xls, .xlsx), Text files (.txt, .csv) & additional formats (.sql, HDF5)

Export: Excel files (.xls, .xlsx), Text files ).txt, .csv) & additional formats (HDF5)

R and R-Studio are open source quantitative analysis software specifically for network and text analysis, data mining, and web scraping. Typical users include scientists, economists, bioinformatics, sociologists, and marketing researchers. 

Pros Cons
  • Functions are flexible and versatile
  • Works well with large datasets; the size is only limited by the computer during use not the software itself
  • Over 6000 user written/contributed packages available through CRAN
  • High level of graphics
  • Interacts well with other software (i.e. Python, Bioconductor, WinBUGS, JAGS etc.)
  • Large supportive online community for Q&A
  • Can be difficult to navigate without rudimentary understanding of different data types
  • Number of user written/contributed packages may be hard to sift through
  • No formal tech support

 

Import and Export File Capabilities 

Import: Excel files (.xls, .xlsx), Text files (.txt, .dat, .csv), Web-based files (.xml) & additional formats (.sav, .dta, .sas7bdat, .json)

Export: Excel files (.xlsx), Text files (.txt, .csv) & additional formats (.sav, .dta, .json)

Tableau Public is an open source quantitative analysis software with high graphics and an intuitive user interface. Typical users include profit/nonprofit corporations. 

Pros Cons
  • Drag and drop user interface allows users of all programming skill levels
  • Dashboards allow users to combine multiple views of their data into one analytics tool
  • Web-based version and desktop-based version
  • Free version does not have the full capabilities of the full-scale version, Tableau Desktop.

 

Import and Export File Capabilities

Import: Excel files (.xls, .xlsx), Text files (.txt, .csv) & Access files (.mdb, .accdb)

Export: Text files (.pdf) & Web-based files (embedded web links)

WEKA is an open sources quantitative analysis software developed in New Zealand. Typical users include academia and profit/nonprofit corporations.

Pros Cons
  • Compatible with large or small datasets
  • Data visualization does not include scatterplots, other plots (e.g. box-whisker, mean/error), or 3D graphs
  • Does not import data from Excel

Import and Export File Capabilities

Import: Text files (.txt, .csv), Web-based files & additional formats (.arff, .libsvm)