Below you will find the data for a forthcoming article in the Canadian Historical Review in which I discuss the lack of women present in the digital history classroom. At the request of the reviewers, I provide a link to to a network visualization (built in Onodo) which indicates the gender of both instructors and authors of assigned readings in 15 Canadian Digital History courses (a small sample of what is being taught, but what was easily findable on the open web). I have also made this data publicly available in the form of a Google Sheet so people can rework the analysis or add to it if they desire.
Click the image below to be taken to an interactive version:
Network Visualization built in Onodo
As noted in the paper: The courses used in this analysis are focussed on introduction to digital history courses at both the undergraduate and graduate level (i.e., they are described as an introductory digital history course or an introduction to DH course in a history department). There are many other courses in digital methods that closely relate to history, including new media classes, HGIS courses, and DH courses offered by other departments, and history courses with a section or module on digital methods, but for the citation analysis that follows, I focussed primarily on courses that presented themselves as ‘digital history’.
In looking to most accurately represent the instructors and authors that are represented in the network graph, my research assistant Rashmeet Kaur and I took the following steps:
1. Search for author’s own website for self-used pronouns and apply gender label.
2. Search for images of the author and select gender label based on perception.
3. Where neither 1 nor 2 was possible, we assumed gender based on the norms associated with these names by society.
4. Prior to publication, the entire list was re-checked by the author for any mistakes.
This is understandably an imperfect process, but I feel we adequately represented the perceived gender of these authors and the visualization is provided only to give an idea of the gender bias in these documents. I take full responsibility for any errors that surface.