Digital Portfolio
Overview
The digital portfolio is the culminating component of the Graduate Certificate in Digital Humanities.
The portfolio gives students an opportunity to reflect on their intellectual development, document their engagement with Digital Humanities methods, and present selected work to academic, professional, and public audiences. Portfolios may include research, teaching, collaborative projects, digital scholarship, or community-engaged work.
The portfolio should demonstrate both critical engagement with Digital Humanities as a field and practical experience applying digital methods and technologies.
Core Components
Digital Humanities portfolios bring together research, teaching, and project work that reflects each student’s graduate training and development in the field. They show how students move between humanistic questions and digital methods while reflecting on the choices, audiences, and forms that shape their work.
Each portfolio must include:
Intellectual Statement
The Intellectual Statement is a 400–600 word reflection on the student’s scholarly trajectory in Digital Humanities. This section focuses on the questions, methods, and interventions that shape the student’s work, as well as possible future directions for research, teaching, digital scholarship, or community-engaged work.
Critical Understanding
The Critical Understanding section complements the intellectual statement by situating the student’s work within the broader field of Digital Humanities. Students should define Digital Humanities in their own terms and identify the debates, methods, or commitments that inform their approach.
Rather than summarizing the field, this section should reflect how the student’s work connects to current conversations and methodologies.
DH-Engaged Projects
The portfolio must include at least two Digital Humanities projects. These may be collaborative or individual and may grow out of research, teaching, coursework, community-engaged work, or other scholarly contexts.
For each project, students should explain:
- their role in the work
- the methods and technologies used
- the project’s goals and outcomes
Projects should also demonstrate practical engagement with Digital Humanities methods and technologies appropriate to the student’s work and interests. These may include visualization, mapping, database design, metadata, interface design, text analysis, digital archives, modeling, or project management.
Format and Platforms
The portfolio must be publicly accessible online. Students may build the portfolio using WordPress, GitHub Pages, Google Sites, or another content management system or static site platform.
Students may use UCLA-hosted platforms or independently managed domains and hosting.
Example Portfolios
Examples of UCLA DH portfolios include:
Diana Blanco,
MA, Latin American Cultural Studies
Julia Stoddard,
Master of Library & Information Science
Yun-Pu Yang,
PhD, Theatre & Performance Studies
Evaluation
Faculty evaluate portfolios based on:
- the quality of the work presented
- the depth of reflection and critical engagement
- the coherence of the overall narrative
- the clarity and presentation of the site
Submission
Students should submit their portfolio for review by the end of Week 8 of the quarter in which they plan to complete the certificate.
Students may also request a one-on-one consultation before submission.
Contact
Students are encouraged to meet with the Student Affairs Officer to discuss course planning and eligibility.