Graduate Certificate in Digital Studies

The Graduate Certificate in Digital Studies is a degree-affiliated certificate for credit that will be noted on the student’s academic transcript. The certificate must be pursued in conjunction with a Ph.D. program or a two-year master’s degree program at the University of Chicago. Coursework completed to earn the certificate may be counted toward degree requirements.

If you are taking Digital Studies (DIGS) courses with an eye to obtaining this certificate or are planning to do so, please send email to the Associate Director of Curriculum and Instruction of the Forum for Digital Culture at digitalstudies@uchicago.edu so we can add you to our mailing list and keep track of your progress.

Requirements

In order to earn the Graduate Certificate in Digital Studies, students must pass four Digital Studies (DIGS) courses and give a presentation of their digitally informed research in a University of Chicago workshop sponsored by the Council on Advanced Studies or in a University-sponsored conference. Courses must be taken for a letter grade and students must attain a grade of B (3.0) or better in all certificate coursework.

The following courses are required:

1. One course on computer programming: DIGS 30001, Introduction to Computer Programming with Python, which is offered annually in the Autumn Quarter. This course, or an equivalent course in computer programming, is a prerequisite for several other Digital Studies courses. Students who have previously passed a college-level computer programming course with a grade of B (3.0) or higher may petition the Associate Director of Curriculum and Instruction for an exemption from taking DIGS 30001, in which case they would take an additional course from the list under number 4 below.

2. One course on data analysis: DIGS 30002, Data Analysis I: Introduction to Statistics, which is offered annually in the Autumn Quarter. This course, or an equivalent course in statistics, is a prerequisite for DIGS 30004 and DIGS 30005. Students who have previously passed a college-level statistics course with a grade of B (3.0) or higher may petition the Associate Director of Curriculum and Instruction for an exemption from taking DIGS 30002, in which case they would take an additional course from the list under number 4 below.

3. One course on data management for the humanities: DIGS 30003, Data Management for the Humanities, which is offered annually in the Autumn Quarter.

4. One of the following courses:

• DIGS 30004, Data Analysis II: Data Visualization and Machine Learning (Winter)
• DIGS 30005, Data Publication for the Humanities (Spring)
• DIGS 30006, Artificial Intelligence and the Humanities (Spring)
• DIGS 30007, Introduction to Digital Humanities (Winter)
• DIGS 30021, Digital Archaeology (Spring)
• DIGS 30031, Digital Texts I: Corpus Building and Corpus Statistics (Winter)
• DIGS 30032, Digital Texts II: Advanced Topics in Textual Analysis (Spring)
• DIGS 30041, Digital Media I: Game Design with Unity (Winter)
• DIGS 30042, Digital Media II: Virtual Reality with Unity (Spring)

Please note the following prerequisites:

1. DIGS 30004, DIGS 30005, DIGS 30006, and DIGS 30007 each have as a prerequisite DIGS 30001 or an equivalent introduction to computer programming.

2. DIGS 30004 and DIGS 30006 also have as a prerequisite DIGS 30002 or an equivalent introduction to statistics.

3. DIGS 30006 also has as a prerequisite DIGS 30004 or an equivalent introduction to machine learning.

4. DIGS 30007 also has as a prerequisite DIGS 30003 or an equivalent introduction to digital knowledge representation and ontologies.

In addition to completing the four courses specified above, students who wish to receive the Graduate Certificate in Digital Studies must also present their digitally informed research in a University of Chicago workshop sponsored by the Council on Advanced Studies or in a University-sponsored conference. This research may be related to a course paper or to the student’s thesis or dissertation work.

The presentation must be observed by a member of the faculty or staff of the Forum for Digital Culture in order for the student to receive credit for it. The student must inform the Associate Director of Curriculum and Instruction concerning the date, time, location, and title of the presentation at least three weeks in advance so that this can be arranged.

After a student has successfully completed all the requirements for the Graduate Certificate in Digital Studies, the Associate Director of Curriculum and Instruction will communicate this fact to the Registrar and to the relevant Dean of Students and it will be noted on the student’s academic transcript.

For more information, send email to digitalstudies@uchicago.edu.