Public Digital Projects for Courses

ArcGIS StoryMaps allows you to combine maps, text, and multimedia to present engaging, interactive narratives. StoryMaps offers many themes for a polished, well-designed look. You can create StoryMaps with or without a mapping component; if, for example, you wanted to focus on creating a digital exhibition or a multimedia narrative. (For more information on creating a StoryMap that integrates geographic data, see the ArcGIS StoryMaps tutorial in the "Mapping" section of this guide.)

Examples:

The Oak of Jerusalem (mapping)

Morrill Reckoning (exhibit)

Yale Asian American Cultural Center (exhibit) 

Further Reading:

Brown GIS and Data Tutorials

How to make an awful StoryMap

Nine steps to great storytelling

“Scalar is a free, open source authoring and publishing platform created by the Alliance for Networking Visual Culture. It's designed to make it easy for authors to write long-form, born-digital scholarship online. Scalar enables users to assemble media from multiple sources and juxtapose them with their own writing in a variety of ways, with minimal technical expertise required.” Scalar projects take the form of digital "books" that have pages, tags, and paths that allow you to create non-linear reading experiences.

Examples:

As I Remember It

Urban Sights: Visual Culture and Urban History

Trans at the Table

Further Reading:

Scalar: An Introduction

Scalar 2 User's Guide

Digital Publishing with Students in Scalar: Pedagogical Opportunities, Challenges, and Collaborative Approaches

TimelineJS is a tool created by the Knight Lab that allows users to make an engaging and interactive digital timeline using information imported from a Google Sheets spreadsheet template. It can incorporate a variety of media types, such as images and videos, and you can embed it in websites or even in an ArcGIS StoryMap. 

Examples:

In the Wake of George Floyd Timeline

Further Reading:

Digital Humanities Toolkit: TimelineJS

Tulane Library Guide to TimelineJS