Master of Digital Humanities (Leuven)

Digitization affects in many ways how future scientists in Humanities and Behavioural Sciences will conduct their research. Also, graduates from Humanities and Behavioural Sciences programs enter a professional world in which digitization becomes the standard, be it in publishing, arts, libraries, teaching and many others.

The Master of Science in Digital Humanities program aims to prepare graduates from Humanities and Behavioural Sciences programs for these challenges. It aims to help such graduates to develop digital competencies that will allow them to add digital dimensions to their own domain expertise. It aims to explicitly link this knowledge and these competencies to case studies and applications related to the domain expertise of the students. It will train them to master information structures and functionalities of data, programming structures and technique to produce scripts for digital applications, tools for improving access and interactive use of data and the development of new digital applications. It will train them how to manage projects related to digitization and introduce them to emerging new digital technologies and their applications.

As an advanced master program (master-after master), it is assumed that the students entering this program have already achieved the general academic competencies defined for any master's program. Nevertheless, it is also within the aims of the program to further strengthen these competencies, within the specific context that Digital Humanities offers.

More specifically, graduates understand the basics of Digital Humanities, databases and query languages, scripting languages, the role of IT in management and of some of the emerging technologies in Digital Humanities. They are able to formulate research goals, determine trajectories that achieve these goals, collect and select information relevant to achieve the research goals and interpret collected information on the basis of a critical research attitude. They are able to communicate scientifically. They are able to model a database and use SQL, to use a scripting language, to apply tools for Digital Humanities and to study applications in Digital Humanities. They have the attitudes of valuing and fostering creative, critical and independent thinking, of applying an interdisciplinary and participative approach in innovative development and of striving towards opening the digital world to a broader society.