Over the next few months, the site will host posts on issues germane to digital art history in advance of the discussions, panels, and actions at THATCamp in Chicago. This first post introduces Prof. Anne Swartz, the convener of this year’s camp. 

We’re asking posters to respond (broadly) to the following questions:

1. What is your current involvement with “digital art history”? 
2. What is one of the most pressing issues in the field of “digital art history” today? 
3. Where do you see innovations happening? 
4. What’s the panel or issue you’d most like to see proposed for THATCamp CAA in Chicago? 

I became a full-time eLearning professor in 2004.  I had a short training in course development and online teaching and I was sent on my way.   Online art history was much in conversation at CAA in 2005, but I still felt adrift because I didn’t have many other art historians to consult.  I quickly developed practical approaches, assignments, and incentives for students to engage them in the material, in both the courses I developed and the ones I taught.  As the eLearning program grew at my college, I dedicated myself to mentoring other faculty, helping them navigate this oft-unfamiliar terrain.  Now, I have become something of an apologist for eLearning and digital art history because I proselytize their attributes whenever I have the opportunity.   It isn’t simply the mode of delivery that makes it a valuable experience.

At first, friends, colleagues, and acquaintances in academia looked at me with wounded eyes when I told them I was teaching via eLearning.  It was as though I had entered an academic purgatory of neither here nor there.  Some well-meaning but aggressive folk assured me I would be back in the on-campus classroom in no time with no damaging impact upon my career.  Others didn’t say anything and simply wrote me off as a professional lightweight.

Though it isn’t a method for everyone, the students for whom it does benefit are more engaged online than in the on-ground classroom.  Having students all over the world enlivens the conversation as students discuss the art they see in their area and the cultural differences about perceptions of the art we study.  Best of all, the students are learning well.  Students have opened themselves up more to the material in the online environment and, thus, do more with the curriculum.  The virtual art and references available online are astounding and impressive, giving students access to databases, networks, images, archives, and scholarship, enriching their experience. One of the benefits of teaching online is that I read and write faster and am able to be more professionally active as a result.

Prejudices against teaching and learning art history via eLearning are ubiquitous.  Perhaps our discipline is more conservative because we remain so anchored in the discussion of objects and their maintenance.  Or maybe it is a result of the relatively smaller size of our field.  However, in my experience, I can’t say these remonstrances have merit.  I have many wonderful interactions with the students.  My students report back about their successes, just as my on-ground students did when they become alums.  The proliferation of digital archives and image banks has changed the way I teach and research and I am grateful for these advances.  I use social media to circulate my research, learn about new publications, conferences, and opportunities, and question the art historiat about research queries.  I have much to learn about digital art history and am looking forward to what’s ahead.

Because of my interest in eLearning, I have also become interested in digital publishing and regard them as intertwined in sharing some similar negative perceptions.  I would be interested in discussion at THATCamp CAA 2014 of eLearning art history pedagogy and benefits and challenges of digital publishing.  Also, I want to hear from younger and emerging scholars about their experiences with both of these areas.