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Undergraduate Research

Undergraduate Research for UT History Students

ClioVis

ClioVis is educational technology software created at UT Austin by history Professor Erika Bsumek. Since its inception, it has been used by faculty members and students at over 30 different institutions. The platform is designed to scaffold the student learning experience by helping students plot historical events, use evidence to make analytical connections between them, and then present their findings in an organized and engaging way. The robust platform has helped students across the US write over 60 million words. It also creates fully interactive, digital projects that can include text, images, audio clips, and videos. So, in essence, students can make “illustrated podcasts” or mini-documentaries in the platform.

Undergraduates have been involved in the project in a number of different ways. Student nterns have made tutorial videos that are embedded in the platform and can be found online. They have conducted research on topics of their interest, and they have published articles on their work. Some have administered our social media accounts to get the word out about the platform while others have gone to classrooms to conduct tutorials with instructors and their students. If you are interested in edtech, we can find something for an intern to do. Much of this work is self-directed.

You can read about the platform and some of the work the interns have done here and here. You can also watch some of the videos student interns have made here and here.

If you are interested in being a ClioVis intern, please reach out to Dr. Erika Bsumek at embsumek@austin.utexas.edu.

JapanLab

College of Liberal Arts

JapanLab Sugoroku Team.

JapanLab is a collaboration between the Department of History and the Department of Asian Studies. It is generously funded by the Japan Foundation with matching support from the UT College of Liberal Arts.

At the center of the program are the JapanLab internships. Each semester, we recruit around 20 students from across the university to participate in an intensive, semester-long internship course designed to develop Digital Humanities resources, including fully functional video games. These resources are then made available for free to teachers across the world.

As part of this project, we have developed close links with senior industry professionals including Clay Carmouche, the Narrative Director at Brass Lion Entertainment (formerly at XBOX Publishing).

View some examples of JapanLab projects below:

  • Ghosts over the Water is an interactive video game released in 2022, which includes more than 130,000 words of text and takes players into the turbulent world of Japanese politics in the nineteenth century.
  • Ready, Set, Yokohama is a digital recreation of an 1872 board game, racing from Tokyo to Yokohama and back with historical notes.
  • Mapping Violence in Medieval Japan is a digital exhibit using online tools to map sites of authorized violence in late medieval Japan.
  • The Censor’s Desk puts players in the role of a historical censor. Players choose whether to suppress, redact, or approve authentic literary texts based on a given set of rules and historical contexts, but also must face the consequences, whether in the form of authors’ harangues, their bosses’ censure, or ripple effects such as PTA protests or shifts in public war support.
  • Palace of Poetry is a video game based on the Tale of Genji, a sprawling story of love, lust, grief, and ambition a thousand years ago. In this first-person visual novel game, the player interacts with the women of Genji’s palace in a way that introduces Japanese culture, history, gender roles, and day-to-day life.

For the most recent round of applications, please visit JapanLab at: https://www.utjapanlab.com/apply-fall-2024

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