ESRI StoryMaps

ESRI StoryMaps let you combine authoritative maps with text, images, and multimedia content, and make it easy to harness the power of maps and geography to tell your story. After creating a free online account through ArcGIS Online, users can select from a wide variety of pre-designed templates to create a visual narrative. If you are interested in incorporating ESRI StoryMaps into research or teaching, Matt Cooney (GIS Technical Director) offers trainings and class support upon request.

Resources & Examples

Templates & Tutorials | A list of available templates in ArcGIS Online. Each template contains examples and tutorials specific to each design.

Example | SpyGlass on the Past: Denver 1879 & Today

Example | Maryland Historical Trust: Maryland Women’s Fight for the Vote

Nodegoat

Nodegoat is a relational database program designed specifically for humanistic inquiry. Nodegoat allows scholars to build datasets or import pre-existing datasets into their own data model and offers relational modes of analysis with spatial and chronological forms of contextualization. By combining these elements within one environment, scholars are able to instantly process, analyze and visualize complex datasets relationally, diachronically and spatially

Resources & Examples

User Manual | A comprehensive guide to help users create a project or explore specific functions. Full documentation is also available on GitHub.

Video Tutorials | Short video tutorials that cover creating a project, entering data, and visualizing data. 

Demo Projects | Nodegoat has published several demo projects that allow users to experience the platform. Go to the login page and use the demo login credentials (username: “demo”/password: “demo”) to explore Nodegoat’s interface.

Examples | Explore examples of Nodegoat projects.

KnightLab Toolbox

KnightLab at Northwestern University offers open-source, adaptable, and lightweight tools, including TimelineJS, StoryMapJS, and JuxtaposeJS. Full tutorials and examples of each tool are available on the pages linked below.

TimelineJS

TimelineJS is an open-source tool that enables anyone to build visually rich, interactive timelines. Beginners can create a timeline using nothing more than a Google spreadsheet.

StoryMapJS

A less robust alternative to ESRI StoryMaps, StoryMapJS is an open-source tool that can help you tell stories on the web that highlight the locations of a series of events.

JuxtaposeJS

Juxtapose helps storytellers compare two pieces of similar media, including photos, and GIFs. It’s ideal for highlighting then/now stories that explain slow changes over time (growth of a city skyline, regrowth of a forest, etc.) or before/after stories that show the impact of single dramatic events (natural disasters, protests, wars, etc.).

Voyant Tools

Voyant Tools is a web-based text reading and analysis environment. It is a scholarly project that is designed to facilitate reading and interpretive practices for digital humanities students and scholars as well as for the general public. Users can access the Voyant’s text repository or upload their own texts, and perform lightweight text analytics such as word frequency lists, frequency distribution plots, and KWIC displays.

Resources & Examples

User Manual | Voyant provides a comprehensive guide that walks users through the various types of analysis that are possible in Voyant.  

Examples | A list of blog posts and articles that provide examples of text analysis done with Voyant.

Omeka

Omeka Classic is a web publishing platform for sharing digital collections and creating media-rich online exhibits.

Omeka Neatline

A suite of add-on tools for Omeka, Neatline allows scholars, students, and curators to tell stories with maps and timelines.

Resources & Examples

User Manual | A comprehensive guide to Omeka, including tips for planning your site, adding content, examples and case studies, and hosting suggestions.

Example | Histories of the National Mall

Example | Black Liberation 1969 Archive at Swarthmore College

WordPress

Open-source blogging software that is free and easy-to-use. Can also be used to build websites with a variety of features.

Full List | DLA Tools

MAPPING | SPATIAL ANALYSIS

ArcGIS by ESRI
Advanced tools for discovery, access, visualization, and dissemination of geospatial information. Facilitated by the Colorado College GIS Lab.
ESRI StoryMaps
ESRI StoryMaps let you combine authoritative maps with text, images, and multimedia content, and make it easy to harness the power of maps and geography to tell your story.
StoryMapsJS
A less robust alternative to ESRI StoryMaps, StoryMapJS is an open-source tool that can help you tell stories on the web that highlight the locations of a series of events.
JuxtaposeJS
Juxtapose helps storytellers compare two pieces of similar media, including photos, and GIFs. It’s ideal for highlighting then/now stories that explain slow changes over time or before/after stories that show the impact of single dramatic events.
Palladio
Online and desktop tools for discovery, access, visualization, and dissemination of geospatial information.

TEXTUAL ANALYSIS

Voyant Tools
Voyant Tools is a web-based text reading and analysis environment. It is a scholarly project that is designed to facilitate reading and interpretive practices.
Sketch Engine*
Sketch Engine is the ultimate tool to explore how language works. Its algorithms analyze authentic texts of billions of words (text corpora) to identify instantly what is typical in language and what is rare, unusual or emerging usage.
HathiTrust Research Center (HTRC)
The HathiTrust Research Center (HTRC) enables computational analysis of works in the HathiTrust Digital Library (HTDL).
Google Ngram Viewer
Designed by Google, Ngram Viewer allows a user to plot the use of words over time in approximately 5 million books.
TIME Magazine Corpus (BYU)
The TIME corpus is based on 100 million words of text in about 275,000 articles from TIME magazine from 1923-2006, and it serves as a great resource to examine changes in American English during this time.
Common Place Cultures (U-Chicago)
Drawing on the ECCO archive, the EEBO-TCP, and Greek and Latin corpora, this searchable database allows for users to study and explore the intertextuality and intellectual relationships of 18th-century and pre-18th-century texts.

TIMELINE TOOLS

TimelineJS
TimelineJS is an open-source tool that enables anyone to build visually rich, interactive timelines. Beginners can create a timeline using nothing more than a Google spreadsheet.
HyperStudio’s Chronos Timeline (MIT)
Open-source blogging software that is free and easy-to-use. Can also be used to build websites with a variety of features. 

DATABASE TOOLS | DBMS

Nodegoat
Nodegoat is a relational database program designed specifically for humanistic inquiry. Users can easily build data models, enter data, and explore data through geographic and social network visualization.
Filemaker Platforms*
The FileMaker platform offers the ability to create relational databases. 
Microsoft Access
MS Access is designed to work with Office 365 and cloud-based data so you can see it anywhere. Use templates to build databases faster, and create web apps in minutes.

CONTENT-MANAGEMENT (CMS) | ONLINE PUBLISHING

Omeka
Omeka is a web publishing platform for sharing digital collections and creating media-rich online exhibits.
WordPress
WordPress is an open-source blogging software that is free and easy-to-use. Can also be used to build websites with a variety of features.
Drupal
Drupal is an open source content management platform powering millions of websites and applications. It’s built, used, and supported by an active and diverse community of people around the world, but does require significant set-up and skills.