A new humanities education model created by the Department of Japanese History, School of Cultural and Social Studies, The Graduate University for Advanced Studies, Sôkendai

　The Department of Japanese History, School of Cultural and Social Studies at the Graduate University for Advanced Studies, Sôkendai (Sôkendai Japanese History) leverages the strengths of a distinguished institution, the National Museum of Japanese History (Rekihaku). It provides Digital Humanities (DH: Humanities research applying informatics) education based on integrated studies of cultural and research resources, a research resource study of a fusion of arts and sciences.
　Integrated Studies of Cultural and Research Resources, promoted by Rekihaku, the backing institution, is an academic discipline looking at materials related to history and culture in various fields. We provide digital data as a basis for examining these materials and conduct research related to DH. Based on the results and knowledge obtained from the Integrated Studies of Cultural and Research Resources, we provide educational programs for building a system to uncover information on historical and cultural materials that are currently distributed throughout the country and methods for developing humanities research. Specifically, we provide educational programs based on informatics, such as the superposition of the locations of these resources with natural disaster information using GIS and the construction of metadata for putting complex and diverse historical materials into a form that computers can analyze. We also provide educational programs based on the humanities to consider new forms of this subject, targeting mainly historical science and cultural studies with the publicizing of resources and research results to the world via the Web and for use by the local community. By providing education in both the humanities and sciences, we contribute to the development of human resources who have a foundation in humanities knowledge and can apply a wide range of methods.
　In addition to these DH practices, we provide educational programs utilizing knowledge gained from the exhibitions at Rekihaku. Rekihaku advocates “museum-style research integration” that communicates research results in the form of exhibitions. To enable students to absorb the knowledge held by Rekihaku, we provide a class in which participants think about how to curate an exhibition using a small mobile exhibition unit, to communicate a specific research theme. In the class using the mobile exhibition unit, students from the WISE Program work together with students from Japan and abroad, providing an opportunity to think about history and culture through materials, transcending regions, disciplines, and countries.
　Students will study both “Integrated Studies of Cultural and Research Resources / DH” and “Museum-style Research Integration” in a practical manner in this WISE Program. DH is anticipated to be an essential intellectual foundation for developing new humanities knowledge in the advanced information-based society of the future. Knowledge of the humanities is crucial to foster people who can build a complex and diverse society. On the other hand, to develop this humanities knowledge into new forms, we must encourage further exchanges of research and human resources that transcend informatics techniques, quantitative concepts, and geographical location. The DH course is able to cater to these needs.
　Sôkendai Japanese History will conduct advanced and up-to-date research in the humanities.