Some digital humanities projects utilize large data sets or special software that may require specialized computer resources. Students and researchers who are working on digital humanities projects but have limited access to computers or are working with older personal computers are encouraged to take advantage of these facilities.
Educational Technology Services
ETS maintains several drop-in facilities that are open to all campus affiliates with a CalNet login. However, while a wide variety of software is available pre-installed on these machines, note there may be restrictions on installing additional software. Mac and Windows desktop computers are available with with Microsoft Office and Adobe software pre-installed. ETS also offers several scanners with both color and black and white printing.
Instructional computer facilities are available to instructors for no charge during the school year and normal business hours. Bookings that will require additional software installations must be made at least three weeks in advance.
D-Lab
The D-Lab offers a small number of computers with large monitors and software for both qualitative and quantitative data analysis. Software for network analysis and geospatial analysis is also available. Software includes: NVivo, ATLAS.ti, Python, R Studio, Gephi, SAS, SPSS, Stata, ArcGIS, and QGIS. Researchers who need to run computations over several hours are encouraged to request keycard access to use D-Lab facilities over the evenings and weekends.
The Library
- The Library offers public computer at several libraries around campus with the Microsoft Office, Adobe Creative Suite, and ArcGIS pre-installed. See the Library’s current list of installed software.
- Students who need a laptop for class activities may borrow either a Mac or Windows machine from the Library for a period of several hours.
- The Doe Library Data Lab also provides workstations with analytical software such as ArcGIS, Stata, SAS, SPSS, Stata, R, and Python.
Geospatial Innovation Facility
GIF has several computers available for geospatial work, helps maintain the College of Natural Resources' Teaching Lab, and also offers large-format printing services. UC students, faculty, and staff are eligible for a GIF user account at no charge. User account privileges include 24/7 access to computers in 111 Mulford Hall via Cal 1 Card entry and 1 GB of data storage on a private network folder.
College of Environmental Design
The College of Environmental Design offers 24/7 access to their computer labs in Wurster Hall for a per-semester fee. Accounts include use of a server-based Rendering Farm (for Rhino 3D only), access to cloud printing in the studio areas, use of office equipment and desktop scanners in the labs as well as access to the large-scale scanner.
Upgraded Computing Resources: Cloud Computing and HPC
Some DH projects may require more computing power than what one machine can offer. In his case, researchers may investigate using cloud computing resources, which harness the processing power of several interconnected machines to produce results more quickly. Schedule an appointment with a DH consultant or visit the Cloud Computing Working Group to learn more. Large scale projects might even consider taking advantage of the Berkeley’s high performance computing cluster. For a sense of scale, see digital humanities projects being conducted with the digital humanities program at Compute Canada, Canada’s national research computing infrastructure.