Digital Humanities and Collaboration for the Study of Chinese Writing

Abstract

Digital humanities is cross disciplinary such as collaboration with humanities, computing, use of digital resources, training and data analysis (Kirschenbaum, 2010; Trinity College Dublin, 2015). Digital humanities helps librarians find out a way to enrich services and platforms to support learning, teaching and research activities in traditional humanities disciplines (Borgman, 2009). There are various humanities subjects such as theology, language, literature and culture. Among these subjects, this paper will focus on the area of Chinese writing. Numerous studies (such as HKEAA, 2012) have shown that students in Hong Kong are weak in Chinese writing skills and often find writing a difficult task. Almost half of secondary school students of Chinese subjects in open examinations were unable to meet the minimum requirement for entrance to universities in Hong Kong (HKEAA, 2015). Thus, the question of how to improve the students’ interest and competence in writing by enhancing their Chinese writing experience has become a pressing issue for schools and teachers. This paper will show how the research team in a theology college library have used collaborative teaching with Chinese subject teachers in a secondary school in Hong Kong, with a combination of collaborative writing and use of digital technologies (e.g. Wiki, online tools, digital resources) to develop information literacy and writing skills of students, as well providing an analysis of the relationship between information literacy, writing skills and the interest of students.