Training in the profile "Applied Informatics in the Humanities" at the Siberian Federal University: interdisciplinarity and project approach

Antamoshkin Oleslav Aleksandrovich ORCID: 0000-0002-5976-5847 Doctor of Technical Science Professor, Department of Information Technologies in Creative and Cultural Industries, Siberian Federal University 660041, Russia, Krasnoyarsk Territory, Krasnoyarsk, 82 Svobodny Ave., room 440 oleslav24@gmail.com Vladimirov Vladimir Nikolayevich Doctor of History Professor, Department of Russian History, Altai State University 656049, Russia, Altai Krai, Barnaul, Lenin Avenue, 61, room 312 vvladimirov@icloud.com Other publications by this author

Lapteva Marina Anatol'evna PhD in Philosophy Head of the Department of Information Technologies in Creative and Cultural Industries, Siberian Federal University 660041, Russia, Krasnoyarsk Territory, Krasnoyarsk, 82 Svobodny Ave., room 440 krasmargo@mail.ru

The development of information technologies and their widespread use in scientific research and educational activities, including in the humanitarian field, raised the question of training appropriate specialists based on an interdisciplinary approach and able to apply mathematical methods and computer technologies to solve professional problems. The most consistent model of such training in the field of history has developed at the Faculty of History of Lomonosov Moscow State University, where, within the framework of specialization in historical informatics, the educational program is represented by a full "line" – bachelor's, master's, postgraduate studies. This model has been successfully developing for many years and gives good results. However, for its organization and support, a number of conditions are necessary, first of all, the provision of the educational program with the appropriate staff of teachers. At Moscow University, this activity has been conducted since 2004 by the Department of Historical Informatics, formed on the basis of the interdepartmental laboratory of the same name ^[1]. It is clear that only a small number of Russian universities can afford such a model.

At the same time, the digital transformation of the humanities and the humanitarian sphere in general requires more and more specialists focused on the development of digital humanitarian resources in the broadest sense of the word. The graduate model here is more focused on the resource side than on the analytical (research) side. The specialist must possess the basic technologies of digitization and processing of humanitarian information and its further representation in the digital space. This model exists in Russian higher education in two main variants. The first of them is training in the framework of educational programs related to digital Humanities (Digital Humanities, DH). Similar programs are being implemented in a number of universities of the Russian Federation, in each of these programs the emphasis is on one of the fields of humanitarian knowledge (linguistics, philosophy, history, journalism and media, etc.). A significant obstacle here is that in the nomenclature of higher education there is no such field of training as digital humanities. Therefore, the implementation of this model is carried out only in the format of a master's degree, which narrows the training base of relevant specialists.

These difficulties can be circumvented in the third model, which can be designated as the profile of "Applied Informatics in the humanities" within the framework of the direction of training "Applied Informatics". This approach was one of the first implemented by the Siberian Federal University (SibFU, Krasnoyarsk). Over the years, the program has changed its name more than once, and the curriculum has also changed in accordance with the requirements. The experience of training specialists of this profile accumulated over a sufficiently long period of time is the subject of consideration in this article. The photos presented in the text are taken from the personal archives of the authors. 

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The history of the bachelor's degree program in the direction of "Applied Informatics" in Krasnoyarsk dates back almost a quarter of a century. It began even before the merger of a number of universities into the Siberian Federal University. In 1999, the educational program on the profile "Applied Informatics in Museum business" was opened at the Department of Ethics, Aesthetics and Culture of the Technical University on the initiative of Doctor of Cultural Studies L.V. Khazova. Humanities prevailed in the curriculum, which was largely explained by the specifics of the department and the competencies of the teaching staff.

After the unification of Krasnoyarsk universities in 2006 and the creation of the Siberian Federal University, the program began to be implemented in its subdivision – the Humanities Institute. By this time, the university had established strong ties with museums and other cultural institutions of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, which made it possible to identify the range of existing problems. All of them were somehow connected with the preservation of the historical and cultural heritage of the region. In 2010, an almost new program "Applied Informatics in the arts and Humanities" was developed and launched, which replaced the old one, including because not only museums needed specialists in this profile.

A serious impetus to the development of this program was given by the holding in 2011 by the Humanities Institute of the Siberian Federal University and the Association "History and Computer" of the All-Russian scientific and methodological seminar "Virtual reconstruction of historical and cultural heritage in the formats of scientific research and educational process" ^[2]. In the process of exchanging experience and discussing the need for an interdisciplinary approach to solving the identified problem, ideas emerged for creating a future new curriculum containing disciplines necessary to solve the task and open to "interaction" with each other (an interdisciplinary approach). These ideas were eventually embodied in the next program called "Applied Informatics in Art and Interactive Media", which replaced the previous one and remains relevant today.

A definite consequence of the seminar can be considered the opening in 2012 of the first master's degree program in applied computer science ("Applied Computer Science in the arts and Humanities"). Disciplines that reveal the creative potential of students have been added to the curriculum of the master's degree.

The decision to open a master's degree was dictated by a number of reasons. Firstly, many of the bachelor's graduation papers had serious prospects for continuation, and students wanted to continue working on them. Secondly, the lack of a humanitarian block of knowledge has become very noticeable, allowing to focus the goal-setting of the work and form its theoretical foundation. Thirdly, graduates of other fields of study – historians, philosophers, art historians – wanted to continue their education in terms of replenishing their knowledge in the field of digital technologies, realizing the possibility of using them in their future activities. There were also programmers among them who claimed a lack of humanitarian knowledge for a deeper understanding of the meaning of what they were doing.

The existing demand, which was studied through a survey, questionnaire, interview, dictated the following necessary elements of the master's educational program:

1. A humanitarian block focused on understanding the main meaning of the graduate's activity. In accordance with the activities for the preservation and presentation of the historical and cultural heritage of the region, such courses as "Visual anthropology", "Visual semiotics and design" were included in the curriculum.

2. Creative industries and socio-cultural development, this includes such disciplines as "Creative industries", "Territorial development: socio-cultural dimension", "Unique historical and cultural territories".

3. Project management, this is a training course "Information project management in the socio-cultural sphere".

4. Digital technologies for the preservation of cultural heritage, this includes the disciplines "Technologies for the visualization of cultural objects", "Technologies for the preservation, actualization and representation of cultural heritage", "Theory and practice of virtual reality and artificial intelligence".

The Master's graduation papers were a ready-made project to solve the existing problem in the field of preservation and presentation of cultural heritage in modern formats and contexts.

In 2019, with the transition to new standards (3++), the content of the Master's degree program was updated. There are new disciplines focused on knowledge, allowing to generate new meanings and ideas that can be implemented with the help of modern digital technologies. In 2023, the correspondence magistracy "Virtual Archeology" was opened.

Graduates of the direction have found themselves in such areas as creative business (gaming industry, graphic design, three-dimensional modeling, photography, videography and editing, publishing); culture (museums, exhibition centers, theaters, libraries); media (SMM management, television, electronic information publications); education and science (teaching, scientific and managerial positions, public relations specialists). 

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The graduating Department of Information Technologies in Creative and Cultural Industries appeared at the Humanitarian Institute in 2010. For a long time it was headed by the current rector of the Siberian Federal University M.V. Rumyantsev, during the years of his head of the department there was a period of its formation. Today, the department employs 26 teachers representing various fields of knowledge: art history, information technology, project management, design, etc. The peculiarity of the department is that most of its employees are part-timers. This brings new ideas, dynamics of research directions, but it is also associated with a number of difficulties.

The project approach is implemented in the educational process. Knowledge of theoretical material is manifested in the implementation of the project, which is not speculative in nature, but solves a real problem in the preservation of cultural heritage. The graduate model formed by the staff of the department on the basis of existing educational programs is presented as follows: on the basis of humanitarian knowledge, to see the problem, generate an idea, assemble a team, distribute tasks; knowledge of information technologies will help not only to do what was conceived, but also to assess the quality of the tasks performed, as well as effectively present the result.

The thematic diversity of the final qualifying works is dictated by both the existing demand and the current offer generated by the department. The main topic remains the preservation of historical and cultural heritage. It is presented in the format of visualization, reconstruction and development of mobile applications. This includes, for example, the following topics:

– "Creation of 3D models of objects of the historical center of Krasnoyarsk",

– "3D technologies as a means of museum communication",

– "Development of information markers and visualization of a 3D map of the city of Divnogorsk based on Unity WebGL technology",

– "Virtual exhibition "Archaeological sensations of Yenisei Siberia",

– "Features of the development of three-dimensional sculptures on the example of creating a model of a representative of the indigenous small-numbered people of the North",

– "Development of a web application for viewing 3d models on the example of the archaeological collection of SibFU",

– "Mobile application of the aggregator of historical and cultural heritage",

– "Development of methods for automating photogrammetric processes",

– "Development of an information guide on memorial plaques of the central district of Krasnoyarsk".

A number of works were devoted to the work of students on digitizing and presenting the archaeological collections of the State Hermitage Museum, in which students have been practicing for several years (Fig. 1). In the zone of "special attention" are museum funds, the exposition representation of which is in the range of 10-15%, the rest remains inaccessible to museum visitors. Creating virtual expositions can solve this problem to one degree or another.

Fig. 1. In practice at the State Hermitage Museum

In recent years, there has been an appeal to an inclusive topic, while the results presented in the framework of graduation papers are already quite convincing:

– "Technologies for visualizing content used in correctional work with visually impaired children",

– "Creating an application for people with visual disabilities, with the Accessibility function",

– "Creation of the Accessibility Map application for people with disabilities on the example of Krasnoyarsk".

Another interesting direction arose in the course of cooperation with the Krasnoyarsk Regional Institute for Advanced Training of Education Workers – the idea of creating a unique local history resource designed to actualize the interest of schoolchildren in their native places. Given that children have some digital skills, it was decided to create an unusual interactive book for them using augmented reality technology that organizes the communication of a fictional hero with a young reader. The result was presented in the final work "Development of a mobile application component of the interactive book "Cares and amusements of little Yeniseians" using augmented reality technologies"" (Fig. 2). The book with the application is already used in local history lessons in schools of the Krasnoyarsk Territory and is in great demand.

Fig. 2. Mobile application to the book "Cares and amusements of little Yeniseians"

A number of works are devoted to the analysis of data on the representation of cultural heritage objects on the Internet:

– "Determination of the share of classical works of art in the digital library "Europeana"",

– "Data analysis of digital copies of books from the catalog of the Minusinsk Public Library",

– "Using the Application Programming Interface (API) to study the collections of the Europeanan Digital Library",

– "Research methods of digital aggregators of cultural heritage".

Many student projects presented in the graduation papers were implemented on the basis of the DHlab laboratory (https://dh-lab.ru /), which our graduates become employees of (Fig. 3). Currently, a significant number of final qualifying works are focused on creating content for the aggregator of historical and cultural heritage "Sibiriana" (https://siberiana.online ), whose target audience is assumed to be quite broad: the site contains verified content for scientific research and educational purposes, designed for everyone interested in the history, culture and nature of the region.

Fig. 3. Creating a graduation project in the DHlab Laboratory

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Digital technologies continue to develop rapidly. The number of people willing to master the difficult path of implementing applied informatics in the humanities is also growing. Only in 2023, about 50 people defended the final qualifying works of bachelors and masters at the Department of Information Technology in Creative and Cultural Industries. Each stage of the adjustment of the bachelor's and master's degree curriculum is dictated by a rapidly changing situation. In the process of teaching students and preparing final qualifying papers, "deficits" of new knowledge are discovered from time to time. For us, this is primarily working with data, processing and analyzing it. And the main question, in our opinion, always remains on the agenda, to which the work must necessarily contain an answer: why are we doing all this, and how will my work change the world for the better? At least two components remain indisputable: interdisciplinarity, which is the basis of educational programs, and a project approach, which assumes a clear statement of the problem and the use of adequate mechanisms for its solution using digital technologies. The development of quality education remains a priority in the further work on the preparation of bachelors and masters of applied informatics in the humanities.