Welcome to computational history!
Spring 2026 – Tuesdays – 09:15-12:00 – TBC (Akrinn, Kalvskinnet)
Instructor: Francisco J. Beltrán Tapia
This intermediate bachelor course (level 2), offered by the Department of Historical Studies at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, provides a practical introduction on how historians can use computational tools to learn about the past.
Description
Digital access to historical records is now available on an unprecedent scale. Millions of newspapers, government documents, letters and diaries, among other sources, are only one click away and completely searchable. Similarly, complete population censuses, birth, death and marriage records, military and prisons registers, and other sources have been digitised and made available online.
How can we make sense of this ever-increasing wealth of information? Computational methods permit extracting and analysing huge amounts of information, both textual and numerical, that would be impossible otherwise. Supplementing traditional qualitative methods with computing methods not only allows shedding new light into old questions, but also addressing new ones. Likewise, digital tools help visualising information in innovative and powerful ways, thus producing compelling arguments and stories.
This course provides an in-depth introduction to computational methods in history, covering some of the techniques most widely used in research in the historical and social sciences. This hands-on course shows how to apply quantitative methods to historical information, both textual and numerical, keeping statistical theory and mathematics to a minimum. The goal is to provide students with the tools to critically engage with the literature relying on computing methods and to be able to conduct original research using those tools either in academia, the public, or the business sector. In the process, students will master R, a free statistical software widely used by practitioners in many different fields.
The course is taught once a week in 3-hour sessions. Each session combines lectures and computer practicals using R. Students will learn by applying the different concepts to real data used by historians.
No previous background in computing or statistics is required. For more information, contact Francisco J. Beltrán Tapia.
Important warning
Please follow the Instructions section to prepare for the course in advance. As well as reading the article Quantifying history, this involves downloading the course materials, installing and getting familiar with R and RStudio and going through the background information on the case-studies we will be exploring.