In brief
Everyone who goes to a THATCamp proposes a session. Do not prepare a paper or presentation. Plan instead to have a conversation, to get some work done, or to have fun.
How do I propose a session?
Once you register for your THATCamp and are approved, you will receive a user account on the THATCamp website. You should receive your login information by email. Before the THATCamp, you should log in to the THATCamp site, click on Posts –> Add New, then write and publish your session proposal. Your session proposal will appear on the front page of this site, and we’ll all be able to read and comment on it beforehand. (If you haven’t worked with WordPress before, see codex.wordpress.org/Writing_Posts for help.) The morning of the event, all THATCamp participants will vote on those proposals (and probably come up with several new ones), and then all together will work out how best to put those sessions into a schedule.
Remember that you will be expected to facilitate the sessions you propose, so that if you propose a hacking session, you should have the germ of a project to work on; if you propose a workshop, you should be prepared to teach it or find a teacher; if you propose a discussion of the Digital Public Library of America, you should be prepared to summarize what that is, begin the discussion, keep the discussion going, and end the discussion.
When do I propose a session?
You can propose a session as early as you like, but most people publish their session proposals to the THATCamp site during the week before the THATCamp begins. It’s a good idea to check the THATCamp site frequently in the week beforehand (perhaps by subscribing to its RSS feed with an RSS reader such as Google Reader) to see and comment on everyone’s session proposals. You can also come up with a last-minute idea and propose it to the THATCamp participants during the scheduling session, which is the first session of the THATCamp.
Why are sessions proposed this way?
Proposing sessions just before a THATCamp and building a schedule during the first session of a THATCamp ensures that sessions are honest and informal, that session topics are current, and that unconference participants will collaborate on a shared task. An unconference, in Tom Scheinfeldt’s words, is fun, productive, and collegial, and at THATCamp, therefore, “[W]e’re not here to listen and be listened to. We’re here to work, to participate actively.[…] We’re here to get stuff done.” Listen further:
Everyone should feel equally free to participate and everyone should let everyone else feel equally free to participate. You are not students and professors, management and staff here at THATCamp. At most conferences, the game we play is one in which I, the speaker, try desperately to prove to you how smart I am, and you, the audience member, tries desperately in the question and answer period to show how stupid I am by comparison. Not here. At THATCamp we’re here to be supportive of one another as we all struggle with the challenges and opportunities of incorporating technology in our work, departments, disciplines, and humanist missions.
See the About page for more information on the philosophy of unconferences.
What do I propose?
There are roughly four things people do in THATCamp sessions: Talk, Make, Teach, and Play. Sometimes one session contains elements of all these, but it’s also a fair taxonomy for THATCamp sessions.
- In a Talk session proposal, you offer to lead a group discussion on a topic or question of interest to you.
- In a Make session proposal, you offer to lead a small group in a hands-on collaborative working session with the aim of producing a draft document or piece of software.
- In a Teach session, you offer to teach a skill, either a “hard” skill or a “soft” skill.
- In a Play session, anything goes — you suggest literally playing a game, or you suggest some quality group playtime with one or more technologies, or what you will.
Also, you should feel free to pick up and continue themes or discussions that have been proposed at other THATCamps. There are ongoing discussions about the role of libraries in digital humanities, Less yacking/more hacking, Project Management, and more.
Talk session examples
- Jeffrey McClurken, Archiving Social Media Conversations of Significant Events, THATCamp Prime 2009
- Sherman Dorn, The Ill-formed Question, THATCamp Prime 2009
- Eli Pousson, How do we share our knowledge of historic places?, THATCamp Columbus 2010
- Frédéric Clavert and Véronique Ginouvès, Les archives orales et le web (Oral testimonies and the web), THATCamp Paris 2010
- Zach Whalen, ARGS, Archives, and Digital Scholarship, THATCamp 2010
- Aditi Shrikumar, Text Mining and the Digital Humanities, Great Lakes THATCamp 2010
- Jon Voss, Toward Linked Data in the Humanities, Great Lakes THATCamp 2010
- Kathleen Fitzpatrick, “how to transform something like CommentPress into a viable mode of open peer review,” THATCamp Southern California 2010
Make session examples
- David Uspal, Hackfest: HTML5, THATCamp Philly 2011
- Wayne Graham, Mostly Hack Zotero hacking session, THATCamp Prime 2010
- Stéfan Sinclair, One Day, One Toolet, Great Lakes THATCamp 2010
- Ben Brumfield, Hackfest, THATCamp Austin 2009
- Julie Meloni, Project develop self-paced open access digital humanities curriculum…, THATCamp Prime 2010
- Dan Cohen and Tom Scheinfeldt, One Week, One Book: Hacking the Academy, THATCamp Prime 2010
Teach session examples
- Kirrily Roberts, FreeBase workshop, THATCamp Bay Area 2010
- Bethany Nowviskie and Bill Turkel, Hacking Wearables and E-Textiles Workshop, Great Lakes THATCamp 2010
- Aditi Muralidharan, Visualization workshop, THATCamp Bay Area 2010
- Amanda French, Advanced Omeka, THATCamp Kansas 2012
- Note that some (even most) THATCamp organizers prefer to arrange workshop sessions ahead of time (see THATCamp New England’s workshop series,THATCamp Virginia’s workshops series, and THATCamp Southeast’s workshop series), but you can still volunteer to teach something at the last minute, or even put in a plea for someone else to teach something you’ve always wanted to learn (though if no teacher volunteers, it’s best to nix the session). That’s what’s great about THATCamp.
- Anne Flannery, Omeka and Scripto Workshop, THATCamp MLA 2013 (plea to learn about Scripto rather than offer to teach it; see also comments)
Play session examples
- David Staley, An installation, THATCamp Prime 2009
- Mark Sample, Zen Scavenger Hunt, THATCamp Prime 2010
- Zen Scavenger Hunt Results, THATCamp Virginia 2012
- Marta Rivera Monclova, Digital Tools for Research, THATCamp Caribbean 2012
- Donelle McKinley, Share Your Favourite Tools, THATCamp Wellington 2012
- Anastasia Salter, THATCamp Games Invasion, THATCamp Games 2012
Registration for THATCamp ACRL 2013 is now open! 
