MLA Humanities Commons

Humanities Commons is a nonprofit digital commons run by the Modern Language Association and funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. It allows users to build public or private Wordpress websites and discussion forums for course discussion, personal academic websites, and public academic resources. It also provides an open access Fedora-based repository for sharing research, syllabi, and other materials.

Use cases

Public or private course websites

• English course 6560 taught by Amelia Chesley at Northwestern State.
• The Medieval Book course taught by Marc Saurette at Carleton University.

Conference websites

• Medieval Aberystwyth Annual conference website.

Sharing and browsing syllabi

• open-access syllabus repository in Humanities Commons

How to use it

• Frequently Asked Questions
• Creating a WordPress website
• Creating a discussion group

Replacement for

• Learning management systems
• Academia.edu
• ResearchGate

Bibliography

• Article by Classics professor Sarah Bond on why academics should delete their Academia.edu accounts.
• Chapter on using blogs for student writing in the MLA Digital Pedagogy for Humanities by Diane K. Jakacki.
• Interview in Scholarly Kitchen with Humanities Commons founder and former Director of Scholarly Communication at the Modern Language Association Kathleen Fitzpatrick.