Reimagining the Role of Technology in Uncovering History

When it comes to talking about history, a smile spreads across Professor TSUI Lik-hang’s face. When the conversation shifts to teaching, his eyes visibly light up. It’s impossible to miss how excited he is to bring history to life for his students, and it is his passion and enthusiasm that have earned him one of this year’s Teaching Excellence Awards (TEA) conferred by CityU.

“I wouldn’t say I’m outstanding,” Tsui begins humbly. “We get trained as researchers and not as teachers, so I’ve had to feel my way into this role.”

Tsui, Assistant Professor at the Department of Chinese and History (CAH) of CityU’s College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, fell into his teaching career about 10 years ago when he was at the University of Oxford. At the time, he was delivering small-group tutorials while he worked on his doctorate degree. His excellence has been internationally recognised and accredited as an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in the UK.

While he jokes that the words “history” and “teacher” usually conjure images of professors spitting out dates and facts while standing in front of yawning students, Tsui’s approach is quite different.

“Interaction is so crucial,” he says, “especially for history professors. We can go on and on talking and it’s quite easy to do that, but that’s not great for students—in particular, if they are rather shy and need help with boosting their confidence. That’s why I adopt a dialogic approach—not assuming, not even offering answers sometimes. This helps students to understand that there aren’t always set answers, and that there are no set answers in humanities. It’s the interpretation that matters.”

Tsui is quick to admit that he has had the good fortune to follow in the footsteps of and learn from some great instructors throughout his career. Whether it was his own teachers when he was a student or merely observing other brilliant masters at work, he learned that sustaining students’ interests is always a big win.

“That’s why when you ask me about my teaching model, I would say, the model I want for my teaching is a digital deep dive into where the past and the present meet. It’s not just scratching the surface and taking things at face value. It’s about the intersection of something very old but also something new, and that’s where the action and excitement take place.”

Bringing History up to Date
Tsui practices what he preaches. Nowhere is this more evident than in his areas of expertise—he is a scholar of premodern Chinese studies with a specialty in digital humanities. And the professor isn’t afraid to inject this interdisciplinary approach and technology into the classroom for teaching and learning purposes.

He is well known for introducing a series of online collaborative annotation activities which keeps his history classes fresh and exciting for students, and so he emphasises that technology very much has its place in the study of history.

“Digital humanities, to me, is a new way to ask, refine and answer questions,” Tsui explains. “The use of technology isn’t just a tool to bring everything up to date or to modernise history. It’s also about getting us to approach the subject from a new standpoint and ask new questions, knowing that everything isn’t set in stone and it’s not just about memorising dates and dynasties.”

Harnessing the Potential of Technology
When it comes to putting history and technology together, Tsui says that many people think the two are incompatible. However, he believes that modern technology such as generative artificial intelligence (AI) very much has a place in the study of history.

Tsui explains that the way history is often studied through a research cycle carried out in steps. First, scholars gather their materials, then there is the reading, processing, thinking and working. The final step is the writing of conclusions, whether that’s writing books or academic papers or speeches introducing the work to the academic world. Yet, each of these steps has fundamentally been altered by technology and computational methods.

“This often isn’t something that historians think much about,” he reflects, “but actually we’ve already changed, and that’s why the digital humanities is a much-needed paradigm to tackle this change and think critically about these developments.”

The professor goes on to explain that moving from paper form to digital datasets and databases was one step forward, and that AI and chatbots are the next step. They can play a powerful role in providing historians with new ways of approaching data and algorithms—a completely different landscape that is richer and allows for greater critical reflection. It also facilitates access to the findings for those outside academia. Instead of shying away from technology, historians should embrace it.

“The digital humanities way is therefore to harness the potential of technology rather than run away from it, throwing the baby out with the bathwater,” he says.

An Interdisciplinary Approach
Tsui’s interest in bringing together multiple disciplines to study history very much falls in line with CityU’s commitment and goals to promote interdisciplinary research and teaching. So aside from his role as Assistant Professor at CAH, he is also the convenor of the College’s Digital Society research cluster.

“Since the cluster goes across the disciplines, our members come from multiple departments and that could include Chinese and history, and communication scholars, English and digital literacy scholars, marketing experts and so on,” he explains.

“It’s a platform for collaboration between the disciplines in relation to digital society and what that means for everyone. Broadly speaking, we look at digital transformations from multiple angles so that we don’t work in silos. This of course includes what is very close to my heart, the digital humanities.”

Moving forward, Tsui has a number of different goals and aspirations. He hopes to develop more new collaborations with the College’s Digital Society research cluster, while at the same time, he wants to continue to deep dive into his research looking at how social groups throughout history interact, particularly those in medieval China. Tsui is also spearheading a pedagogical project to investigate how students can utilise new generative AI tools to enhance their understanding of Chinese history and classical Chinese texts.

In terms of teaching and dispensing advice to his students, he has many words of wisdom. First and foremost, Tsui asks students to make the most of their time at university—to give one’s best in educating oneself but also to enjoy university in its entirety.

“Immerse yourself into campus life and university learning. It’s still my conviction that it is more rewarding if you can fully embrace campus life,” he says.

Tsui also advises students not to be scared to explore different fields. With the world transforming so quickly, he believes many will think it’s best to stay on a safe, predictable path. However, that may not be the case.

“In this fast-changing world with so many new digital technologies, the safe choices won’t be safe anymore,” he says. “The obvious options won’t be so obvious, so what you see as the safest or most obvious path might not stay so forever. Based on that, keep an open mind as much as possible. Be adaptive to change and use your critical thinking as you walk on!”