Course content
Estimated Time: ≈ 4 hours (full course, including all 6 modules)
Prerequisite: Course 3. Modeling Meaning: How We Structure Humanities Data
Course Overview
In this fourth course of the Wellespring Project learning series, you'll move from thinking about data to building with it.
Here you'll learn how to use Neo4j, the world's leading graph database, to model, visualize, and explore relationships within humanities data. Using Neo4j Aura Free, you'll create a small working graph right in your browser. No software installation required.
By the end of this course, you'll be able to:
- Create and connect to your own Neo4j Aura database.
- Build and visualize nodes and relationships using Cypher.
- Query your graph to reveal connections and patterns.
- Understand how graph databases help us model meaning in human culture.
This course emphasizes hands-on practice, guided reflection, and low-stakes experimentation. You'll finish with both a working graph and the conceptual confidence to apply these tools in research, teaching, or creative analysis.
What You'll Learn
By completing this course, you will be able to:
- Explain what Neo4j is and how the property graph model works.
- Create and connect to a Neo4j Aura Free database.
- Build nodes, relationships, and properties using Cypher.
- Query and visualize graph data to explore connections.
- Relate Neo4j to the goals and methods of the humanities.
- Identify reliable next-step learning and resources.
Why This Matters
Traditional databases store information in rows and columns; graphs store it in networks of meaning.
For humanists, that difference is transformative. Neo4j allows us to:
- Represent relationships directly (not as hidden links or indexes).
- Visualize ideas as webs of connection.
- Ask interpretive questions: Who influenced whom? What themes recur? How do people, places, and concepts intersect?
By learning Neo4j, you'll be joining the same methodological foundation used in the Wellespring Project's own knowledge graph of Jesse Welles' lyrical and cultural world.
Course Structure
| # | Module Title | Summary |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | What Is Neo4j? | Introduces Neo4j and the property graph model. Explains nodes, relationships, and properties in clear, humanistic terms. |
| 2 | Setting Up Neo4j Aura | Step-by-step guide to creating a free Neo4j Aura account and accessing your first cloud database. |
| 3 | **Exploring the Aura Console ** |
Orientation to the Aura Console interface: learning which elements matter, and which can safely be ignored (at least at first). |
| 4 | Nodes, Relationships, & Properties in Practice |
Hands-on creation of your first graph: adding entities, linking them, and giving them properties that express meaning. |
| 5 | Querying and Visualizing Your Graph |
Introduction to Cypher queries (MATCH, WHERE,RETURN) and the art of interpreting what yousee in the graph. |
| 6 | Next Steps: From Neo4j Basics to Your Own Humanities Graph |
Reflects on your progress, introduces next-level resources (GraphAcademy, Wellespring docs), and outlines future learning paths. |
Connections to Other Courses
This course builds directly upon:
- Course 2: What Is Data? (conceptual foundations)
- Course 3: Modeling Meaning (structuring humanities data)
It prepares you for future, more advanced (future) courses that we are currently developing and will release here soon.
Reflection Prompts
Consider these questions as you progress or at the course conclusion:
- How does thinking in terms of relationships change how you view data?
- How do relationships in a graph database like Neo4j differ from those that are used in a table-based "relational" database model?
- What kinds of questions could a graph answer that a table or list could not?
- Which parts of the Neo4j interface felt most intuitive, and which required patience?
Get started with this course by completing Module 1. What is Neo4j?
About the author
Darrell J. Rohl
Scholar of archaeology, heritage, and digital tools in the humanities and social sciences. Founder of the Wellespring Project.