Transcript A View from Technology

E-Humanities in Germany:
Some thoughts.
(Not just on Germany.)
Dr. Max Vögler
Libraries and Information Sciences
German Research Foundation (DFG)
Topics
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Vision of e-Humanities
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A view from the Disciplines
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A view from Technology
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What can we learn from others?
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Challenges
Vision of the e-Humanities
Berlin Declaration (Oct. 2003):
…contributions include original scientific research results, raw data and
metadata, source materials, digital representations of pictorial and graphical
materials and scholarly multimedia material.
Open access must satisfy…
…a free, irrevocable, worldwide, right of access to, and a license to copy, use,
distribute, transmit and display the work publicly and to make and distribute
derivative works, in any digital medium for any responsible purpose, subject
to proper attribution of authorship.
http://oa.mpg.de/openaccess-berlin/berlindeclaration.html
A View from the Disciplines: Text-based “Wissenschaften”
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Text-based scholarship (Linguistics, Language and Literature
Studies, etc.) are developing the tools and standards to drive
text-based data-scholarship
– standards: TEI
– projects / tools: TAPOR, TextGRID, etc.
– digitization: “supply”-side driven scholarship?
(the Million books question…)
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And yet… Access to data still limited. Bad interfaces, restrictive
use policies, haphazard standards implementation
A View from the Disciplines: Archeology
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Lots of Data! Much of it well documented (though most not in
any standard form), much investment of public funds and an
obvious “public mission” (cultural heritage)
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Innovative projects (Altägyptisches Wörterbuch
– pure xml)
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Network of international
data centers (ADS, DANS)
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long tradition of collaborative
(and large-scale) research
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Challenging: Very heterogeneous
Data (GIS, 3-D, Pics, Text, Climate, etc.)
http://www.bbaw.de/bbaw/Forschung/Forschungsprojekte/altaegyptwb/de/Beleg
A View from the Disciplines: Philosophy / Literary Studies
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Thinking in groups?
Collaborative Scholarship
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Scholarly Editions as “data
journals”?
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Long-term projects
(Langzeitvorhaben) as
natural candidates for an eapproach
http://www.hypernietzsche.org
A View from the Disciplines: History
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Well-connected!
Communication welldeveloped (H-Soz-uKult, Sehepunkte,
Historicum, H-Net,
etc.)
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But what about the
e-monograph?
(Columbia U. Press)
A View from the Disciplines: History
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Well-”sourced”!
Digitization of
sources, reference
works and archival
finding aides
(ANNO/ALEX, Clioonline, ZVDD)
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But can/should/will
historians collaborate
on e-research?
A View from the Disciplines: Art / Music
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So much potential!
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Multimedial from the
ground up!
BUT:
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Problems of
Copyright, esp. for
online publishing
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Access to Data often
difficult (e.g., Rundfunkanstalten)
A View from Technology:
what’s driving e-Scholarship?
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Example: Center for History
and New Media at George
Mason University (CHNM)
http://chnm.gmu.edu/
A View from Technology: what’s driving e-Scholarship?
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Data is sexy!
Even (or especially) in the
humanities.
http://www.gapminder.org/video/talks/ted-2007---the-seemingly-impossible-is-possible.html
A View from Technology: what’s driving e-Scholarship?
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Visualization of Data
(especially in the
social sciences)
A View from Technology: what’s driving e-Scholarship?
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Web 2.0 / participatory
scholarship
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Interesting as a form of
research collaboration
BUT also for:
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curating data (quality
control, classifying pictures,
multimedia samples, etc.)
http://www.ibreadcrumbs.com
A View from Technology: what’s driving e-Scholarship?
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International Cooperation
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Foster interaction and
collaboration to
– build capacity
– foster standards, best
practices
– encourage
development of tools,
data sets / centers
A View from Technology: what’s driving e-Scholarship?
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Development of Text
and Data Mining Tools
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Challenge: encourage
interdisciplinary
development and reuse of tools
(e.g., CERN, publicprivate partnership)
What Can We Learn from Others?
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Importance of (structured)
cooperation around data issues /
technology
– Astronomy: AstroGrid-D
sharing resources
– Social Sciences: RatSWD
works on “opening” data
(official statistics); Int. Data
Forum (IDF) is trying to do
this internationally
What Can We Learn from Others?
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Division of Roles and Responsibilities
– Earth Sciences:
data centers and
libraries
– The TIB Hannover
and the Earth
Sciences Data
Centers
What Can We Learn from Others?
In Conclusion…
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Research questions need to drive technology,
AND…
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Technological advances need to be integrated into (existing)
research agendas.
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e-Wissenschaft, not e-Humanities: much to learn from existing
practice in other disciplines. Don’t see Humanities as isolated.
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Rethink Roles: what do “data centers” look like in the humanities?
What is the role of the “e-Wissenschaft librarian”? Of the escholar?
In Conclusion…
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Rethink careers:
– The scientific “data professional”: who is s/he? Where does
he/she come from? What does his/her career path look like?
– How to get (more) scholars to integrate e-humanities
approaches into their research practices? Tenure,
recognition for “data publications”?
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Copyright, Copyright, Copyright… (to access other works, to
make own works properly accessible – read Berlin Declaration
carefully!)
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e-Publishing: is the monograph e-fähig? Is the “data journal” ehumanities-fähig?
In Conclusion…
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Every Discipline is special! Must find its own “path”, has its own
challenges (the beauty of the humanities…)
BUT:
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Structures are important:
– division of labor (researchers, libraries, data centers)
– coordination of standards, best practice (internationally!)
– articulation of community needs (funding needs, emerging
fields, forward looks)
The end.
Thank you!
Dr. Max Vögler
[email protected]