The Next Web

May 30, 2007 at 2:39 am · Filed under web2.0

Don’t miss out finding out about what’s going to change on the web in the upcoming years and how it will affect the way you do stuff online (link)..

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CHArt (COMPUTERS AND THE HISTORY OF ART) TWENTY-THIRD ANNUAL CONFERENCE

May 28, 2007 at 11:47 pm · Filed under art, conferences, design, digital humanities, events, history, humanities computing, web2.0

DIGITAL ARCHIVE FEVER

Thursday 8 - Friday 9 November 2007
Central London Venue to be confirmed

Museums, galleries, archives, libraries and media organisations such as publishers and film and broadcast companies, have traditionally mediated and controlled access to cultural resources and knowledge. What is the future of such ‘top-down’ institutions in the age of ‘bottom-up’ access to knowledge and cultural artifacts through what is generally known as Web 2:0 - encompassing YouTube, Bittorrent, Napster, Wikipedia, Google, MySpace and more. Will such institutions respond to this threat to their cultural hegemony by resistance or adaptation? How can a museum or a gallery or, for that matter, a broadcasting company, appeal to an audience which has unprecedented access to cultural resources? How can institutions predicated on a cultural economy of scarcity compete in an emerging state of cultural abundance?

For the twenty-third CHArt conference we are looking for papers that reflect upon these issues, particularly in relation to visual culture. We particularly welcome contributions from those working in either ‘traditional’ cultural organisations or those involved in new forms of cultural access and distribution.

We welcome contributions from all sections? of the CHArt community: Art Practice; Art History; Museums; Galleries; Curation; Archives; Libraries; Education; Media and Broadcast Production; Cultural Assets Management and Access; Hardware; Software; Theory.

CHArt also hopes to offer a bursary scheme again this year (supported by the AHRC ICT Methods Network) to Post Graduate students presenting papers.

Please email submissions (a three hundred word synopsis of the proposed paper with brief CV of presenter/s and other key figures) by 30 June 2007 to Hazel Gardiner (hazel.gardiner@kcl.ac.uk).

Dr Charlie Gere
Chair, CHArt

CHArt
c/o Centre for Computing in the Humanities Kings College, University of London Kay House
7 Arundel Street
WC2R 3DX

- CALL FOR PAPERS - DEADLINE EXTENDED TO 30 JUNE 2007 -? CALL FOR PAPERS -

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What is a mashup?

May 21, 2007 at 8:37 pm · Filed under web2.0

For those who don’t know what a mash up is; here is an explanation (link).

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Digg and Snap mashup

May 21, 2007 at 8:15 pm · Filed under social media, web2.0

Check out this mashup from Digg and Snap (the link preview service I use on this site).

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AHRC ICT Methods Network

May 18, 2007 at 9:48 pm · Filed under digital humanities, e-science, humanities computing, web2.0

This is just to remind you that the deadline for funding applications to the
AHRC ICT Methods Network is 30 June 2007.

The AHRC ICT Methods Network invites the arts and humanities Higher
Education community in the UK to submit proposals for Methods Network
activities. Activities may include workshops, seminars, focused workgroups,
postgraduate training events and publications.

The Methods Network is keen to support both single- and cross-disciplinary
proposals and those that encourage new collaborative frameworks between
technical specialists and arts and humanities researchers. The primary
emphasis is on the use and reuse of digital resources.

Proposals for hybrid activities such as workshop/seminar/workgroup
combinations are also welcomed, as are proposals for any other activity
which falls within the Methods Network remit to support and promote the uses
of advanced ICT methods in academic research.

Funding of up to £5000 is available for workshops and hybrid activities.
Workshops provide training in advanced ICT methods for community members
within academic institutions. They engage with issues such as: formal
methods in analysis of source data and the creation of technical models;
working with multiple technologies; and other matters of vital practical
interest to the community.

Funding of up to £2000 is available for seminars. These may concentrate on
highly-defined topics of interest and also problem areas within the
community or may have a more general focus.

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What is Internet 2

May 18, 2007 at 8:06 pm · Filed under digital humanities, humanities computing, internet, social media, stubs, technology, web2.0

Ok, you have heard of Web 2.0, but what about Internet 2.0? Internet 2 is a new style of high-capacity networking.

Internet2 is working with Level 3 Communications to provide the U.S. research and education community with a dynamic, innovative and cost-effective hybrid optical and packet network. The new network is designed to provide next-generation production services as well as a platform for the development of new networking ideas and protocols. With community control of the fundamental networking infrastructure, the new Internet2 Network will enable a wide variety of bandwidth-intensive applications under development at campuses and research labs today. The new network is one component of Internet2’s “systems” approach to developing and deploying advanced networking for the research and education community: Network Technologies, Middleware, Security, Performance Measurement, Community Collaboration (link).

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Ten Major Issues in Providing a Repository Service in Australian Universities

May 18, 2007 at 6:51 pm · Filed under digital humanities, e-science, education, governance, humanities computing, social media, web2.0

By mid 2006, all Australian universities had established, or were partway to establishing, institutional repository services. The development of institutional repository services can often be related to the open access movement, which seeks to make valued research outputs openly available by encouraging academics to place their publications into repositories, enhancing their availability and bypassing the high cost of journal subscriptions. However, many universities have extended the functionality of their repository services for other purposes, such as giving scholars the opportunity to develop their own research portfolio, providing a means of improving research reporting, establishing an electronic publishing service, or giving access to collections of images or other research outputs. The potential for development seems endless (link).

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What is myExperiment?

May 18, 2007 at 1:59 am · Filed under digital humanities, e-science, humanities computing, social media, web2.0

myExperiment makes it really easy for the next generation of scientists to contribute to a pool of scientific workflows, build communities and form relationships. myExperiment enables scientists to share, re-use and repurpose workflows and reduce time-to-experiment, share expertise and avoid reinvention (link).

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International Workshop on Virtual Research Environments and Collaborative Work Environments

May 18, 2007 at 1:52 am · Filed under conferences, digital humanities, e-science, events, humanities computing, internet, web2.0

The aim of this workshop is to bring together researchers working in the areas of virtual research environments¹ (VREs) and collaborative work environments (CWEs). Both concepts are characterised as providing consistent and dependable work environments for particular kinds of work organisation, emphasising the dynamic establishment of collaborative work contexts between independent partners. Further aspects such as the mobility of work activities and requirements such as security and confidentiality also play a role in both concepts. Despite these similarities, it would seem that the development of research programmes and the establishment of research communities within these fields has to date progressed independently. As a consequence, there is a danger of wasteful duplication of effort, conceptual divergence and technical incompatibility. The workshop’s aim is to address these concerns by soliciting contributions from the research community dealing with topics such as (link).

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Darwin’s letters on the Web

May 17, 2007 at 6:52 pm · Filed under digital humanities, history, humanities computing, internet

The AHDS (Arts and Humanities Data Service) provided some of the initial advice for this project. And boy did Charles Darwin write a lot of letters!

Evolutionary theorist Charles Darwin thought the voyage of the Beagle was a “magnificent scheme” allowing him to spend time “larking round the world”. His delight at the five-year cruise is chronicled in a letter, available online for the first time.The note is one of nearly 5,000 from and to the scientist held in a database at the University of Cambridge (link to BBC).

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Arts and Humanities Research Council and the AHDS part ways

May 15, 2007 at 10:42 pm · Filed under digital humanities, e-science, humanities computing, social media, web2.0

(strange…I thought that a ‘centralised service’…like the AHRC itself, would be the most efficient means of storing digital data…and the last 2 sentences are just plain dumb…as if ‘making websites’ has had anything to do with the Digital Humanities or the AHDS…and ‘HEIs understanding the issues involved in the storage of long term data’…like sure; about as well as I understand the issues involved in running a draconian English research council ).

The AHRC has announced important changes in its policy for grant applicants,
advising them that it has decided to cease funding the Arts and Humanities Data Service (AHDS) from April 2008.
The AHRC has elected to retain a data service in the area of Archaeology
and is in negotiation with the ADS in York. Details of the impact on grant
applicants is outlined on the AHRC website at (link).

The AHRC has stated that: “Council believes that Arts and Humanities
researchers have developed significant IT knowledge and expertise in the
past decade. The context within which the AHDS was initially supported by
the AHRC has changed. Much technical knowledge is now readily available
within HEIs, either from IT support services or from academics. Much that
generally can be safely assumed now, for example that web sites can be put
together and run effectively for the duration of a project, could not be
assumed ten years ago. Council believes that long term storage of digital
materials and sustainability is best dealt with by an active engagement with
HEIs rather than through a centralised service.”
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Web 2 Business ideas

May 15, 2007 at 9:20 pm · Filed under social media, web2.0

Australian companies are starting to twig that Web 2.0 isn’t just the latest trend for designing web pages - it can be a vital business tool. Brad Howarth reports (link)

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Map of Online Communities

May 14, 2007 at 11:54 pm · Filed under social media, web2.0

here is a map of online communities (web 2.0) complements of xkcd

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Max Planck Digital Library and SUB Goettingen sign a Cooperation Agreement - building a digital infrastructure for the arts and humanities

May 11, 2007 at 10:41 pm · Filed under digital humanities, e-science, humanities computing, web2.0

Max Planck Digital Library and SUB Goettingen sign a Cooperation Agreement - building a digital infrastructure for the arts and humanities

The Max Planck Digital Library (MPDL) and Goettingen State and University Library (SUB) have agreed to strengthen their existing collaboration and, specifically, to further the development of a digital infrastructure for the arts and humanities(eHumanities). The agreement was signed yesterday(Mai 3, 2007) at the German E-Science Conference 2007 in Baden-Baden by the vice president of the Max Planck Society, Prof. Dr. Kurt Mehlhorn; the vice president of Goettingen university, Prof. Dr. Doris Lemmermöhle; the director of the MPDL, Dr. Laurent Romary; and the director of the SUB, Dr. Norbert Lossau.

Dr. Romary explicates, “Philology, philosophy, history, archaeology and a myriad of other fields in the humanities require both a common infrastructure and domain-specific tools, to conduct their scientific activities”. The cooperation between these two organisations fundamentally supports the construction of such a novel infrastructure. Common activities include open access to primary digital resources, publications and supplementary material; the location-independent creation and edition of textual data; and long term preservation of digital information. “The key is “, Dr. Lossau underlines, “the close collaboration with scholars to ensure services, which really meet their demands”.

Contact details:

Dr. Laurent Romary
Max Planck Digital Library
e-mail: romary@mpdl.mpg.de
Internet: www.mpdl.mpg.de

Dr. Norbert Lossau
Goettingen State and University Library
e-mail: lossau@sub.uni-goettingen.de
Internet: www.sub.uni-goettingen.de

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Towards an institutional typology of digital humanities centres

May 11, 2007 at 1:07 am · Filed under communuity informatics, digital humanities, e-science, education, humanities computing, social media, software

Thanks to John Unsworth for the link…

This Wiki presents a structured list of departments, centres, institutes and other institutional forms that variously instantiate humanities computing. For each entry a link is provided to the relevant site on the WWW and a brief description given. This list represents an ongoing attempt to derive a basic typology from a complex variety of activities and so to provide institutional models for the field. Despite the fact that national academic conventions vary quite widely and cultural differences make comparisons difficult if not hazardous, no attempt has been made here to account for them. The intention is not to define what is happening in the field world-wide, rather it is to provoke discussion leading either to consensus or at least to an improved understanding of the conditions under which computing humanists work. Constructive criticisms and clarifications are not merely welcome, they are to the point.

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