Solving common problems in the Digital Humanities

Like many interdisciplinary fields within the humanities, the Digital Humanities consists of a broad range of researchers arriving within its fold from a range of disciplinary practices (and for a variety of different purposes). These may include disciplines as diverse as Papyrology, Musicology, Classics, Epigraphy, Medieval Studies, history and Classical Archaeology.  The Digital Humanities, through its journals, undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, conferences, and research output is a fertile interdisciplinary space synergised, in part, through computing innovations at the research-methodology level. The methods employed in the field may involve text-encoding to create scholarly and critical editions of canonical texts, text mining techniques to uncover new historical knowledge about geographical place or word usage, or visualising data about archaeological sites to propose new arguments about their building practices or cultural uses. Many of the methods employed in one research endeavour may be applicable to another and it is this hard-gained wisdom in the Digital Humanities field; to facilitate the productive application of technical innovations to the appropriate research question, that is difficult to teach.

Accordingly, much of the most valuable tacit knowledge of the digital humanist is in negotiating the cultural and technical capitals of the academy and is, ironically, historically contingent upon the precarious institutional arrangements of the field.  A field that has traditionally lacked an institutional base to support long-term research strategies has in fact, produced many impressive contributions to scholarship and indeed, produced some of the most sophisticated interdisciplinary scholars anywhere in the academy. Trouble is how does one teach a set of skills that were often developed out of necessity? How does one impart to eager undergrad and graduate students the skills needed to develop and interpret digital projects that engage with the human record in a meaningful and purposeful way?

The research qualification that is the PhD must provide reliable evidence that is discoverable and re-usable by others. And a PhD must provide an original argument within the rigours of a peer-assessed field and this argument must stand up against competing evidence. If it does this; the form shouldn’t be the major concern as the major concern should be whether the form presented is adequate enough evidence to communicate the tacit knowledge of the researcher and the research endeavour undertaken (and the required cognate skills). Many forms aren’t up to this task.

And I do worry a little that debates about new forms of PhDs may be so complex and un-containable that they are in danger of being hijacked by anti-academic and simplistic discourses such a technological determinism. Not all technical ‘progress’ is in the interest of research and education.

The second speaker, Professor Stephen Boyd Davis, Director of the Landsdown Centre for Electronic Arts, talk was titled ‘Defending the Thesis: why the written thesis is better idea than ever’. He argued that a PhD makes explicit the implicit and makes overt the tacit. I liked his term ‘cognitive performance’; something that is developed though the rigours of arguing a position via a linear, argumentative and evidence-based narrative over a long period of time.

I do worry that new communication devices at times privilege the short term and the practical and research should never shy away from grand and significant questions that may not have a quick and practical fix. I particularly liked how he presented his own thesis to the audience revealing his use of image and text. As he implied; how we understand the ‘traditional’ written thesis has changed considerably, at least in terms of access to it and the content within it. Many theses are now available online that can be searched and parsed by search tools and text-mining tools thus making the text more readily available and perhaps contestable.

Many of these debates are incredibly important to the Digital Humanities as practice is so central to the field. Within the Digital Humanities I prefer the concept of an ‘ETD’ or Electronic Theses and Dissertation as it retains the ‘traditional’ framework of the written thesis but also allows computational digital objects to be embedded within it. It could also be used as a framework to publish critical editions of classical texts whist embedding the critical and argumentative apparatus within it. An ETD could also be published in two versions; one digital and one paper. This is as long as the digital component adheres to digital preservations conventions and standards and the University has the ability to store it (in many Universities the later is not the case).

More information can be found on the seminar series blog: http://newdoctorates.blogspot.com/

Whether you’re researching the habits of marine life, ancient texts or just a new way to market products, you’ll likely need some funding to get your studies underway. The Internet is a great place to start looking for sources of funding, and we’ve put together a list here of a hundred or so places where you can get some assistance for your next big research project (link)

The mechanisms for the evaluation and peer review of the traditional print outputs of scholarly research in the arts and humanities are well established, but no equivalent exists for assessing the value of digital resources and of the scholarly work which leads to their creation. This project proposes to establish a framework for evaluating the quality, sustainability and impact over time of digital resources for the arts and humanities, using History, in its broadest sense, as a case study (link).

Also, check out the criteria for promotion and tenure guidelines developed by the University of Maine, in the US:

Recognition and achievement in the field of new media must be measured by standards as high as but different from those in established artistic or scientific disciplines. As the reports from the American Council of Learned Societies, the Modern Language Association, and the University of Maine recommend, promotion and tenure guidelines must be revised to encourage the creative and innovative use of technology if universities are to remain competitive in the 21st century (link).

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We have also identified a set of core social skills and cultural competencies that young people should acquire if they are to be full, active, creative, and ethical participants in this emerging (online) participatory culture:

Play — the capacity to experiment with your surroundings as a form of problem-solving

Performance — the ability to adopt alternative identities for the purpose of improvisation and discovery

Simulation — the ability to interpret and construct dynamic models of real world processes

Appropriation — the ability to meaningfully sample and remix media content

Multitasking — the ability to scan one’s environment and shift focus as needed to salient details.

Distributed Cognition — the ability to interact meaningfully with tools that expand mental capacities

Collective Intelligence — the ability to pool knowledge and compare notes with others toward a common goal

Judgment — the ability to evaluate the reliability and credibility of different information sources

Transmedia Navigation — the ability to follow the flow of stories and information across multiple modalities

Networking — the ability to search for, synthesize, and disseminate information

Negotiation — the ability to travel across diverse communities, discerning and respecting multiple perspectives, and grasping and following alternative norms.

Some children are acquiring some of these skills through their participation in the informal learning communities that surround popular culture. Some teachers are incorporating some of these skills into their classroom instruction. Some afterschool programs are incorporating some of these skills into their activities. Yet, as the above qualifications suggest, the integration of these important social skills and cultural competencies remains haphazard at best. Media education is taking place for some youth across a variety of contexts, but it is not a central part of the educational experience of all students. Our goal for this report is to encourage greater reflection and public discussion on how we might incorporate these core principles systematically across curricula and across the divide between in-school and out-of-school activities. Such a systemic approach is needed if we are to close the participation gap, confront the transparency problem, and help young people work through the ethical dilemmas they face in their everyday lives. Such a systemic approach is needed if children are to acquire the core social skills and cultural competencies needed in a modern era.

This message is a request for comment (the humanities version of a
RFC). 2006 appears to be the year that undergraduate students discovered
Wikipedia in a big way. My colleagues and I have been seeing an increasing
number of papers that use Wikipedia inappropriately as the sole or primary
reference. For example, I just read a paper about the relation between
Structuralism, Deconstruction, and Postmodernism in which every reference
was to the Wikipedia articles on those topics with no awareness that there
was any need to read a primary work or even a critical work. After writing
comments to a number of students on this topic, I set to work on a general
policy statement addressed to the student that might be shared among my
local community of scholars (see draft below). I thought such a statement
might be of general use. I welcome any suggestions from, or discussion by,
the Humanist community as well as pointers to any similar statements that
may exist. (Still to do is a one-paragraph version of such a statement
suitable for inclusion in a course syllabus.)

–Alan Liu, UC Santa Barbara

TO THE STUDENT: APPROPRIATE USE OF WIKIPEDIA

In recent years, Wikipedia (http://wikipedia.org) has become one of
the most important and useful resources on the Internet. Created by an open
community of authors (anyone can contribute, edit, or correct articles), it
has become a powerful resource for researchers to consult alongside other
established library and online resources. As in the case of all tools,
however, its value is a function of appropriateness. In the case of
college-level essays or research papers, students should keep in mind the
following two limitations, one applying to all encyclopedias, and the other
specifically to Wikipedia:

(1) As in the case of any encyclopedia, Wikipedia is not appropriate
as the primary or sole reference for anything that is central to an
argument, complex, or controversial. “Central to an argument” means that
the topic in question is crucial for the paper. (For example, a paper
_about_ Shakespeare or postmodernism cannot rely on an encyclopedia article
on those topics.) “Complex” means anything requiring analysis, critical
thought, or evaluation. (For example, it is not persuasive to cite an
encyclopedia on “spirituality.”) “Controversial” means anything that
requires listening to the original voices in a debate because no consensus
or conventional view has yet emerged. (For example, cite an encyclopedia on
the historical facts underlying a recent political election, but not on the
meaning or trends indicated by that election.)
These limitations are due to the fact that encyclopedia articles are
second- or third-hand summaries. They are excellent starting points for
learning about something. But a college-level research paper or critical
essay needs to consult directly the articles, books, or other sources
mentioned by an encyclopedia article and use those as the reference. The
best such sources are those that have been refereed (“peer-reviewed” by
other scholars before acceptance for publication, which is the case for most
scholarly journals and books) or, in the case of current events,
journalistic or other resources that are relatively authoritative in their
field.
However, a Wikipedia citation can be an appropriate convenience when
the point being supported is minor, non-controversial, or also supported by
other evidence.
In addition, Wikipedia is an appropriate source for some extremely
recent topics (especially in popular culture or technology) for which it
provides the sole or best available synthetic, analytical, or historical
discussion.

(2) Wikipedia has special limitations because it is an online
encyclopedia written by a largely unregulated, worldwide, and often
anonymous community of contributors. The principle of “many-eyes” policing
upon which Wikipedia depends for quality-control (that is, many people
looking at and correcting articles) works impressively well in many cases.
However:
(a) Wikipedia is currently an uneven resource. For example,
articles on technological or popular culture topics can sometimes be more
reliable, vetted (corrected by a community experts), or current than
articles on humanistic issues of the sort that students in literature,
history, and other humanities majors often need to research.
(b) Some articles in Wikipedia are unreliable because they are the
contested terrain of “edit wars,” political protest, or vandalism. Such
articles include both those on obviously controversial topics and on
unexpected topics. For a sobering sense of the limitations of Wikipedia,
consult the long list of “protected” Wikipedia articles (articles that
Wikipedia no longer, or at least not for now, allows users to edit in the
normal way in order to protect them from edit wars or other mischief):
. (See also the
bibliography appended below on recent controversies about the reliability of
Wikipedia.) Students should also keep in mind that Wikipedia–like the
Internet as a whole–is edited globally. This means that topics related to
“United States,” “China,” “Tony Blair,” or “World Cup soccer,” for example
(and many others), are contested terrain.
(c) Students should be aware that Wikipedia is a dynamic, constantly
mutating resource. Even if it is appropriate to cite it as a reference, the
citation is meaningless unless it includes the date on which the page was
accessed (which would allow a reader to use the Wikipedia “history” feature
to look up the specific version of the article being referenced). Indeed,
Wikipedia articles on some topics change so frequently (even to the extent
of vandals “reverting” to earlier scandalous misinformation) that a citation
should include the exact hour of access.

Students should feel free to consult Wikipedia as one of the most
powerful instruments for opening knowledge that the Internet has yet
produced. But it is not a one-stop-shop for reliable knowledge. Indeed,
the term “encyclopedia” is somewhat to blame. Because it is communal,
dynamic, and unrefereed, Wikipedia is not really (or not just) an
encyclopedia of knowledge. It is better thought of as a combination of
encyclopedia and “blog.” It is the world’s blog.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bibliography of Articles on the Controversy Regarding Wikipedia’s
Reliability:

* Steven Musil, “Wikipedia’s Woes,” C/NET News.com, 9 December 2005

* John Seigenthaler, “A False Wikipedia ‘Biography’,” USA Today.com, 29
November 2005
.htm>

* Daniel Terdiman, “Study: Wikipedia as Accurate as Britannica,” C/Net
News.com, 15 December 2005 < http://news.com.com/2102-1038_3-5997332.html>

* Ray Cha, “Another Round: Britannica versus Wikipedia,” if:book, 31
March 2006
ca_versu.html>

* Lisa Vaas, “Wikipedia Erects Accuracy Firewall,” 19 December 2005

* Katie Hafner, “Growing Wikipedia Revises Its ‘Anyone Can Edit’
Policy,” New York Times, 17 June 2006
=slogin&adxnnlx=1150630485-m7D+jesnoKz+kAAD8almhw> (alternative site:

http://news.com.com/Growing+Wikipedia+revises+its+anyone+can+edit+policy/210

0-1040_3-6085077.html?tag=nefd.top)

‘Melbourne University Up Close’ Episode 3: Nuclear Power

In the third episode of the Melbourne University Up Close podcast show,
Jacky Angus will discuss the merits and risks of nuclear power with
Associate Professor Martin Sevior of the Department of Physics. Tune in
to this episode at: http://upclose.unimelb.edu.au