A lecture discussing the "Good things" approach to small data humanities projects, the ... more A lecture discussing the "Good things" approach to small data humanities projects, the Visionary Cross Project, and new developments in Edition Visualisation Technology.
One of the main characteristics of work in the Digital Humanities is collaboration: between indiv... more One of the main characteristics of work in the Digital Humanities is collaboration: between individual scholars with complementary expertise, across disciplines, and languages, countries, and continents. Many digital humanists have found that academic cultures can differ widely because cultural factors often weigh on the scope and vision of individuals. For this reason, diversity is at the forefront of the Digital Humanities. This workshop aims to make the participants acquainted with different understandings of diversity in different parts of the globe while considering how more diverse teams contribute to the development of our work. The workshop is directed at anyone with an interest in understanding diversity in digital humanities and creating a welcoming and inclusive DH environment. Conference organizers, leaders in the field, and those who often form part of hiring committees are invited to participate. Everyone is welcome to attend, but we particularly encourage the particip...
We often speak about "Scholarly Communication" as if it is a single enterprise. This is... more We often speak about "Scholarly Communication" as if it is a single enterprise. This is despite our experience, which suggests that every (sub)discipline has different understandings about almost every part of the process: from the value of journals, to the function of referees, to the very point of publication. This is particularly true of the Humanities, which often seem like a complete outlier when it comes to many core aspects of modern networked research communication. They have different monopolistic presses, can be even more difficult to capture using standard bibliometric tools, and, perhaps most importantly, can have completely different understandings as to the purpose and nature of their major processes and elements. In this paper, I look particularly at the question of data and their relation to research publication in the Humanities. I argue that at least some types of traditional humanities data are quite different from those dominant in other disciplines, an...
for DH2020 (Ottawa; later DH online) This workshop seeks to create awareness of diversity and cul... more for DH2020 (Ottawa; later DH online) This workshop seeks to create awareness of diversity and cultural differences, as well as to<br> present strategies for successful inclusion and the development of fairer environments. These<br> factors are especially important within the Digital Humanities because of its emphasis on<br> collaborative work which brings together different individuals. Moreover, our work has shown<br> that in Digital Humanities, where there could be many different voices, most of the power and<br> prestige remain centralized in the Global-North, in Anglophone countries. 1 This is not surprising<br> considering the general state of academia as a mostly male, mostly white environment<br> (Johnsrud and Des Jarlais 1994, Towsend 2013). For this reason, it's essential to work with<br> individuals to foster a richer environment, to change behaviours, and to challenge prejudices.
for DH 2019 (Utrecht) This workshop seeks to create awareness of diversity and cultural differenc... more for DH 2019 (Utrecht) This workshop seeks to create awareness of diversity and cultural differences, as well as<br> presenting strategies for successful inclusion. This is especially important within the discipline of<br> Digital Humanities because of its emphasis on collaborative work which brings together different<br> individuals. Moreover, our work has shown that in Digital Humanities, where there could be<br> many different voices, most of the power and prestige remain centralized in the Global-North, in<br> Anglophone countries. This is not surprising considering the general state of academia as a<br> mostly male, mostly white environment (Johnsrud and Des Jarlais 1994, Towsend 2013). For<br> this reason, it's essential to work with individuals to foster a richer environment, to change<br> behaviours, and to challenge prejudices.
This article examines the techniques used by Anne Frank in revising her diaries for what she inte... more This article examines the techniques used by Anne Frank in revising her diaries for what she intended to be a post war publication. The article begins by reviewing the scholarly and political contexts in which the Diaries are normally discussed. It then shows the extent to which Frank's revisions of her diaries (from the "a" to "b" versions) were the result of a conscious rethinking of the work's purpose and audience and begun only after several months' deliberation. Finally, the article looks at the nature of the revisions Frank made to the content of her diaries, focussing primarily on the first few months. In these entries in particular Frank shows a willingness to alter the known facts of her history in order to improve the plot and emotional impact of her experiences. She shortens time-lines, reduces the number of characters, and deletes and adds events and dialogue all with an eye towards emphasizing the extraordinary<br> nature of the eve...
We are 25 years into the World Wide Web revolution. While Humanities researchers have been at the... more We are 25 years into the World Wide Web revolution. While Humanities researchers have been at the forefront of many uses of networked communication to disseminate their research, they have lagged other disciplines in their adoption of formal discovery and organisational tools (Spiro, 2016; Borgman, 2009; Anderson et al., 2012). Some of the core tools that characterise current best practice in other disciplines—ORCID, DOIs, discipline-wide repositories, mega and overlay journals—have seen slow or limited adoption in the case of Humanities researchers. Data Management and Citation practices tend to be less well-developed and widely practised in the Humanities than in other areas. Humanities publishing, too, especially scholar-led publishing, still commonly involves less than optimal practice—custom, project-held URLs, storage on private/commercial data servers, a lack of formal attention to versioning, backups, and long-term preservation (Copland et al., 2016). This poster shows how t...
Summary of 2020 proposal. This is a work in progress and will be updated as the project nears sub... more Summary of 2020 proposal. This is a work in progress and will be updated as the project nears submission.
This practice note describes an undocumented, inexpensive, and easy-to-use process by which struc... more This practice note describes an undocumented, inexpensive, and easy-to-use process by which structurally encoded SGML documents can be translated to HTML using Citec Multidoc Pro SGML Browser Style Sheets. The method is simple to implement yet versatile enough to allow developers to process even quite complicated documents on short notice. It should be of particular interest to smaller projects where funding and encoders' time is at a premium.
We discuss an approach to publishing heterogeneous file data and long-form humanities research as... more We discuss an approach to publishing heterogeneous file data and long-form humanities research as both linked open data and a (human readable) digital scholarly edition using Zenodo and Github. This approach is broadly generalisable and answers a number of long-standing issues surrounding the publication of data and results in DH: It promotes the discovery and long-term survival of published data and results with no requirement for future maintenance; It conforms to archival standards and principles; It is fully available for future extension, addition, excerption, reuse, repurposing, or reanalysis by others without negotiation; It ensures that data and contextual analysis are linked bi-directionally meaning that users are always able both to access the discrete data points from which a Humanities-focused analysis and commentary is build and understand each data point in the context of these larger synthetic research products.
The first Visiting Library Lecture delivered at the closing ceremony of the Summer Course in Digi... more The first Visiting Library Lecture delivered at the closing ceremony of the Summer Course in Digital Library Management (SCDLM) in Elizade University by Prof Daniel Paul O'Donnell of the University of Lethbridge, Canada on September 28, 2018.
This Element describes for the first time the database of peer review reports at PLOS ONE, the la... more This Element describes for the first time the database of peer review reports at PLOS ONE, the largest scientific journal in the world, to which the authors had unique access. Specifically, this Element presents the background contexts and histories of peer review, the data-handling sensitivities of this type of research, the typical properties of reports in the journal to which the authors had access, a taxonomy of the reports, and their sentiment arcs. This unique work thereby yields a compelling and unprecedented set of insights into the evolving state of peer review in the twenty-first century, at a crucial political moment for the transformation of science. It also, though, presents a study in radicalism and the ways in which PLOS's vision for science can be said to have effected change in the ultra-conservative contemporary university. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
This paper discusses the technical infrastructure and production workflow for the University of L... more This paper discusses the technical infrastructure and production workflow for the University of Lethbridge Meeting of the Minds Graduate Journal. This infrastructure was designed for an editorial board that anticipated high annual turnover: very easy to understand and train for, able to accommodate differing levels of interest and commitment from year to year, and be “publish and forget”: the long term preservation and discoverability of articles published by the journal had to be ensured regardless of future generations of students’s willingness to support the journal.
A lecture discussing the "Good things" approach to small data humanities projects, the ... more A lecture discussing the "Good things" approach to small data humanities projects, the Visionary Cross Project, and new developments in Edition Visualisation Technology.
One of the main characteristics of work in the Digital Humanities is collaboration: between indiv... more One of the main characteristics of work in the Digital Humanities is collaboration: between individual scholars with complementary expertise, across disciplines, and languages, countries, and continents. Many digital humanists have found that academic cultures can differ widely because cultural factors often weigh on the scope and vision of individuals. For this reason, diversity is at the forefront of the Digital Humanities. This workshop aims to make the participants acquainted with different understandings of diversity in different parts of the globe while considering how more diverse teams contribute to the development of our work. The workshop is directed at anyone with an interest in understanding diversity in digital humanities and creating a welcoming and inclusive DH environment. Conference organizers, leaders in the field, and those who often form part of hiring committees are invited to participate. Everyone is welcome to attend, but we particularly encourage the particip...
We often speak about "Scholarly Communication" as if it is a single enterprise. This is... more We often speak about "Scholarly Communication" as if it is a single enterprise. This is despite our experience, which suggests that every (sub)discipline has different understandings about almost every part of the process: from the value of journals, to the function of referees, to the very point of publication. This is particularly true of the Humanities, which often seem like a complete outlier when it comes to many core aspects of modern networked research communication. They have different monopolistic presses, can be even more difficult to capture using standard bibliometric tools, and, perhaps most importantly, can have completely different understandings as to the purpose and nature of their major processes and elements. In this paper, I look particularly at the question of data and their relation to research publication in the Humanities. I argue that at least some types of traditional humanities data are quite different from those dominant in other disciplines, an...
for DH2020 (Ottawa; later DH online) This workshop seeks to create awareness of diversity and cul... more for DH2020 (Ottawa; later DH online) This workshop seeks to create awareness of diversity and cultural differences, as well as to<br> present strategies for successful inclusion and the development of fairer environments. These<br> factors are especially important within the Digital Humanities because of its emphasis on<br> collaborative work which brings together different individuals. Moreover, our work has shown<br> that in Digital Humanities, where there could be many different voices, most of the power and<br> prestige remain centralized in the Global-North, in Anglophone countries. 1 This is not surprising<br> considering the general state of academia as a mostly male, mostly white environment<br> (Johnsrud and Des Jarlais 1994, Towsend 2013). For this reason, it's essential to work with<br> individuals to foster a richer environment, to change behaviours, and to challenge prejudices.
for DH 2019 (Utrecht) This workshop seeks to create awareness of diversity and cultural differenc... more for DH 2019 (Utrecht) This workshop seeks to create awareness of diversity and cultural differences, as well as<br> presenting strategies for successful inclusion. This is especially important within the discipline of<br> Digital Humanities because of its emphasis on collaborative work which brings together different<br> individuals. Moreover, our work has shown that in Digital Humanities, where there could be<br> many different voices, most of the power and prestige remain centralized in the Global-North, in<br> Anglophone countries. This is not surprising considering the general state of academia as a<br> mostly male, mostly white environment (Johnsrud and Des Jarlais 1994, Towsend 2013). For<br> this reason, it's essential to work with individuals to foster a richer environment, to change<br> behaviours, and to challenge prejudices.
This article examines the techniques used by Anne Frank in revising her diaries for what she inte... more This article examines the techniques used by Anne Frank in revising her diaries for what she intended to be a post war publication. The article begins by reviewing the scholarly and political contexts in which the Diaries are normally discussed. It then shows the extent to which Frank's revisions of her diaries (from the "a" to "b" versions) were the result of a conscious rethinking of the work's purpose and audience and begun only after several months' deliberation. Finally, the article looks at the nature of the revisions Frank made to the content of her diaries, focussing primarily on the first few months. In these entries in particular Frank shows a willingness to alter the known facts of her history in order to improve the plot and emotional impact of her experiences. She shortens time-lines, reduces the number of characters, and deletes and adds events and dialogue all with an eye towards emphasizing the extraordinary<br> nature of the eve...
We are 25 years into the World Wide Web revolution. While Humanities researchers have been at the... more We are 25 years into the World Wide Web revolution. While Humanities researchers have been at the forefront of many uses of networked communication to disseminate their research, they have lagged other disciplines in their adoption of formal discovery and organisational tools (Spiro, 2016; Borgman, 2009; Anderson et al., 2012). Some of the core tools that characterise current best practice in other disciplines—ORCID, DOIs, discipline-wide repositories, mega and overlay journals—have seen slow or limited adoption in the case of Humanities researchers. Data Management and Citation practices tend to be less well-developed and widely practised in the Humanities than in other areas. Humanities publishing, too, especially scholar-led publishing, still commonly involves less than optimal practice—custom, project-held URLs, storage on private/commercial data servers, a lack of formal attention to versioning, backups, and long-term preservation (Copland et al., 2016). This poster shows how t...
Summary of 2020 proposal. This is a work in progress and will be updated as the project nears sub... more Summary of 2020 proposal. This is a work in progress and will be updated as the project nears submission.
This practice note describes an undocumented, inexpensive, and easy-to-use process by which struc... more This practice note describes an undocumented, inexpensive, and easy-to-use process by which structurally encoded SGML documents can be translated to HTML using Citec Multidoc Pro SGML Browser Style Sheets. The method is simple to implement yet versatile enough to allow developers to process even quite complicated documents on short notice. It should be of particular interest to smaller projects where funding and encoders' time is at a premium.
We discuss an approach to publishing heterogeneous file data and long-form humanities research as... more We discuss an approach to publishing heterogeneous file data and long-form humanities research as both linked open data and a (human readable) digital scholarly edition using Zenodo and Github. This approach is broadly generalisable and answers a number of long-standing issues surrounding the publication of data and results in DH: It promotes the discovery and long-term survival of published data and results with no requirement for future maintenance; It conforms to archival standards and principles; It is fully available for future extension, addition, excerption, reuse, repurposing, or reanalysis by others without negotiation; It ensures that data and contextual analysis are linked bi-directionally meaning that users are always able both to access the discrete data points from which a Humanities-focused analysis and commentary is build and understand each data point in the context of these larger synthetic research products.
The first Visiting Library Lecture delivered at the closing ceremony of the Summer Course in Digi... more The first Visiting Library Lecture delivered at the closing ceremony of the Summer Course in Digital Library Management (SCDLM) in Elizade University by Prof Daniel Paul O'Donnell of the University of Lethbridge, Canada on September 28, 2018.
This Element describes for the first time the database of peer review reports at PLOS ONE, the la... more This Element describes for the first time the database of peer review reports at PLOS ONE, the largest scientific journal in the world, to which the authors had unique access. Specifically, this Element presents the background contexts and histories of peer review, the data-handling sensitivities of this type of research, the typical properties of reports in the journal to which the authors had access, a taxonomy of the reports, and their sentiment arcs. This unique work thereby yields a compelling and unprecedented set of insights into the evolving state of peer review in the twenty-first century, at a crucial political moment for the transformation of science. It also, though, presents a study in radicalism and the ways in which PLOS's vision for science can be said to have effected change in the ultra-conservative contemporary university. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
This paper discusses the technical infrastructure and production workflow for the University of L... more This paper discusses the technical infrastructure and production workflow for the University of Lethbridge Meeting of the Minds Graduate Journal. This infrastructure was designed for an editorial board that anticipated high annual turnover: very easy to understand and train for, able to accommodate differing levels of interest and commitment from year to year, and be “publish and forget”: the long term preservation and discoverability of articles published by the journal had to be ensured regardless of future generations of students’s willingness to support the journal.
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