Kathryn eccles digital humanities
- 1. Digital Humanities Dr Kathryn Eccles, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford
- 2. Digital Humanities Current issues in the field: • What is the field of Digital Humanities? • Understanding digital transformations • Big Data/New methods – GIS • The Value of the Humanities • Public Engagement • What is the future of Digital Humanities?
- 3. What are the Digital Humanities? Humanities Computing? • Brought new information and communication technologies to the Humanities • Led to major landmarks such as Text Encoding Initiative (standard encoding scheme for humanities electronic texts) • Largely associated with digitisation initiatives Humanities Computing to Digital Humanities (2004) What are the Digital Humanities now?
- 4. Beyond Digitisation? • 2008-2009 JISC study ‘Usage and Impact of Digitised Scholarly Resources’ • Used qualitative and quantitative measures to measure and understand usage and impact of five Humanities digitisation projects • Key findings: • Transformed access • Enabled new ways of drilling into the materials • New means of engaging students • Enabled distance learning • Fostered, rather than impeded, serendipitous discoveries
- 5. Toolkit for the Impact of Digitised Scholarly Resources
- 6. http://www.rin.ac.uk/humanities-case-studies Bulger, M., Meyer, E.T., de la Flor, G., Terras, M., Wyatt, S., Jirotka, M., Eccles, K., Madsen, C.
- 8. Browsing and Searching Libraries Journals Peers 79% 66% Google Google Scholar 59% 55% 62% 83% 48% 76% 95% Visit the library Browse library materials online Search library materials online Citation chaining Browse printed journals Browse online journals Consult peers and experts
- 9. DIGITAL HUMANITIES: THE BIG TENT, THE BIG WAVE, THE NEXT BIG THING?
- 10. Not everybody likes it…
- 11. ‘Literature is not Data’ ‘Big Data is coming for your Books. It’s already come for everything else.’ Marche on EEBO: ‘That wonderful database in its own way demonstrates how digitization leads to the decline of the sacred.’ Can traditional Humanities subjects survive if they don’t engage with the Digital?
- 12. Big Data and new tools Literature is not Data, but… • AHRC is funding research into Big Data for the Humanities • Includes the OII’s BUDDAH project: ‘to develop a framework for the study of web archive data and produce a major history of the UK web space’. • New tools for visualisation such as GIS are taking advantage of Big Datasets How can we ensure that these new datasets and tools are relevant to the Humanities, and support traditional Humanities research?
- 13. The Value of the Humanities • The Humanities are in a precarious position • Recent lecture series at Oxford on ‘Humanities and the Public Good’ to address contemporary challenges • Key intellectuals from across the disciplines defended the Humanities (How) can the Digital Humanities contribute to this debate?
- 14. Involving the crowd ‘A Jeering Crowd: Fragment of a Mocking of Christ’ by Hans Memling, Oil on Panel
- 15. Crowdsourcing • ‘A Museum Without Walls: Realising the Potential of Crowdsourcing in the Arts’ • AHRC • Oxford Internet Institute University of Oxford • Crowdsourcing/Impact • Key themes: • Co-creation • Public interaction • Agency/Wellbeing • Impact • Relevance
- 16. Taggers and impacts • Visits to museums and galleries increased • New awareness of institutions/collections • New confidence in visiting/viewing different types of exhibitions/art • Use of language improved due to exposure to the project • Tagging provided an important and positive distraction from traumatic life event, harmful behaviours, unemployment • Community/networking events were important
- 18. Multidisciplinary A Family Group (1896) Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Oil on Panel
- 19. Impact Photo by Andrea Rossi, made available thanks to a CC-BY 2.0 license
- 20. Social Canadian TOC H Social Club, Joan Warrenne, c.1939-45, Oil on canvas
- 21. Crowdsourcing ‘Crowd’ by Oona Hassim (2000) Oil on Canvas http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/paintings/crowd-123473
- 22. Public engagement in Humanities ‘The Newlyn Exhibition’ by Joan Gillchrest (1979) Oil on board http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/paintings/the-newlyn-exhibition-14890
- 23. Cultural heritage and wellbeing Image of the National Media Museum, Bradford, taken by 4.D and made available thanks to an Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 license
- 24. Some questions • How would you define the Digital Humanities now? • What is Digital Humanities and what is not? • How effective is the name ‘Digital Humanities’? Would you change it? To what? • What kind of topics and sources does Digital Humanities address, and are these the right ones? Which would you add? • Do you have to build things in order to be a Digital Humanist? • Do you have to be able to programme in order to be a Digital Humanist? • When everyone in the Humanities is using digital techniques in their work, with Digital Humanities become obsolete? • Do other fields worry about defining themselves as much? From M. Terras, J.Nyhan and E. Vanhoutte (eds) Defining Digital Humanities: A Reader (Ashgate, 2013)
- 25. Contact me: Dr Kathryn Eccles Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk ‘A Museum Without Walls’: http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/research/projects/?id=100 Email me: [email protected] Follow me on Twitter: @KathrynEccles
Editor's Notes
- #21: Terras – ‘the Digital Humanities are computational methods that are trying to understand what it means to be human, in both our past and present society’