Digging into data using new collaborative infrastructures supporting humanities-based computer science research

Abstract

This paper explores infrastructure supporting humanities–computer science research in large–scale image data by asking: Why is collaboration a requirement for work within digital humanities projects? What is required for fruitful interdisciplinary collaboration? What are the technical and intellectual approaches to constructing such an infrastructure? What are the challenges associated with digital humanities collaborative work? We reveal that digital humanities collaboration requires the creation and deployment of tools for sharing that function to improve collaboration involving large–scale data repository analysis among multiple sites, academic disciplines, and participants through data sharing, software sharing, and knowledge sharing practices.

Information technology and the humanities scholar: Documenting digital research practices

“…New studies on digital tools developed for humanities scholars examine the functionality of specific tools or tool collections (e.g., Kornbluh, ) and the broader digital research infrastructure (also called cyberinfrastructure or e‐research) designed to support humanities scholars' work (e.g., Blanke & Hedges, ; de la Flor, Jirotka, Luff, Pybus, & Kirkham, ). There are calls for digital infrastructure to be designed for large projects within the digital humanities, particularly to enable collaboration (e.g., Borgman, ; Simeone, Guiliano, Kooper, & Bajcsy, ). However, these projects have not explored the impact of new technologies—that is, new tools being developed, such as text analysis tools, and everyday digital resources, such as Google Docs and Skype—within the context of humanities scholars' views of their everyday research practices.…”

A trip around the world: Accommodating geographical, linguistic and cultural diversity in academic research teams

“…This echoes the experiences of a three-country project, funded through Digging into Data 10 . In that case, the team developed a legal agreement that addressed the various criteria for acceptable research outputs, success measurements, dissemination outlets, copyright, intellectual property, and project liabilities (Simeone et al, 2011).…”

“…At the project level, recognizing that significant amount of time is needed to develop these types of collaborations in advance of the 'real' research work, teams should discuss and understand the different institutional contexts, funding parameters, available technology infrastructure, and cultural and language differences, and the potential impact that these may have on the partnership as part of the project development (Bagshaw et al, 2007). In some cases, formal agreements may be needed to ensure that projects run as planned (Cummings and Kiesler, 2005;Garland et al, 2006, Rice, 2008Simeone et al, 2011). The use of tools such as the Diversity-Complexity Assessment (Koster, 2010) and Hofstede's five dimensions (Hofstede, 2001) can facilitate discussions around cultural differences and allow a team to determine if a cultural facilitator is needed (Olson and Olson, 2000).…”

Exploring Literary Landscapes: From Texts to Spatiotemporal Analysis through Collaborative Work and GIS

“…46 Furthermore, collaborative work helps one deal with large amounts of information and to overcome a lack of time and funding. 47 From this perspective, participatory and collaborative research cane be seen to have far more benefits than drawbacks for the digital humanities, since it allows scholars to engage with more information and promotes interdisciplinary research. There are, of course, concerns about projects based on an 'imperialistic division of labour among scholars'.…”