Digital humanities in the era of digital reproducibility: towards a fairest and post-computational framework

Abstract

Reproducibility has become a requirement in the hard sciences, and its adoption is gradually extending to the digital humanities. The FAIR criteria and the publication of data papers are both indicative of this trend. However, the question that arises is whether the strict prerequisites of digital reproducibility serve only to exclude digital humanities from broader humanities scholarship. Instead of adopting a binary approach, an alternative method acknowledges the unique features of the objects, inquiries, and techniques of the humanities, including digital humanities, as well as the social and historical contexts in which the concept of reproducibility has developed in the human sciences. In the first part of this paper, I propose to examine the historical and disciplinary context in which the concept of reproducibility has developed within the human sciences, and the disciplinary struggles involved in this process, especially for art history and literature studies. In the second part, I will explore the question of reproducibility through two art history research projects that utilize various computational methods. I argue that issues of corpus, method, and interpretation cannot be separated, rendering a procedural definition of reproducibility impractical. Consequently, I propose the adoption of ‘post-computational reproducibility’, which is based on FAIREST criteria as far as digital corpora are concerned (FAIR + Ethics and Expertise, Source mention + Time-Stamp), but extended to include further sources that confirm computational results with other non-computational methodologies.

Reproducibility and explainability in digital humanities

“…Jyothi Justin's and Nirmala Menon's case study suggests methods to survey reproducibility for DH at a national level (Justin & Menon, 2023), while Nathalie Cooke and Ronny Litvack-Katzman focus on practical barriers to reproducability and explainability when data are only available through proprietary platforms locked behind subscriptions and paywalls (Cooke & Litvack-Katzman, 2023). Finally, the contributions by Béatrice Joyeux-Prunel, Sarah Middle, Nabeel Siddiqui, and Samuel Huskey survey and suggest approaches to advance reproducibility by promoting standards for verifyable procedures, methods, and datasets through open, shareable, and reproducible workflows (Cooke & Litvack-Katzman, 2023;Huskey, 2023;Joyeux-Prunel, 2023;Middle, 2023;Siddiqui, 2023).…”

“…This special issue, Reproducibility and Explainability in Digital Humanities, was published in two versions: a print version (International Journal of Digital Humanities, 2023a;Burrows, 2023;El-Hajj et al, 2023;Justin & Menon, 2023;Middle, 2023;Schöch, 2023;Siddiqui, 2023;Dobson, 2023;Pandiani et al, 2023;Rudman, 2023;Chun & Elkins, 2023), and an extended online special collection (International Journal of Digital Humanities, 2023b) that features all articles of the print version (a number of them as gold open access publications) plus five additional articles (Joyeux-Prunel, 2023;Huskey, 2023;Blanke et al, 2023;Cooke & Litvack-Katzman, 2023;Hankins, 2023).…”