Refining our conceptions of ‘access’ in digital scholarly editing: Reflections on a qualitative survey on inclusive design and dissemination.

Abstract

In this paper we explore layered conceptions of access and accessibility as they relate to the theory and praxis of digital scholarly editing. To do this, we designed and disseminated a qualitative survey on five key themes: dissemination; Open Access and licensing; access to code; web accessibility; and diversity. Throughout the article we engage in cultural criticism of the discipline by sharing results from the survey, identifying how the community talks about and performs access, and pinpointing where improvements in praxis could be made. In the final section of this paper we reflect on different ways to utilize the survey results when critically designing and disseminating digital scholarly editions, propose a call to action, and identify avenues of future research.

Towards an Inclusive and Accessible Digital Scholarly Editing: A Critical Assessment

“…Aiming at assessing diversity of a DSE, a first parameter could be the language in which the edition is provided. If it is true that not all the editions can be multilingual, it is also true that when more than one language is available, it is more likely that the edition will reach a wider audience (Martinez et al 2019). As for the diversity in the contents of the editions, this is also not easy to investigate, because the creation of DSE often depends on the availability of source material which is not protected by copyright, or even by the existence of a print edition, that often represents a starting point for the development of digital projects.…”

“…Community of practitioners will be also involved in the process. A new survey similar to the one disseminated by the DiXiT fellows in 2017 (Martinez et al 2019) will be prepared and disseminated, and that will become a sort of white paper in which the community can provide us with ideas, suggestions and criticism in the best tradition of open science. The preparation of a new survey will have the function of reassessing the situation after 5 years from the first one, and will allow us to find whether and how the situation in the perception of the actors within the DSE practitioners and users has evolved in the last years.…”