A T DA HUMANITIES RESEARCH ASERL LIBRARIES IN

A T DA HUMANITIES RESEARCH ASERL LIBRARIES IN PROCESS SHERRY LAKE SCHOLARLY REPOSITORY LIBRARIAN

Data in/and the Humanities

DATA IN/AND THE HUMANITIES • How the Humanities differ • Data, Research Objects, Sources • Methodology • Managing Research • Resources • Discussion 3

WHAT IS DATA? Definitions vary from discipline to discipline, and from funder to funder… Science-centric: • “The recorded factual material commonly accepted in the scientific community as necessary to validate research findings. ” (US Office of Management and Budget, Circular 110) 4

WHAT IS DATA? Visual arts: • “Evidence which is used or created to generate new knowledge and interpretations. ‘Evidence’ may be intersubjective or subjective; physical or emotional; persistent or ephemeral; personal or public; explicit or tacit; and is consciously or unconsciously referenced by the researcher at some point during the course of their research. ” JISC “KAPTUR” project: see http: //kaptur. wordpress. com/2013/01/23/what-is-visual-artsresearch-data-revisited/ 5

WHAT IS DATA? Field notes: • Highly personal nature of fieldnotes influences the extent of one’s willingness to share them • Attachment and ambivalence may make researchers reluctant to turn over control of their notes to an archives—especially one that has the purpose of making materials available publicly on the internet Andrew Asher and Lori M. Jahnke (2013) “Curating the Ethnographic Moment” Archive Journal, Issue 3, http: //www. archivejournal. net/issue/3/archives-remixed/curating-theethnographic-moment/ 6

WHAT IS DATA? • Web Projects: 7

8 https: //www. slavevoyages. org/

9 http: //salem. lib. virginia. edu/home. html

10 http: //cbw. iath. virginia. edu/

ISSUES WITH DATA IN THE HUMANITIES? • Some characteristics of Humanities data require different kind of handling • Some data will be personal, and may not be factual • Content not necessarily important, but the presentation, arrangement. . . The expression • Higher incidence of non-digital materials • Digital data from Humanities is likely an outcome of the creative research process as opposed to an input to a workflow 11

RESEARCH OBJECT DATA IN HUMANITIES • Incorporates data (numeric, written, audiovisual…. ), software code, workflows and methodologies, slides, logs, lab books, sketchbooks, notebooks, etc. • Anything that underpins or enriches the (written) outputs of research) • all materials and assets scholars collect, generate and use during all stages of the research cycle. 12

RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES The Oxford English Dictionary defines the scientific method as: “a method or procedure consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses. ” Art methodology differs from a science methodology, … as the artist is not always after the same goal as the scientist. In art it is not necessarily all about establishing the exact truth so much as making the most effective form (painting, drawing, poem, novel, performance, sculpture, video, etc. ) through which ideas, feelings, perceptions can be communicated to the public. https: //en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Art_methodology 13

MANAGING RESEARCH… • Ensuring physical integrity of files and helping to preserve them • Ensuring safety of content (data protection, ethics, morality, etc. ) • Describing the data (via metadata) and recording its history (provenance) • Depositing in a trusted archive at the end of the project • Linking publications to the data that underpin them 14

DOCUMENTING MATERIALS • Consistent, descriptive file naming system, may include: • Project name • Location • Your name or initials • Date • Type of data • Version number 15 • Clear directory organization for your materials • Project name, date, unique identifier • Include a readme file to explain what the materials in the directory are, the file naming system, and project description

METADATA STANDARDS 16

SUSTAINABLE AND FAIR DATA SHARING IN THE HUMANITIES 17 https: //allea. org/portfolio-item/sustainable-and-fair-data-sharing-in-thehumanities/

DIGITAL CURATION GUIDE A community resource guide to data curation in the digital humanities 18 http: //guide. dhcuration. org/