Evaluating Digital Humanities Resources The LAIRAH Project Checklist

Evaluating Digital Humanities Resources: The LAIRAH Project Checklist and the Internet Shakespeare Editions Project Claire Warwick, Isabel Galina, Melissa Terras, Paul Huntington and Nikoleta Pappa School of Library, Archive and Information Studies, University College London

The LAIRAH project • Aim: to investigate the use of online digital resources in the humanities to determine whether they are sustainable and, how, and why they are used

Funding and background • Funded by UK Arts and Humanities Research Council ICT Strategy scheme • Intended to inform the AHRC ICT Strategy review • Immediate impact on provision and funding of digital resources in the humanities in the UK • 15 month project- reported end September 2006 • First survey of actual usage levels based on quantitative log data

Objectives • Discover if certain practices in the construction of digital humanities projects had an effect on their use or non-use • Research the impact of institutional features such as departmental experts, internal culture, funding and management. • Determine the effect of user consultation about design on eventual resource usage.

Methods • Selection of 21 well used projects – Deep log analysis of AHDS and Humbul (Intute) portals – Expert recommendations – Humanities Research Institute at Sheffield

List of projects • • • Old Bailey online Andre Gide Editions project French Stars Project The English Monastic Archives Project The Survey of English Usage The London College of Fashion Archives Excavations at Eynsham Abbey Toronto Dictionary of Old English Corpus The Ave Valley Project GIS of the ancient Parishes of England Wales, 1500 -1850 The Avant Garde Project • • • The DIAMM Project The Channel Tunnel Rail Link Archives Designing Shakespeare Exeter Cathedral Keystones and Carvings The Suffrage Banners Project The Jeremy Bentham Project PARIP The Powys Digital History Project The Celtic Inscribed Stones Project The Imperial War Museum Concise Art Collection

Methods • In depth review of documentation and reports (website) • Semi structured interviews • Produced checklist of recommendations • www. ucl. ac. uk/slais/research/circah/lairah/features

Internet Shakespeare Editions

Internet Shakespeare Editions • http: //ise. uvic. ca/index. html • • Digital editions of Shakespeare’s plays Supporting material- criticism, context, history Database of performance records Asked us to evaluate their new site using the checklist

Name and subject matter • Should have obvious name • Users should understand subject matter and what the resource is for • Certain subjects popular, but should not rule our rare material that is heavily used • ISE name is clear, subject matter obvious and very popular • URL is less obvious

Documentation • Keep and make available from website – Compulsory deliverable of project • Users need as much information as possible about resource • ISE an example of good practice • Unusual in comparison to our study – Documentation fragmentary and difficult to find

Users • Know your users • Formal user surveys needed – Few projects do this • ISE has carried out surveys on different types of users

Management • Good technical support vital • Recruiting staff with dual expertise • Problems with training and retaining staff – Funding needed to support this • ISE has budget for Graduate RAs • Technical support from DH centre – But what happens when PI retires?

Institutional context • • • Supportive internal/disciplinary culture needed Early adopters respected for success in digital domain Creates critical mass ISE led by international respected literary scholar Has (also) been successful due to digital work

Sustainability • Maintain and update interface, content and functionality • Very serious problem for all projects • Archiving is important – What happens if there is no central archive (as in Canada) • • Updating and maintenance also key Front and back end Users make decisions based on look of web pages ISE currently able to undertake ongoing maintenance- what of the future?

Dissemination • • Vital for project success New activity for humanities scholars Both Digital Humanities and subject-specific ISE given numerous papers and submitted articles both in traditional English studies and in DH media

Conclusion • Possible to apply the LAIRAH checklist to an existing project • ISE are implementing our recommendations • We hope to conduct further detailed log analysis • Determine what effect the recommendations and changes may have on user