kathryn eccles digital humanities

Digital HumanitiesDr Kathryn Eccles, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford

Digital Humanities

Current issues in the field:

• What is the field of Digital Humanities?• Understanding digital transformations • Big Data/New methods – GIS• The Value of the Humanities• Public Engagement• What is the future of Digital Humanities?

What are the Digital Humanities?

Humanities Computing?

• Brought new information and communication technologies to the Humanities

• Led to major landmarks such as Text Encoding Initiative (standard encoding scheme for humanities electronic texts)

• Largely associated with digitisation initiatives

Humanities Computing to Digital Humanities (2004)

What are the Digital Humanities now?

Beyond Digitisation?• 2008-2009 JISC study ‘Usage and Impact of Digitised Scholarly

Resources’• Used qualitative and quantitative measures to measure and

understand usage and impact of five Humanities digitisation projects

• Key findings:• Transformed access• Enabled new ways of drilling into the materials• New means of engaging students• Enabled distance learning• Fostered, rather than impeded, serendipitous discoveries

Toolkit for the Impact of Digitised Scholarly Resources

http://www.rin.ac.uk/humanities-case-studies

Bulger, M., Meyer, E.T., de la Flor, G., Terras, M., Wyatt, S., Jirotka, M., Eccles, K., Madsen, C.

The Case Studies

Browsing and Searching

Libraries

Journals

Peers

79%66%

Google

Google Scholar

59%

55%

62%

83%

48%

76%

95%

Visit the library

Browse library materials online

Search library materials online

Citation chaining

Browse printed journals

Browse online journals

Consult peers and experts

DIGITAL HUMANITIES: THE BIG TENT, THE BIG WAVE, THE NEXT BIG THING?

Not everybody likes it…

‘Literature is not Data’

‘Big Data is coming for your Books. It’s already come for everything else.’

Marche on EEBO: ‘That wonderful database in its own way demonstrates how digitization leads to the decline of the sacred.’

Can traditional Humanities subjects survive if they don’t engage with the Digital?

Big Data and new tools

Literature is not Data, but…• AHRC is funding research into Big Data for the Humanities • Includes the OII’s BUDDAH project: ‘to develop a framework

for the study of web archive data and produce a major history of the UK web space’.

• New tools for visualisation such as GIS are taking advantage of Big Datasets

How can we ensure that these new datasets and tools are relevant to the Humanities, and support traditional Humanities research?

The Value of the Humanities

• The Humanities are in a precarious position• Recent lecture series at Oxford on ‘Humanities and the Public

Good’ to address contemporary challenges• Key intellectuals from across the disciplines defended the

Humanities

(How) can the Digital Humanities contribute to this debate?

Involving the crowd

‘A Jeering Crowd: Fragment of a Mocking of Christ’ by Hans Memling, Oil on Panel

Crowdsourcing • ‘A Museum Without Walls: Realising the Potential

of Crowdsourcing in the Arts’• AHRC• Oxford Internet Institute University of Oxford• Crowdsourcing/Impact• Key themes:• Co-creation• Public interaction• Agency/Wellbeing• Impact• Relevance

Taggers and impacts

• Visits to museums and galleries increased• New awareness of institutions/collections• New confidence in visiting/viewing different

types of exhibitions/art• Use of language improved due to exposure to

the project• Tagging provided an important and positive

distraction from traumatic life event, harmful behaviours, unemployment• Community/networking events were important

Novel

Image credit: http://www.gwu.edu/~acyhuang/DH2013.shtml

Multidisciplinary

A Family Group (1896)Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Oil on Panel

Impact

Photo by Andrea Rossi, made available thanks to a CC-BY 2.0 license

Social

Canadian TOC H Social Club, Joan Warrenne, c.1939-45, Oil on canvas

Crowdsourcing

‘Crowd’ by Oona Hassim (2000)Oil on Canvas

http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/paintings/crowd-123473

Public engagement in Humanities

‘The Newlyn Exhibition’ by Joan Gillchrest (1979)Oil on board

http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/paintings/the-newlyn-exhibition-14890

Cultural heritage and wellbeing

Image of the National Media Museum, Bradford, taken by 4.D and made available thanks to an Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 license

Some questions• How would you define the Digital Humanities now?• What is Digital Humanities and what is not?• How effective is the name ‘Digital Humanities’? Would you

change it? To what?• What kind of topics and sources does Digital Humanities

address, and are these the right ones? Which would you add?• Do you have to build things in order to be a Digital Humanist?• Do you have to be able to programme in order to be a Digital

Humanist?• When everyone in the Humanities is using digital techniques

in their work, with Digital Humanities become obsolete?• Do other fields worry about defining themselves as much?

From M. Terras, J.Nyhan and E. Vanhoutte (eds) Defining Digital Humanities: A Reader (Ashgate, 2013)

Contact me:

Dr Kathryn EcclesOxford Internet Institute, University of Oxfordhttp://www.oii.ox.ac.uk

‘A Museum Without Walls’:http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/research/projects/?id=100

Email me: kathryn.eccles@oii.ox.ac.uk

Follow me on Twitter: @KathrynEccles