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Open Access to Humanities Data — a scholarly perspective

Open Access to Humanities Data — a scholarly perspective . Laurent Romary Inria — French national research center in computer science Humboldt University Berlin. Personal background. Former chair of the TEI council and current chair of ISO committee TC 37/SC 4 (language resources)

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Open Access to Humanities Data — a scholarly perspective

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  1. Open Access to Humanities Data —a scholarly perspective Laurent Romary Inria — French national research center in computer science Humboldt University Berlin

  2. Personal background • Former chair of the TEI council and current chair of ISO committee TC 37/SC 4 (language resources) • Importance of standards for a sustainable digital humanities landscape • Advisor for scientific information at Inria • Deposit mandate issued in Jan. 2013 • Director of DARIAH — European e-infrastructure in the arts and humanities • Facilitating the deployment of digital methods and content in the humanities

  3. Context • Huge progress on open access to publications • Increasing role of publication repositories — cf. TARA at TCD, HAL in France etc. • Towards new publication models (from blogs to epi-journals) • Sharing data in the humanities is not the mainstream (yet) • We need to understand why in order to take action • Scholarly reluctance, lack of recognition, missing technical infrastructure?

  4. Is it wise to openly share Humanities data? • Why would it be unwise? • Data can be “stolen” by other scholars • Is there a risk that other scholar carry out the same research? • People could sell the data, publish it? • WTH, as long as it does not prevent data to be freely available elsewhere • A sensible issue: digital editions, in depth annotations • Early scholarly recognition • Competition with traditional publication means • Scholars still promise a book in their project applications • Is it wise not to openly share humanities data? … whenever it is possible

  5. What benefits accrue from open access to Humanities data for researchers, and for citizen? • Pooling scholarly results • Avoid duplication of work on primary sources • Comparing and checking result • Towards more evidence in the humanities • Showing that hard work is being done • Cf. more visibility to humanities research in the wide public • Humanities data are cultural heritage data • General public interest

  6. If this data is made available online for free, who is funding this free access? • This is usually not an issue in other scientific fields • Scientific data management as part of research infrastructures • Open access is just a dimension of the infrastructure • Devil’s advocate • There could be some nice business to be made with cultural heritage data… • But is this our business? • Facing the reality • We may have to pay archives, libraries or publishers…. Or maybe not.

  7. Is open access to Humanities data sustainable? • A general technical question for digital information • Legibility: standards • Preservation: long term archiving • Technical availability and access • A possible model: the library • Open access to humanities data as part of the scientific information services within universities, etc. • A need for a long-term strategy within institutions

  8. What sort of use and re-use is made of shared Humanities data? • Why would we care? • Commercial re-use • Diverted interpretations • Bad scholarly practices in general • A general trust in scholarly principles • Going digital has not changed human nature • Scholars need attribution (and thus recognition) — CC-BY as a baseline • Greg Crane: “I consider open data to be essential for emerging digital scholarship - researchers must be free to download, analyze, annotate, modify, and then republish their textual sources. ”

  9. What are the major challenges of sharing Humanities data? • Systemic change in practices in the humanities • Technical infrastructure • We need more structures like the DRI • Cultural change • Scholarly fame and the “book” • Political evolution (funding agencies, assessment panels, recruiting panels and academies) • Recognition of digital scholarly acheivements

  10. Humanities data manifesto? • Scholarly editions of primary sources are an essential component of the research process in the humanities • Digital editions should be published as early as possible and be taken into account in the assessment of scholarly achievements • Traditional publishing in print (if any) should be accompanied by an openly accessible online version

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