http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/ Digital Humanities Questions & Answers » Recent Topics en-US Thu, 17 May 2012 02:14:16 +0000 http://bbpress.org/?v=1.0.2 q http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/search.php http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/topic/faircite-who-should-we-cite-in-collaborative-dh-projects#post-1536 Tue, 28 Feb 2012 15:38:29 +0000 acrymble 1536@http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/ <p>How does one cite a digital humanities project? The <a href="http://faircite.wordpress.com">Fair Cite</a> initiative is looking for your feedback on citation in collaborative projects. How should we incorporate the efforts of people such as project managers, students, community participants, programmers, designers, etc? What type of contribution is "enough" for someone to appear in the project citation? And why?</p> <p>For more background information on the issue please see <a href="http://faircite.wordpress.com/2012/02/15/citation-practices-in-academia/">Current Citation Practices</a>. </p> <p>We invite members of the community to contribute your opinions on what those guidelines should look like. Who should be cited? What criteria should someone meet before being included as an "author" or "editor"? How do we best emphasize the different types of contributions people make? Your help will be instrumental in fostering a fairer model of citation for those whose contributions are all too often invisible.</p> <p>The guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors is perhaps a good place to start the discussion:</p> <ol> <li>the conception and design of the study, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data</li> <li>drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content</li> <li>final approval of the version to be submitted</li> </ol> <p>Can these be adapted to meet the needs of the DH community? Is there a better starting point elsewhere?</p> <p>Please distribute this to anyone you think may be interested including those outside of the digital humanities and Alt-ac communities. </p> http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/topic/how-are-you-using-tei-by-example#post-1644 Fri, 11 May 2012 11:57:26 +0000 MelissaTerras 1644@http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/ <p>Hi Folks</p> <p>I'd like to know a little more about how the DH community is using TEI by Example (<a href="http://tbe.kantl.be/TBE/)" rel="nofollow">http://tbe.kantl.be/TBE/)</a>. Have you used it as an individual, or in a class, or in a workshop, or That Camp? Could you sum up in a sentence or two how, where, and when you have found it useful?<br /> best<br /> Melissa </p> http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/topic/what-was-the-book-title-that-busa-couldnt-remember#post-1641 Sun, 06 May 2012 09:34:11 +0000 ttasovac 1641@http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/ <p>Busa (1980) writes: </p> <blockquote><p> Although some say that I am the pioneer of the computers in the humanities, such a title needs a good deal of nuancing... [O]n the stacks of the IBM library in New York City I had spotted a book (whose title I have forgotten), which was printed some time between 1920 and 1940: in it someone mentioned that it was possible to make lists of names by means of punched cards.</p> </blockquote> <p>Has anybody figured out what book he may have had in mind?</p> <p>All best,<br /> Toma </p> http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/topic/recommendations-for-introducing-librarians-to-dh#post-1633 Thu, 03 May 2012 13:57:53 +0000 wynkenhimself 1633@http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/ <p>What resources would you recommend for introducing librarians to what DH is and what it can do? Examples of DH/library projects would be great, as well as sites that explain field and link out to more resources? (other than ACH, of course!) thanks </p> http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/topic/should-dh-matter-to-coders#post-1618 Mon, 30 Apr 2012 17:55:02 +0000 jlmcdonald@gmail.com 1618@http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/ <p>The debate rages on about whether or not (or to what degree) coding matters to the Digital Humanities. I'm curious to hear thoughts on the inverse relationship ... should DH matter to coders? And by coders, I mean those very starkly outside the Humanities and outside academia (I know that it's really a false dichotomy I've just set up there, but indulge my intellectual exercise a bit). Should your typical developer/app-builder/code monkey need to care about the Digital Humanities, beyond any arguments we might make about the value of the Humanities as a whole? Are things going on in DH centers, being written about at DH blogs, etc. etc. etc. of any significance to your average attendee at Apple's WWDC or at a local jsconf?</p> <p>Any conversation welcome... </p> http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/topic/using-yaml-to-model-historical-lives-or-events#post-1627 Wed, 02 May 2012 17:32:41 +0000 lmullen 1627@http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/ <p>For my dissertation, I'm keeping track of nineteenth-century converts. I'd like to keep the data about the converts in both a human- and computer readable format. The data model needs to grow organically, because I only have a reasonable guess right now what information might be interesting about converts. The amount of data on each convert will be vastly different, from the bare information that a person converted (I might not even know a name) to having volumes of the person's papers. Also, each person might convert multiple times. Some information I want to keep track of as data (e.g., converted from, converted to, converted date), and other information can be tossed into a notes field. Finally, I have to be able to read the data myself as notes for writing, and to access it programmatically from some unknown tool (probably Ruby). While these needs are specific to my purposes, I think they could be easily generalized. For example, someone might want to keep track of strikes for a labor history.</p> <p>I'm thinking about using <a href="http://www.yaml.org/spec/1.2/spec.html">YAML</a> as the format for the data. YAML's two top priorities are "YAML is easily readable by humans" and "YAML data is portable between programming languages," which match my own. It also seems to be dead-simple to markup data. I've created a sample file for modeling the life of Orestes Brownson, which is below.</p> <p>My questions are these:</p> <ol> <li>Is anyone using YAML for a digital humanities project? How are you using it, and what experience have you gained?</li> <li>Can anyone offer specific comments on the data modeled below?</li> </ol> <p> </p> <div class="bb_syntax"><table><tr><td class="line_numbers"><pre>1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 </pre></td><td class="code"><pre class="yaml" style="font-family:monospace;"># A model of a convert's life --- name-last : Brownson name-first : Orestes Augustus born : 1803-09-16 died : 1876-04-17 birth-religion : Congregationalism &nbsp; conversions : &nbsp; - origin-religion : Congregationalism destination-religion : Presbyterianism date : 1822 ritual : church membership citation : ANB notes : &gt; Brownson's change to congregationalism was more denominational switching than a change in conscience. &nbsp; - origin-religion : Presbyterianism destination-religion : Universalism date : 1826 ritual : ordination location : &quot;Jaffrey, New Hampshire&quot; citation : ANB notes : &gt; &quot;He would later refer to his years in this fold as 'the most anti-Christian period of my life'&quot; (ANB). &nbsp; Brownson was editor of _The Gospel Advocate and Impartial Investigator_, a Universalist publication. &nbsp; - origin-religion : Universalism destination-religion : Unitarianism ritual : further research location : &quot;Walpole, New Hampshire&quot; citation: : ANB notes : &gt; Brownson spent some time at Brook Farm, which prepared him for Transcendentalism &nbsp; - origin-religion : Unitarianism and Transcendentalism destination-religion : Catholicism date : 1844-10-19 ritual : baptism citation : ANB notes : &gt; Brownson studied after his conversion with a Sulpician priest. &nbsp; source : - Carey, Orestes Brownson - American National Biography &nbsp; comments : &gt; This is a minimal example of what a model of a convert might look like. The historical data is hastily gathered, so only the model is of interest here. &nbsp; N.B. I would like to replace the citations with BibTeX keys. ...</pre></td></tr></table></div> http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/topic/what-tools-can-be-used-to-create-topic-model-network-graphs#post-1620 Wed, 02 May 2012 12:42:48 +0000 Lisa Rhody 1620@http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/ <p>I'm looking for a tool that can generate a network graph that creates nodes for documents and topics where the edge pull is determined by topic weight. In other words, if I have a topic model of 40 topics run on a dataset of several thousand documents, I want to be able to display how strongly each document is pulled toward each topic in the network. I've seen it done in several instances, but I'm wondering what tools people are using to do this and to what degree of satisfaction... I've tried SNA visualization tools (Gephi, NodeXL, and yEd), but those generally require that the edge weight be internally computed. </p> http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/topic/is-anyone-using-the-rbmsacrl-vocabularies-binding-terms-or-type-evidence#post-1581 Thu, 29 Mar 2012 10:02:08 +0000 martin.delaiglesia@googlemail.com 1581@http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/ <p>I recently found out that the Rare Books and Manuscripts Section (RBMS) of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) has published online versions of their controlled vocabularies (<a href="http://www.rbms.info/committees/bibliographic_standards/controlled_vocabularies)" rel="nofollow">http://www.rbms.info/committees/bibliographic_standards/controlled_vocabularies)</a>. I'm especially interested in using the vocabularies "Binding Terms" and "Type Evidence" to describe and classify book bindings and typefaces within my digital edition project. Now that there's one URI per term in these vocabularies, they come pretty close to what I was looking for - not quite Linked Open Data ontologies, but almost. What worries me, though, is that no one seems to be using these vocabularies. They were intended to be used in MARC records, but I haven't yet seen any MARC record containing their terms. So, my question is: is there any DH project or library that actually uses one of the RBMS/ACRL vocabularies? Or does anyone have an opinion on them, or can suggest better alternatives? </p> http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/topic/best-way-to-map-track-debates-through-several-little-1920s-magazines#post-1610 Wed, 18 Apr 2012 15:28:25 +0000 Rosvita TEXTWinder 1610@http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/ <p>I'd like to map and track ideas that were debated in several little magazines of the 1920s to present a visualisation of where those "conversations" took place and how they changed with each contribution. It would be great to learn how others would approach this. Thanks! </p> http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/topic/founding-staff-for-a-new-dh-center#post-1601 Mon, 16 Apr 2012 23:13:25 +0000 Ryan Cordell 1601@http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/ <p>This fall I will join a group of faculty starting a new center for digital humanities and computational social sciences at Northeastern University. We should have physical space by fall, but next year will be primarily a planning year. We will have a few founding projects: mostly projects already underway that will be federated under the banner of the new center. The founding faculty come from English, History, Political Science, and Computer Science, and there's significant overlap of intellectual interest that should generate collaboration among those faculty. There's also a pool of post-docs in computational social science who will be associated with the center and may be able to provide some project support for affiliated faculty. </p> <p>The new center also has rhetorical support from the dean, president, and other administrators. Right now we're developing priorities for our initial budget request, and we'll soon know how that rhetorical support translates into resources. I do expect that we'll have to grow slowly, perhaps by a position or two each year. If you were charged with such a task--as perhaps you have been--what would be your priorities--especially in terms of staffing the center--in the first year? Would you most want a project manager? Designer? Programmer? I realize of course that all of these positions <em>should</em> be filled immediately, but I'm trying to think strategically in case that's not possible.</p> <p>Thanks for your help, friends. All suggestions are most welcome. </p> http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/topic/the-human-side-of-content-management#post-1585 Mon, 09 Apr 2012 14:17:03 +0000 Korey Jackson 1585@http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/ <p>I'm helping a local campus division start a community website and wondering if anyone has good models, project plans, best practices, etc. for content management...specifically from the "how-do-I-make-sure-this-About-page-stays-current-or-this-guest-blog-post-is-timely-and-postworthy" side of things. </p> <p>In other words: what kind of management structure works best for the creation, submission, vetting, user-account admin'ing, content-wrangling aspect of web development?</p> <p>Thanks! </p> http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/topic/best-practice-for-representing-imprecise-historical-geospatial-data-on-a-map#post-1588 Mon, 09 Apr 2012 17:20:07 +0000 hwlong 1588@http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/ <p>Our library is undertaking a project to map historical data regarding 18th and 19th century British and American printers and publishers. One of the problems that we have encountered is the different granularity of location data. For example, one publisher may list a street number, street name, and city whereas another publisher may only mention a street name or even only the city. In such cases, we are wondering the best way to georeference the location and present this vague data. Does the spatial humanities community have rules or conventions for dealing with these cases? Also, what are the most effective ways for visualizing “vague” vs “precise” geospatial data on the same map? Any suggestions or resources that you can offer would be greatly appreciated! </p> http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/topic/tips-on-performing-an-environmental-scan#post-1566 Fri, 16 Mar 2012 18:54:29 +0000 Miriam Posner 1566@http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/ <p>Those of you who have initiated DH projects are, I'm sure, familiar with the environmental scan, in which one surveys existing projects, both to make sure someone hasn't already done what you're about to do and to see if others have developed technology on which you might build. It's a big part of <a href="http://www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/digitalhumanitiesstartup.html#howto">NEH Office of Digital Humanities start-up grants</a> (as well as just generally good practice).</p> <p>At UCLA, we've been asking our grad students to do environmental scans as part of their final projects, and I've noticed that this can pose a challenge for some of them. Here are the challenges, as I see them:</p> <ul> <li>Students have trouble surveying projects outside their home discipline (e.g., art history projects that may be relevant to students in literature).</li> <li>Before they've embarked on the "building" part of their projects, students have trouble understanding what kinds of technology might be relevant to what they're doing (e.g., understanding that what they're about to do is a network visualization).</li> <li>The number of potentially relevant projects is overwhelming.</li> </ul> <p>I'm thinking of ways I can help them overcome these challenges. So far, this is what I've come up with:</p> <ul> <li>Check various directories of projects (e.g., <a href="http://arts-humanities.net/project">arts-humanities.net</a>, <a href="http://dirt.projectbamboo.org/">DiRT</a>, <a href="http://spatial.scholarslab.org/">Spatial Humanities</a>, <a href="http://dhcommons.org/">DH Commons</a>). Still, this can be confusing, because it can be hard for students to tell what they should be looking for.</li> <li>Ask! Tweet, ask at DH Answers, ask me, ask librarians. However, when the project is in its infancy, it can be difficult for them to articulate it to others.</li> </ul> <p>Those of you who have completed many projects: Do you have an informal checklist that you run through when you embark on something new? What else might I tell these students? </p> http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/topic/how-do-we-introduce-undergraduates-to-the-digital-humanities#post-68 Fri, 17 Sep 2010 04:14:12 +0000 Jentery Sayers 68@http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/ <p>Example courses? Syllabi? Sites? Projects? Lessons? Prompts? </p> http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/topic/what-skillsknowledge-allowed-you-to-get-started-doing-dh#post-1586 Mon, 09 Apr 2012 14:45:41 +0000 Paige Morgan 1586@http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/ <p>I'm working on a project aimed at providing training/info to humanities people (grad students, PhDs, staff, faculty, etc.) who feel daunted by the field/like they know nothing, and don't even know where to begin, so I'm interested in hearing about anything that was instrumental in making people feel autonomous enough that they could start exploring and developing their skills independently. </p> <p>Thanks in advance! </p>