Data fluidity in DARIAH -- pushing the agenda forward

This paper provides both an update concerning the setting up of the European DARIAH infrastructure and a series of strong action lines related to the development of a data centred strategy for the humanities in the coming years. In particular we tackle various aspect of data management: data hosting, the setting up of a DARIAH seal of approval, the establishment of a charter between cultural heritage institutions and scholars and finally a specific view on certification mechanisms for data

Postgraduate education

This paper reports on the Postgraduate Education research project which was conducted as part of the UCD Irish Virtual Research Library and Archive (IVRLA)series of demonstrator research projects. The project was born from the need to connect the IVRLA digital resource more closely with its target audience of students, researchers, and teachers. Three target groups were identified within the UCD College of Arts and Celtic Studies: doctoral digital humanities students, general postgraduate students, and lecturers of undergraduate students. These three target groups are representative of academic institutions elsewhere and the materials developed for these groups will therefore be applicable to users throughout Ireland and internationally. The remit of the IVRLA demonstrator projects was to provide digital research resources and to show how digital repositories could not only provide access to archival research materials, but could also present material in new ways and suggest possibilities for further research. This project does so by making available seminars, sample exercises and a seminar blog, all of which demonstrate how the digital resources contained within the IVRLA may be applied by teachers and researchers. The paper outlines issues arising from the proliferation in and use of digital resources, explains the approach taken in the seminar materials, and discusses specific aspects such as metadata, copyright, and the design of digital research projects. Finally, it suggests ways in which this project could be extended by the development of teaching materials for specific groups and detailed modules in order to enhance the engagement of users with the IVRLA digital repositor

Exploring manuscripts: sharing ancient wisdoms across the semantic web

Recent work in digital humanities has seen researchers in-creasingly producing online editions of texts and manuscripts, particularly in adoption of the TEI XML format for online publishing. The benefits of semantic web techniques are un-derexplored in such research, however, with a lack of sharing and communication of research information. The Sharing Ancient Wisdoms (SAWS) project applies linked data prac-tices to enhance and expand on what is possible with these digital text editions. Focussing on Greek and Arabic col-lections of ancient wise sayings, which are often related to each other, we use RDF to annotate and extract seman-tic information from the TEI documents as RDF triples. This allows researchers to explore the conceptual networks that arise from these interconnected sayings. The SAWS project advocates a semantic-web-based methodology, en-hancing rather than replacing current workflow processes, for digital humanities researchers to share their findings and collectively benefit from each other’s work

Who is Patrick? – Answers from the Saint Patrick's Confessio HyperStack. Supporting Digital Humanities, Copenhagen 17 - 18 November 2011, Conference Proceedings

Not everyone realizes that there are two Latin works, still surviving, that can definitely be attributed to Saint Patrick’s own authorship. On 14th September 2011 the Royal Irish Academy published his writings in a freely accessible form on line, both in the original Latin and in a variety of modern languages (including Irish). Designed to be of interest to the general public as well as to academic researchers, the Saint Patrick’s Confessio Hypertext Stack includes such features as digital images of the medieval manuscripts involved, a specially commissioned historical reconstruction that evocatively describes life in pre-Viking Ireland, articles, audio presentations, and some ten thousand internal and external digital links that make it truly a resource to be explored

Reviewing, indicating, and counting books for modern research evaluation systems

In this chapter, we focus on the specialists who have helped to improve the conditions for book assessments in research evaluation exercises, with empirically based data and insights supporting their greater integration. Our review highlights the research carried out by four types of expert communities, referred to as the monitors, the subject classifiers, the indexers and the indicator constructionists. Many challenges lie ahead for scholars affiliated with these communities, particularly the latter three. By acknowledging their unique, yet interrelated roles, we show where the greatest potential is for both quantitative and qualitative indicator advancements in book-inclusive evaluation systems.Comment: Forthcoming in Glanzel, W., Moed, H.F., Schmoch U., Thelwall, M. (2018). Springer Handbook of Science and Technology Indicators. Springer Some corrections made in subsection 'Publisher prestige or quality

Manuscript transcription by crowdsourcing: Transcribe Bentham

Transcribe Bentham is testing the feasibility of outsourcing the work of manuscript transcription to members of the public. UCL Library Services holds 60,000 folios of manuscripts of the philosopher and jurist Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832). Transcribe Bentham will digitise 12,500 Bentham folios, and, through a wiki-based interface, allow volunteer transcribers to take temporary ownership of manuscript images and to create TEI-encoded transcription text for final approval by UCL experts. Approved transcripts will be stored and preserved, with the manuscript images, in UCL's public Digital Collections repository. The project makes innovative use of traditional Library material. It will stimulate public engagement with UCL's scholarly archive collections and the challenges of palaeography and manuscript transcription; it will raise the profile of the work and thought of Jeremy Bentham; and it will create new digital resources for future use by professional researchers. Towards the end of the project, the transcription tool will be made available to other projects and services

From manuscript catalogues to a handbook of Syriac literature: Modeling an infrastructure for Syriaca.org

Despite increasing interest in Syriac studies and growing digital availability of Syriac texts, there is currently no up-to-date infrastructure for discovering, identifying, classifying, and referencing works of Syriac literature. The standard reference work (Baumstark's Geschichte) is over ninety years old, and the perhaps 20,000 Syriac manuscripts extant worldwide can be accessed only through disparate catalogues and databases. The present article proposes a tentative data model for Syriaca.org's New Handbook of Syriac Literature, an open-access digital publication that will serve as both an authority file for Syriac works and a guide to accessing their manuscript representations, editions, and translations. The authors hope that by publishing a draft data model they can receive feedback and incorporate suggestions into the next stage of the project.Comment: Part of special issue: Computer-Aided Processing of Intertextuality in Ancient Languages. 15 pages, 4 figure