Record Linking in the EHRI Portal

International audiencePurpose This paper aims to describe the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI) project's ongoing efforts to virtually integrate trans-national archival sources via the reconstruction of collection provenance as it relates to copy collections (material copied from one archive to another) and the co-referencing of subject and authority terms across material held by distinct institutions. Design/methodology/approach This paper is a case study of approximately 6,000 words length. The authors describe the scope of the problem of archival fragmentation from both cultural and technical perspectives, with particular focus on Holocaust-related material, and describe, with graph-based visualisations, two ways in which EHRI seeks to better integrate information about fragmented material. Findings As a case study, the principal contributions of this paper include reports on our experience with extracting provenance-based connections between archival descriptions from encoded finding aids and the challenges of co-referencing access points in the absence of domain-specific controlled vocabularies. Originality/value Record linking in general is an important technique in computational approaches to humanities research and one that has rightly received significant attention from scholars. In the context of historical archives, however, the material itself is in most cases not digitised, meaning that computational attempts at linking must rely on finding aids which constitute much fewer rich data sources. The EHRI project’s work in this area is therefore quite pioneering and has implications for archival integration on a larger scale, where the disruptive potential of Linked Open Data is most obvious

The risk of losing thick description: Data management challenges Arts and Humanities face in the evolving FAIR data ecosystem

In recent years, FAIR principles have come a long way to serve the global need for generic guidelines governing data management and stewardship. Considering their wide embrace and the support received from governments, policy-makers, governing bodies and funding bodies, FAIR principles have all the potential to have a huge impact on the future landscape of knowledge creation for the better. This opportunity, however, may easily be missed if the specific dynamics of scientific production are not addressed in its disciplinary implementation plans. With the goal of making FAIR meaningful and helping to realise its promises in an arts and humanities context, this paper describes some of the defining aspects underlying the domain-specific epistemic processes that pose hidden or visible challenges in the FAIRification of knowledge creation in Arts and Humanities. By applying the FAIR data guiding principles to arts and humanities data curation workflows, we will show that contrary to their general scope and deliberately domain-independent nature, they have been implicitly designed along underlying assumptions about how knowledge creation operates and communicates. These are: 1. scholarly data or metadata is digital by nature, 2. scholarly data is always created and therefore owned by researchers, and 3. there is a wide community-level agreement on what can be considered scholarly data. The problems around such assumptions in arts and humanities are cornerstones in reconciling disciplinary traditions with the productive implementation of FAIR data management. By addressing them one by one, we aim to contribute to the better understanding of discipline-specific needs and challenges in data production, discovery and reuse. Based on these considerations, we make recommendations that may facilitate the inclusive and optimal implementation of the high-level principles that serve the flourishing of the arts and humanities disciplines rather than imposing limitations on its epistemic practices

Semantic Archive Integration for Holocaust Research. The EHRI Research Infrastructure

The European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI) is a large-scale EU project that involves 23 institutions and archives working on Holocaust studies, from Europe, Israel and the US. In its first phase (2011-2015) it aggregated archival descriptions and materials on a large scale and built a Virtual Research Environment (portal) for Holocaust researchers based on a graph database. In its second phase (2015-2019), EHRI-2 seeks to enhance the gathered materials using semantic approaches: enrichment, co-referencing, interlinking. Semantic integration involves four of the 14 EHRI-2 work packages and helps integrate databases, free text, and metadata to interconnect historical entities (people, organizations, places, historic events) and create networks. We will present some of the EHRI-2 technical work, including critical issues we have encountered

The effects of a peer-mediated synthetic phonics intervention with children from a rural Indian town

PhD ThesisIt’s a truism that children living in rural areas of India suffer from a lack of quality reading instruction and guidance. Singular rote pedagogies hinder children’s progress and potential for higher study. In light of this, research continues to find benefits in synthetic phonic and peer learning methods, offering a potential avenue for accelerating early reading achievement. This study investigated the effects of a peer-mediated synthetic phonics programme operating in a rural Northern Indian town. Following a sociocultural peer cooperative approach to reading instruction, children from a low-cost private school (N = 44) were recruited as Monitors and trained in a peer/synthetic method ahead of a four-month intervention. Given localised problems associated with education access and quality, children from a range of mainstream education providers (N = 701) were recruited as Learners and randomised into control and intervention groups. An embedded mix methods research design was incorporated into a three-phase research plan. Using an experimental random controlled trial (RCT) design, quantitative collections involved pre/post testing on all children’s phonological awareness, spelling, reading skills and reading attitudes. Qualitative collections during phase two developed pre-test findings by exploring Monitors’ reading attitudes ahead of the intervention. The main findings suggest children receiving peer-mediated synthetic phonic instructions are able to improve their English phonemic awareness, spelling, and reading skills. It demonstrates capacity for accelerating reading achievement over a short intervention period, potential for further study in this area and pedagogical reform. In addition to this, factors associated with peer reading opportunities, location and pedagogical structure improved reading attitudes. Attitudes to reading is an underdeveloped area in Indian education policy, it is not referred to in any policy documents or curricula. The significance of peer reading promotion in academic and recreational settings is crucial to accelerating reading achievement. Taken as a whole, this research has major implications for international development programmes looking to target progression in early reading achievement and the promotion of positive attitudes in reading activities

Reading Recovery Teacher Understandings About Language and Early Literacy Acquisition

This study investigated Reading Recovery teacher understandings about language and early literacy acquisition by applying a constructivist grounded theory design. Participants were Reading Recovery teachers working across three varied districts in Massachusetts (N=33). The purpose of the study was to engage Reading Recovery teachers in surveys, focus groups, interviews, and observations to understand the degree to which Reading Recovery teacher participants value varied student language patterns. Addressing biases faced upon school entry by children who speak differently than their teachers is essential. When students are identified for early literacy intervention, an asset-based frame is critical to ensure accelerated growth. The guiding question was, “What do Reading Recovery teachers understand about using language/linguistic diversity as an asset in early literacy acquisition?”. What might be learned, in terms of Culturally and Linguistically Sustaining Practices (CLSP), from Reading Recovery teachers was also discussed. The theory that emerged is that engaging in reflective processes, communicating theoretical understandings regarding reciprocity, working to expand oral language flexibility, and fostering the growth of collective expertise specifically to support linguistic diversity were all necessary. The observation portion of this study found evidence of Reading Recovery teachers working to be culturally and linguistically responsive to all children including multilingual, multidialectal, and monolingual students. Five examples included in the discussion are 1. Daily explicit instruction around literary structures 2. Personalized instruction 3. Positioning the child as a writer: allowing the syntax and meaning of a child to drive conversations and determine the written message 4. Never invalidating a child\u27s syntax or semantics while fostering syntactic flexibility 5. Embedding a Told and then restating that unknown word in a meaningful phrase. Implications for pedagogical practice included working within a CLSP framework to deepen educator understandings of how to honor and teach into linguistic diversity as a strength and develop more robust theoretical and practical collective expertise on the matter. Implications for further research include deepening the connection between Reading Recovery and CLSP. Finally, in the larger field of education the work of culturally sustaining practices and linguistically sustaining practices may need to be discussed as both individual and intertwined issues

Langzeitarchivierung von Forschungsdaten : eine Bestandsaufnahme

The relevance of research data today and for the future is well documented and discussed, in Germany as well as internationally. Ensuring that research data are accessible, sharable, and re-usable over time is increasingly becoming an essential task for researchers and research infrastructure institutions. Some reasons for this development include the following: - research data are documented and could therefore be validated - research data could be the basis for new research questions - research data could be re-analyzed by using innovative digital methods - research data could be used by other disciplines Therefore, it is essential that research data are curated, which means they are kept accessible and interpretable over time. In Germany, a baseline study was undertaken analyzing the situation in eleven research disciplines in 2012. The results were then published in a German-language edition. To address an international audience, the German-language edition of the study has been translated and abridged

Writing Development in Struggling Learners

In Writing Development in Struggling Learners, international researchers provide insights into the development of writing skills from early writing and spelling development through to composition, the reasons individuals struggle to acquire proficient writing skills and how to help these learners.; Readership: Academic libraries, graduate students; post-graduate researchers; literacy researchers; educated lay persons; literacy specialists; primary/secondary educators

Writing Development in Struggling Learners

In Writing Development in Struggling Learners, international researchers provide insights into the development of writing skills from early writing and spelling development through to composition, the reasons individuals struggle to acquire proficient writing skills and how to help these learners.; Readership: Academic libraries, graduate students; post-graduate researchers; literacy researchers; educated lay persons; literacy specialists; primary/secondary educators