Applying Translational Principles to Data Science Curriculum Development

This paper reports on a curriculum mapping study that examined job descriptions and advertisements for three data curation focused positions: Data Librarian, Data Steward / Curator, and Data Archivist. We present a transferable methodological approach for curriculum development and the findings from our evaluation of employer requirements for these positions. This paper presents " model pathways " for these data curation roles and reflects on opportunities for iSchools to adopt translational data science principles to frame and extend their curriculum to prepare their students for data-driven career opportunities

Digital Humanity

An undergraduate Philosophy and Ethics gen-ed course developed and co-taught by Alison Langmead and Annette Vee and focused on what it means to be human in an age of ubiquitous computing. Course Description How have computational devices affected the way we think about our own humanity? Our relationship to digitality has changed from the mainframe to the smartphone, but throughout, computers have processed huge amounts of data, kept track of our (or our enemies’) activities, made our lives more fun or at least more complicated, allowed us to communicate with each other, and archive knowledge on a broad scale. What roles do computers play in our lives, and what role do we play in theirs? What are the borders between humans and computers, or can they be drawn at all? This course prepares students to critically examine the intersections between digital devices and human life. Covering topics such as the relationship between computers and humans, surveillance, big data, and interactivity and games, we question what it means to be human in a space of pervasive digitality. Students will read philosophy, fiction, essays, book excerpts, and watch movies and play games. Assessment will be based on regular online posts to WordPress, a take-home midterm examination, a reflective synthesis of online posts, and class participation. The course fills the Philosophy General Education requirement and meets three times per week: twice for lecture, once for recitation/lab

Syllabus for "Digital Humanity"

How have computational devices affected the way we think about our own humanity? Our relationship to digitality has changed from the mainframe to the smartphone, but throughout, computers have processed huge amounts of data, kept track of our (or our enemies’) activities, made our lives more fun or at least more complicated, allowed us to communicate with each other, and to archive knowledge on a broad scale. What roles do computers play in our lives, and what role do we play in theirs? What are the borders between humans and computers, or can they be drawn at all? This course prepares students to critically examine the intersections between digital devices and human life. Covering topics such as the relationship between computers and humans, surveillance, big data, and interactivity and games, we question what it means to be human in a space of pervasive digitality. Students will read philosophy, fiction, essays, book excerpts, and watch movies and play games. Assessment will be based on regular online posts to WordPress, a take-home midterm examination, a reflective synthesis of online posts, and class participation. The course fills the Philosophy General Education requirement and meets three times per week: twice for lecture, once for recitation/lab

Sustaining MedArt: Assessing the Persistence and Longevity of a Pioneering DH Project

This study takes contemporary user analysis of historical digital objects as a central component of a responsible digital preservation strategy. The direct object of inquiry is a scholarly website, “Images of Medieval Art and Architecture” (http://www.medart.pitt.edu), created in 1995 at the very dawn of the World Wide Web. This site continues to serve a global community of scholars who investigate the art and architecture of Western Europe between the eighth and fourteenth centuries, and has become the de facto reference standard for study images for this period. Although the web presence has benefitted from some minor updates, the digital object has remained more or less untouched for the past two decades, a period of drastic change in the surrounding digital environment. Using a usability analysis survey that examines the intellectual, aesthetic, and technical elements of this important digital humanities project, this early-stage study reveals the ways in which contemporary functional and aesthetic interactions can identify important preservation criteria that need to be addressed when designing long-term preservation strategies.ye

Curatorial Practice as Production of Visual & Spatial Knowledge: Panel Discussion, October 4, 2014

The following is a transcription of a conversation between curators of art, science, and digital data about how their practice creates knowledge in their respective fields. Drawn from Pittsburgh’s rich institutional resources, the panelists include Dan Byers, (then) Richard Armstrong Curator of Contemporary Art, Carnegie Museum of Art; Dr. Alison Langmead, Director, Visual Media Workshop, Department of History of Art and Architecture, and Assistant Professor, School of Information Scienes, University of Pittsburgh; Dr. Cynthia Morton, Associate Curator of Botany, Carnegie Museum of Natural History; and Dr. Terry Smith, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Contemporary Art History and Theory, University of Pittsburgh. Moderated by Nicole Scalissi, PhD candidate, Department of History of Art and Architecture, University of Pittsburgh. The panel took place as a part of Debating Visual Knowledge, a symposium organized by graduate students in Information Science and History of Art and Architecture at the University of Pittsburgh, October 3-5, 2014. The transcription has been edited for clarity.Curatorial Practice as Production of Visual &amp; Spatial Knowledge</jats:p

Visions for the North Sea: The Societal Dilemma Behind Specifying Good Environmental Status.

We augment discussions about the Good Environmental Status of the North Sea by developing two extreme visions and assessing their societal benefits. One vision (‘Then’) assumes restoration of benthic functioning; we contend that trawling had already degraded the southern North Sea a century ago. Available information is used to speculate about benthic functioning in a relatively undisturbed southern North Sea. The second vision (‘Now’) draws on recent benthic functioning. The supply of five ecosystem services, supported by benthic functioning, is discussed. ‘Then’ offers confidence in the sustainable supply of diverse services but restoration of past function is uncertain and likely to be paired with costs, notably trawling restraints. ‘Now’ delivers known and valued services but sustained delivery is threatened by, for example, climate change. We do not advocate either vision. Our purpose is to stimulate debate about what society wants, and might receive, from the future southern North Sea

Towards Interoperable Network Ontologies for the Digital Humanities

Scholars have long been interested in networks. Networks of scholarly exchange, trade, kinship, and patronage are some of the many such longstanding subjects of study. Recent and ongoing digital humanities projects are now considering networks with fresh approaches and increasingly complex datasets. At the heart of these digital projects are ‘network ontologies’ — functional data models for distilling the complicated, messy connections between historical people, objects, and places. Although scholars creating network ontologies necessarily focus on different types of content, if these networks are to form a coherent body of scholarship in the future, we must work towards the creation of interoperable ontological structures, rather than yet another set of competing standards. Here we examine the methodological considerations behind designing such interoperable ontologies, focusing primarily on the example of Early Modern historical networks. We argue that it would be infeasible to adopt a single ontological standard for all possible digital humanities projects; flexibility is essential to accommodate all subjects and objects of humanistic enquiry, from the micro-level to the longue-durée. However, we believe it possible to establish shared practices to structure these network ontologies on an ongoing basis in order to ensure their long-term interoperability