The Centre for Internet and Society
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Digital Humanities Alliance of India - Inagural Conference 2018 - Keynote by Puthiya Purayil Sneha
https://cis-india.org/raw/dhai-inagural-conference-2018-puthiya-purayil-sneha-keynote
<b>The inaugural conference of the Digital Humanities Alliance of India (DHAI) was held at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Indore on June 1-2, 2018. The event was co-organised by the IIM and the Indian Institute of Technology, Indore, with support from the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore. Puthiya Purayil Sneha was a keynote speaker at the event. Her talk was titled ‘New Contexts and Sites of Humanities Practice in the Digital’. Drawing upon excerpts from a study on mapping digital humanities initiatives in India, and ongoing conversations on digital cultural archiving practices, the keynote address discussed some pertinent concerns in the field, particularly with respect to the growth of digital corpora and its intersections with teaching learning practices in arts and humanities, including the need to locate these efforts within the context of the emerging digital landscape in India, and its implications for humanities practice, scholarship and pedagogy.</b>
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<h4>Tweets from the Conference: <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/dhai2018?f=tweets&vertical=default" target="_blank">#DHAI2018</a></h4>
<p>The above photograph of Sneha presenting at the Conference is courtesy of <a href="https://twitter.com/meldelury/status/1002760287223549952">Melissa DeLury</a>.</p>
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<h3><strong>Abstract of the Keynote</strong></h3>
<p>The discourse around the field of digital humanities in India has emerged at an interesting and crucial juncture, where the ‘digital’ has been the focal point of several changes in governance, policy, industry, education and creative practice among other areas over the last couple of decades. Even as the field has garnered much interest globally, it has also invited criticism, especially due to its largely Anglo-American framing, which traces a history in humanities computing and textual studies, located within a larger neoliberal imagination of the university and academia. Now with increasing efforts to address issues of representation and diversity in emerging digital initiatives, it is imperative to trace where efforts within India have been speaking to these concerns within the global discourse as well.
In India, as with several parts of the world, a large part of the work and scholarship around digital humanities, as we have seen so far has centered around two key processes/concepts - that of digitization, or the creation of a corpora of cultural content, enabled by the availability of the internet and digital technologies, and the need for new methods and tools to work with or study them. These conversations have largely organized around two thematic areas of work within digital humanities and related digital practices - namely the creation of digital corpora in the form of archives and repositories, and the advancement of digital technologies and methods of research, or more specifically through the development of digital pedagogies. Drawing upon excerpts from a study on mapping digital humanities initiatives in India, and ongoing conversations on digital cultural archiving practices, this talk discussed some pertinent concerns in the field, particularly with respect to the growth of digital corpora and its intersections with teaching learning practices in arts and humanities, including the need to locate these efforts within the context of the emerging digital landscape in India, and its implications for humanities practice, scholarship and pedagogy.</p>
<h3><strong>Conference Agenda</strong></h3>
<div><img src="https://cis-india.org/DHAIConf2018_About.jpg/image" alt="DHAIConf2018 - About" class="image-inline image-inline" title="DHAIConf2018 - About" /></div>
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<div><img src="https://cis-india.org/DHAIConf2018_Day1.jpg/image" alt="DHAIConf2018 - Day 1" class="image-left image-inline" title="DHAIConf2018 - Day 1" /></div>
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<div><img src="https://cis-india.org/DHAIConf2018_Day12.jpg/image" alt="DHAIConf2018 - Day 1+2" class="image-left image-inline" title="DHAIConf2018 - Day 1+2" /></div>
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<div><img src="https://cis-india.org/DHAIConf2018_Day2.jpg/image" alt="DHAIConf2018 - Day 2" class="image-left image-inline" title="DHAIConf2018 - Day 2" /></div>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/dhai-inagural-conference-2018-puthiya-purayil-sneha-keynote'>https://cis-india.org/raw/dhai-inagural-conference-2018-puthiya-purayil-sneha-keynote</a>
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No publishersneha-ppDHAIDigital KnowledgeResearchDigital ScholarshipDigital HumanitiesResearchers at Work2018-06-26T12:02:09ZBlog EntrySeminar on Rethinking Copyright and Licensing for Digital Publishing Today (Delhi, January 23)
https://cis-india.org/a2k/events/seminar-on-rethinking-copyright-and-licensing-for-digital-publishing-today-delhi-jan-23-2017
<b>Against the backdrop of a growing global and domestic digital publishing industry on one hand and the recent judgment by the Delhi High Court that upheld the education exception to reproduction of academic and literary works, Pro Helvetia - Swiss Arts Council, Goethe-Institut Max Mueller Bhavan New Delhi, and the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) are organising a seminar to discuss and reflect on the relevance and functions of copyright and licensing within the transforming market practices and legal structures of the publishing industry today.</b>
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<img src="http://cis-india.org/a2k/events/seminar-on-rethinking-copyright-and-licensing-for-digital-publishing-today-delhi-january-23/leadImage" alt="Seminar on Rethinking Copyright and Licensing for Digital Publishing Today, Delhi, January 23" width="400" />
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<h4>Poster: <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/events/seminar-on-rethinking-copyright-and-licensing-for-digital-publishing-today-delhi-january-23/leadImage">Download</a> (PNG)</h4>
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<p>The two speakers at the seminar will be <a href="#philipp">Dr. Philipp Theisohn</a>, Professor of Modern German Literary Studies, Zurich University, and <a href="#kerstin">Ms. Kerstin Schuster</a>, Droemer Knaur publishing group. The session will be chaired by <a href="#zakir">Mr. Zakir Thomas</a>, Additional Director General (Risk Assessment), Directorate of Income Tax, Government of India.</p>
<p>Dr. Theisohn will address the question of whether the digital age requires a new approach to copyright thinking, and Ms. Schuster will discuss the dynamics of the international market for licenses in the contemporary publishing world.</p>
<p>Please join us at the CIS Delhi office on Monday, January 23, at 11:00 for the seminar. The seminar will include the presentations by the speakers followed by an open moderated discussion.</p>
<p>Further, it is our great pleasure to inform you that in a recent judgement on the Super Cassettes v. MySpace case, the Delhi High has strengthened the safe harbor immunity enjoyed by internet intermediaries in India. As CIS was one of the intervenors in the case, and has been duly acknowledged in the judgment, we would like to invite you for an informal discussion about the case over lunch. This will take place after the seminar.</p>
<p>A brief analysis of the judgement can be found <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/super-cassettes-v-myspace">here</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Please RSVP by sending an email to Nisha Kumar at <a href="mailto:nisha@cis-india.org">nisha@cis-india.org</a>.</strong></p>
<p><strong>Address:</strong> The Centre for Internet and Society, first floor, B 1/8, Hauz Khas, near G block market, after Crunch, New Delhi, 110016.</p>
<p><strong>Location on Google Map:</strong> <a href="http://j.mp/cis-delhi">http://j.mp/cis-delhi</a>.</p>
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<h3 id="philipp"><strong>Philipp Theisohn</strong></h3>
<p>Philipp Theisohn, who was born in 1974, studied Modern German Literature, Medieval Studies and Philosophy in Tübingen and Zürich. He gained his doctorate in Jerusalem and Tübingen and, since 2013, has been Professor of Modern German Literary Studies at Zurich University. He has produced numerous publications on German and European literary history from the 13th to the 21st century, in particular on “literary future knowledge“, the perception of literary property, and Jewish Cultural Poetics.</p>
<p>The focal points of his work and research are the literature of Switzerland, literary property/plagiarism as a literary historical phenomenon, science fiction and futurology, realism, Franz Kafka and Early Modern Poetics of Knowledge.</p>
<p>Theisohn is intensely involved in the transmission of literature far beyond the academic environment. He is a member of the jury for the “Swiss Book Prize“ of the Publishers‘ Association, an expert for inter-disciplinary and literary projects for the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia; he curates literary exhibitions, is active in a broad range of journalistic work, among other things for the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, and is in charge of the blog and website of the “Schweizer Buchjahr” which contributes significantly to contemporary literary discourse.</p>
<p>Among his most important book publications are: "Die Zukunft der Dichtung. Geschichte des literarischen Orakels 1450-2050" (“The Future of Poetry. The History of the Literary Oracle 1450-2050”); “Plagiat. Eine unoriginelle Literaturgeschichte”( “Plagiarism. An Unoriginal Literary History”) and “Literarisches Eigentum. Zur Ethik geistiger
Arbeit im digitalen Zeitalter” (“Literary Property. On the Ethics of Intellectual Work in the Digital Age”).</p>
<h3 id="kerstin"><strong>Kerstin Schuster</strong></h3>
<p>Having obtained a university degree in Romance Studies and Political Science, Kerstin Schuster worked in the bookselling trade. Since 1993 she is trading licenses for the international market. She has worked till 2001 for the literary agency Dr. Ray-Güde Martin, from 2001 until 2013 for the publishing house S. Fischer Verlag in Frankfurt, and since 2014 for the Droemer Knaur publishing group.</p>
<p>For many years now, Kerstin Schuster is also facilitating seminars on how to successfully offer and sell licenses in the international market.</p>
<h3 id="zakir"><strong>Zakir Thomas</strong></h3>
<p>Mr. Thomas is an expert in the field of intellectual property. He has served as a former Registrar of Copyright for the Government of India, and as a project director of the Open Source Drug Discovery Initiative under the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (a premier R&D org). His expertise spans across copyright, open source innovation, neglected diseases and innovation ecosystem in science and technology in India.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/events/seminar-on-rethinking-copyright-and-licensing-for-digital-publishing-today-delhi-jan-23-2017'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/events/seminar-on-rethinking-copyright-and-licensing-for-digital-publishing-today-delhi-jan-23-2017</a>
</p>
No publishersinhaCopyrightLicenseAccess to KnowledgeDigital PublishingDigital Scholarship2017-01-21T14:51:56ZEventP.P. Sneha - Mapping Digital Humanities in India
https://cis-india.org/papers/mapping-digital-humanities-in-india
<b>It gives us great pleasure to publish the second title of the CIS Papers series. This report by P.P. Sneha comes out of an extended research project supported by the Kusuma Trust. The study undertook a detailed mapping of digital practices in arts and humanities scholarship, both emerging and established, in India. Beginning with an understanding of Digital Humanities as a 'found term' in the Indian context, the study explores the discussion and debate about the changes in humanities practice, scholarship and pedagogy that have come about with the digital turn. Further it inquires about the spaces and roles of digital technologies in the humanities, and by extension in the arts, media, and creative practice today; transformations in the objects and methods of study and practice in these spaces; and the shifts in the imagination of the ‘digital’ itself, and its linkages with humanities practices. </b>
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<h4>Download: <a href="https://github.com/cis-india/website/raw/master/docs/CIS_Papers_2016.02_PP-Sneha.pdf">Mapping Digital Humanities in India</a> (PDF)</h4>
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<h2>Foreword</h2>
<p>What different forms do digital humanities (DH) research and expertise take around the world? My colleagues and I investigated this question for our report on <a href="https://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub168" target="_blank"><em>Building Expertise to Support Digital Scholarship: A Global Perspective</em></a>. In some places, we struggled to find resources on local practices in DH, but fortunately in India we could draw upon the excellent work of P.P. Sneha and the Centre for Internet and Society. In a series of insightful blog posts, Sneha explored the implications of technology for humanities scholarship and surveyed digital humanities practices in India.</p>
<p>Now Sneha has brought this work together in “Mapping Digital Humanities in India.” Rather than falling into naive boosterism or superficial critique, this report plumbs deep questions about humanistic knowledge in a digital age: What do we make of textuality in a digital environment? How might digital tools and platforms contribute to conflicts about authority? How does digital infrastructure affect how humanities research can be practiced? Sneha probes the complexities of these questions, drawing from theorists such as Benjamin, Derrida and Foucault as well as digital humanities scholars such as Franco Moretti and Patrik Svensson.</p>
<p>From this strong theoretical foundation, “Mapping Digital Humanities in India” explores specific challenges and possibilities for DH in India, synthesizing rich interviews with a range of Indian scholars. Sneha notes that digital humanities is in an “incipient stage” in India, given the persistence of the digital divide in much of the country, the association of the term with a specific history in the Anglo-American context, and concerns about the uncritical embrace of technology. The report highlights several Indian projects that demonstrate how technology can be used to create and disseminate humanistic knowledge. Creating online resources in Indic languages poses challenges, especially inputting languages and translating between them. To create an online variorum of Nobel prize-winning author Rabindranath Tagore’s works, Bichitra had to develop a Bangla character set. Bichitra enables readers to collate texts at the level of the chapter/canto, paragraph/stanza or word. In the realm of film and video, Indiancine.ma (which archives Indian films from the pre-copyright period) and Pad.ma (which houses found and deposited audio, video, and allied materials) offer powerful annotation tools and open up the archive into a space
for interpretation and collaboration.</p>
<p>As digital humanities scholars attempt to move past a limited, Anglo-American perspective, “Mapping Digital Humanities in India” provides a model for how we can understand local practices in DH and connect them to ongoing discussions about humanistic knowledge. Through this report, readers can navigate central issues in digital humanities, explore the Indian context, and critically examine culturally based assumptions about DH practices.</p>
<p><em>- <strong>Lisa Spiro</strong>, Executive Director, Digital Scholarship Services, Rice University, Texas, USA</em></p>
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<h2>Executive Summary</h2>
<p>In the short time span that the term ‘digital humanities’ (henceforth DH) has been around in the Indian academic landscape, it had generated much discussion and debate about the changes in humanities practice, scholarship
and pedagogy that have come about with the digital turn. What are the spaces and roles of digital technologies in the humanities, and by extension in the arts, media, and creative practice today? How has it transformed objects and
methods of study and practice in these spaces? What does it tell us about the relationship between the humanities and technology? Perhaps most importantly, what is our imagination of the ‘digital’ itself, and how does it shape
our humanities practices?</p>
<p>These are but a few of the questions that this study on mapping key conversations and actors around the term DH tries to explore in some detail. While the study began as an attempt to understand the growing interest
around the term itself in India, its scope has extended to explore what specific contexts and conditions are in place in India that give it critical purchase. Five universities now offer various programmes in DH in India - ranging from a Master’s degree to certificate courses, and there have been several workshops, winter schools, seminars and one national level consultation over the last five years. Academic and applied practices focus on building of digital archives, film studies, game studies, textual studies, cultural heritage and critical making
to name just a few. While these efforts have managed to create a growing interest in DH, there is still a lack of consensus on what exactly constitutes the field in India. Thus, questions around definition, ontology, and method
remain pertinent, as does the need for recognition by the national academic bureaucracy.</p>
<p>Context is another important factor here - most global narratives of DH reiterate a predominantly Anglo-American narrative that draws from a history in the field of humanities computing, as well as a crisis in higher education,
particularly in the humanities and liberal arts. The efforts to map different histories of DH in the last couple of years, seen in the emergence of fields such as postcolonial DH and feminist DH, then point to diverse locations, and more intersectional perspectives from which the discourse around the field is being shaped. This is an important opportunity to better contextualise the debates around the digital as well – where conditions and hierarchies of access and usage, transition from analogue to the digital, and the notion of ‘digitality’ itself
need to be defined and understood better. In India, with initiatives such as the Digital India programme, and the increasing push for the adoption of digital technologies in every sphere from education to governance, and now a steady push towards a digital economy, there is already a tremendous amount of investment in the idea of the digital by a diverse group of stakeholders. These advancements, and the enthusiasm, must be read within the context of a rather chequered and uneven history of the growth of science and technology in India, the advent of the internet and adoption of ICT4D, and existence of digital divides at different levels. The changing higher education system in India, and criticism around a profit-driven model of education, along with the entry of a large number of private actors in the field in the form of MOOCs and other online platforms in the last few years also contribute to this growing interest in DH, as also much of its criticism. In fact, the global discourse on DH and its
linkages with shifts in government funding has seen increasingly polarized positions, with many humanities scholars being uncertain about the political or critical stake of the field, and a concern about the its focus on certain kinds of methods and skill sets at the expense of more traditional ones.</p>
<p>In India, the discourse around DH has largely remained within an academic context so far, although emerging creative practices in art, design and media may have been asking questions of a similar nature for some time now. These include efforts to understand changes in objects of enquiry from analogue to digitised and born digital artifacts, and the need for new methods of work and study that are necessitated by these new digital objects. The process of ‘digitisation’ itself is one fraught with several challenges, and demands a closer look – what are tools, resources and skills available for digitisation or creation of new digital cultural artifacts, and the context that facilitates their creation and active use in humanities research and practice. The ‘text’ as the
primary cultural artifact or object of enquiry in the humanities, has undergone several changes with digitisation. Working with digital texts that are fluid and networked, and most often in languages other than English bring forth
several new questions that are not only technological but also conceptual. The emergence of new digital cultural archives and online repositories, owing to the (marginally) increased access to internet and digital technologies and the growth of a culture that facilitates collecting and sharing, has greatly expanded the scope of engagement with these questions. The archive in fact forms a significant part of the discourse around DH in India - the challenges and prospects offered by digital cultural artifacts are quite diverse, ranging from modes of documentation, preservation and curation to dissemination over online spaces, and there is a need to understand these in greater detail. Infrastructure emerges as an important political and conceptual question here – while an interest in technological advancement and innovation, and the growth of a culture of free and open access to knowledge to some extent has helped facilitate work in the humanities at large, the lack of access to funding, expertise, and of course adequate, and advanced physical and technological infrastructure , such as computational methods often limits the kind of work that can be done with digital artifacts.</p>
<p>The implications of these changes for the study and practice of humanities are several, particularly with respect to traditional methods of pedagogy and scholarship. The access to resources like Wikipedia and devices like the mobile phone have facilitated a move towards more distributed, non-hierarchical, and individualised models and practices of learning, which simultaneously are premised upon new kinds of centralisation, hierarchies, and aggregation of information. The need to develop new forms of digital pedagogy as well as creating more spaces for such conversations within and outside the academic context would be crucial here. This growth of digitally-engaged
humanities practice raises pertinent questions about how exactly the “digital turn” is transforming the humanities, its practice and politics. DH being an interdisciplinary field also offers the possibilities to engage with creative, often alternative practices that exist at the margins of mainstream academia, thus trying to encourage collaborative work across different domains of expertise. The inherited separation of disciplines, or even humanities and technology as suggested by the term DH, may then be contentious here, as it creates the
opportunity to explore a twinned history of humanities and technology.</p>
<p>While the field of DH in India continues to develop slowly but surely, and hopefully widely, as more institutions and individuals become engaged with DH and related works, these key questions around its history, methods, and scope will continue to remain pertinent over the next years. For us at the Centre for Internet and Society, studying DH at this historical juncture when the Indian state is rushing towards embracing the “digital” provides a critical lens to understand and engage with the reconfigurations in modes and practices of arts and humanities scholarship and pedagogy in particular, and digital economies of knowledge in general.</p>
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<h2>CIS Papers</h2>
<p>The CIS Papers series publishes open access monographs and discussion pieces that critically contribute to the debates on digital technologies and society. It includes publication of new findings and observations, of work-in-progress, and of critical review of existing materials. These may be authored by researchers at or affiliated to CIS, by external researchers and practitioners, or by a group of discussants. CIS offers editorial support to the selected monographs and discussion pieces. The views expressed, however, are of the authors' alone.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/papers/mapping-digital-humanities-in-india'>https://cis-india.org/papers/mapping-digital-humanities-in-india</a>
</p>
No publishersneha-ppHigher EducationDigital KnowledgeCIS PapersDigital HumanitiesEducation TechnologyMapping Digital Humanities in IndiaDigitisationDigital ScholarshipRAW ResearchResearchers at Work2016-12-31T05:56:49ZBlog EntryCIS Featured in 'Building Expertise to Support Digital Scholarship: A Global Perspective' Report
https://cis-india.org/raw/cis-featured-in-building-expertise-to-support-digital-scholarship-report
<b>This report, authored by Vivian Lewis, Lisa Spiro, Xuemao Wang, and Jon E. Cawthorne, sheds light on the expertise required to support a robust and sustainable digital scholarship (DS) program. It focuses first on defining and describing the key domain knowledge, skills, competencies, and mindsets at some of the world’s most prominent digital scholarship programs. It then identifies the main strategies used to build this expertise, both formally and informally. The work is set in a global context, examining leading digital scholarship organizations in China, India, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, Germany, Mexico, Canada, and the United States. The report team visited and spoke to us last year, as part of the study. Here are the Executive Summary and link to the final report.</b>
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<p><strong>Access the 'Building Expertise to Support Digital Scholarship: A Global Perspective' report <a href="http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub168" target="_blank">here</a>.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Executive Summary</h2>
<p>As new production, researchers scholarship analysis, pursue using digital or digital publishing scholarship or computational and dissemination (the creation, techniques), of they are often challenged to develop new skill sets. What skills, competencies, knowledge, and mindsets should digital scholars possess? How are such attributes—which we group under the term expertise—best cultivated? Does the shape of expertise vary around the world? Such questions are being asked by institutions establishing or reshaping digital scholarship organizations (DSOs), instructors developing educational and training programs in digital scholarship, experienced and aspiring digital scholars defining what expertise they need to acquire, and researchers exploring the global nature of digital scholarship.</p>
<p>Through our pilot study, we sought to answer these questions with the broader aims of identifying the workforce-related factors important to the success of digital scholarship, helping training and educational programs define key goals, and contributing to the conversation about the global dimensions of digital scholarship. We focused on “best in class” DSOs, highlighting the human dimensions behind their success in areas such as research output, winning grants, international reputation, and innovative teaching or training programs. We conducted interviews with a range of people involved with leading DSOs, including directors, research staff, faculty, librarians, graduate students, and university administrators. We conducted site visits with all but one of the 16 institutions
participating in our study, which enabled us to get a richer sense of the facilities, organizational context, and local culture. While most of our interviews focused on digital humanities, we also included several digital social science organizations to identify areas of commonality and contrast. We explored a variety of organizational
structures, including research centers and institutes, an academic department, labs, a network, a nonprofit organization, and a company; these organizations were sponsored by academic schools, libraries, and information technology departments. To understand the global dimensions of digital scholarship, we examined organizations from Mexico, China, Taiwan, India, Germany, the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.</p>
<p>Since digital scholarship projects often require specific technical skills (such as expertise in text analysis or geographic information systems [GIS]), it was difficult to generalize about what particular skill sets organizations should offer; in many ways that depends on the goals and focus of the organization. In addition, different skill sets were expected depending on one’s position and degree of experience. However, our interviews revealed in particular the importance of collaborative competencies, reflecting the ways in which digital scholarship typically takes place in teams dependent on diverse expertise. Since digital scholarship often involves
developing new methods, tools, and theoretical approaches, successful digital scholars usually exhibit creativity, curiosity, and an enthusiasm for learning, which we term learning mindsets. Some level of general domain knowledge is useful so that team members can understand the research questions they are pursuing, while researchers draw upon methodological competencies (such as data science and GIS) and technical skills (such as database design and programming) to carry out their research. Finally, managerial skills—particularly project management—are needed to ensure that projects are completed.</p>
<p>While self-education and learning by doing are the predominant ways that digital scholars have traditionally acquired expertise, they also appreciate being part of a community of practice, so that they can turn to colleagues for help solving a problem and learning something new. Many organizations host workshops and visiting speakers and enable faculty and staff to attend conferences, although it can be challenging for staff to secure travel funding. A couple of organizations provide dedicated research time to staff, so that they can experiment, stay abreast of the state of the art, and contribute their own research. Along with formal support for professional development, we noted the importance of a “learning culture” in fostering continuous learning. Organizations most successful at
building expertise among faculty, students, and staff tended to share characteristics such as <em>an open and collaborative interdisciplinary culture</em> in which each team member contributes expertise and is respected for it; <em>global engagement</em>, which includes participating in multi-institutional research projects; an <em>entrepreneurial culture</em> in which experimentation is valued; and a <em>focus on teaching and learning</em> as well as research. We noted variation in the kind of <em>facilities</em> these organizations occupied; collaborative space seemed to be more important than top-notch hardware.</p>
<p>Since we were able to visit only a small number of organizations in each country or region included in the study, we don’t feel comfortable making broad generalizations about the state of digital scholarship around the world. However, we did note some common factors that influenced the shape of digital scholarship expertise. These
factors included <em>a tradition of digital scholarship</em>, as more established organizations could both build on existing structures and could be limited by them; <em>funding</em>; the degree of <em>involvement of the institution’s library</em>; and variations in <em>academic career structures</em>, such as paths to promotion and the recognition of alternative academic careers.</p>
<p>Digital scholarship organizations face a number of challenges, particularly in securing adequate funding for their work. We want to draw particular attention to the challenge of recruitment and retention. Typically, DSOs cannot compete with the private sector in offering high salaries or extensive opportunities for advancement; rather, they provide more flexible environments and an academic or intellectual atmosphere in which staff are encouraged to experiment and learn. Unfortunately, some staff at many organizations are hired on temporary contracts because of limited funding, so they often leave for more stable positions. We also noted a tension
between research and service at some organizations, wherein these organizations viewed producing new knowledge as central to their mission but may also be expected to provide services to local researchers or to maintain existing projects. At a few organizations, we observed status differences between faculty and staff, particularly in the ability to be principal investigators on grants or to receive travel funding. Researchers whose first language is not English must often choose between reaching a smaller audience with work published in their native language and devoting significant time to translating their work into English.</p>
<p>We provide an extensive list of recommendations aimed at digital scholars, leaders of DSOs, universities and host organizations, funders, and the broader digital scholarship community. To highlight some of the most salient: We recommend that digital scholars take responsibility for their own learning, nurture their own curiosity, and actively pursue learning opportunities, including by participating in communities of practice and team projects.
We advise the leaders of DSOs to encourage both structured and unstructured opportunities for learning by including dedicated staff research time in job descriptions, enabling staff to train and mentor, and hosting workshops, outside speakers, and other events. Host institutions such as universities should create more stable staff positions with paths to promotion and facilitate more stable funding for DSOs, while funders should support global digital scholarship exchanges. As for the digital scholarship community, we recommend heightening awareness of digital scholarship around the world through conference programs, funding initiatives, publications, and communities of practice, and promoting greater linguistic diversity. We hope that this report helps raise awareness of the range of expertise required for digital scholarship, the importance of a learning culture and active communities of practice in nurturing it, the challenges digital scholarship staff often face in finding stable careers, and the diversity of models for digital scholarship around the world.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/cis-featured-in-building-expertise-to-support-digital-scholarship-report'>https://cis-india.org/raw/cis-featured-in-building-expertise-to-support-digital-scholarship-report</a>
</p>
No publishersneha-ppDigital ScholarshipResearchers at WorkLearningDigital Humanities2015-10-16T07:43:18ZBlog Entry