Group items tagged

I want to suggest that the theory and practice of data curation can augment our notion of “publishing” in a way that will serve the needs of the digital humanities community

Data-curation-as-publishing is publishing work that draws directly on the unique skills of librarians and aligns directly with library missions and values in ways that other kinds of publishing endeavors may not.

Treating data curation and publishing as kindred services may offer the prospect of expanding a library’s stable of “innovative” offerings while not straining resources because there are management efficiencies in having both the “front end” and “back end” people in the library. However, in this model, neither libraries nor publishing seems truly transformed and this is a problematic mismatch when so many other aspects of scholarly work are being transformed.

In referring to “data curation,” I am speaking specifically of information work that integrates closely with the disciplinary practices and needs of researchers in order to “maintain digital information that is produced in the course of research in a manner that preserves its meaning and usefulness as a potential input for further research.”

Kathleen Fitzpatrick has argued that humanists “might … find our values shifting away from a sole focus on the production of unique, original new arguments and texts to consider instead curation as a valid form of scholarly activity” (Fitzpatrick 79)

It is also increasingly common to see the release of open data sets as enticement to attract digital humanists to work on particular sets of questions,

Publishers add value to end products through peer review and high quality production and presentation. Libraries standardize and preserve these outputs and continue to make them available to a community over time. Organizations which comprise both library and publisher can imagine this as a unified suite of services that cover the entire data lifecycle.

Public scholarship refers to diverse modes of creating and circulating knowledge for and with publics and communities. It often involves mutually-beneficial partnerships between higher education and organizations in the public and private sectors.

That is the basic purpose of a new national effort spearheaded by Im

agining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life, a consortium supported by 70-odd colleges and universities, including Syracuse University and CalArts. Based at the University of Michigan, the consortium is establishing a "tenure team" to develop policies and processes that appropriately value public scholarship and engaged artistic creation in the cultural disciplines.

Our working definition of public scholarship in the arts and humanities comprises research, scholarship, or creative activity that: connects directly to the work of specific public groups in specific contexts; arises from a faculty member's field of knowledge; involves a cohesive series of activities contributing to the public welfare and resulting in "public good" products; is jointly planned and carried out by coequal partners; and integrates discovery, learning, and public engagement. As we move toward a consensus on what constitutes public scholarship, we are committed to developing criteria for the excellence of this work.

We are also looking for a broader definition of "peer" in "peer review," to include recognized nonacademic leaders in public scholarship and public-art making

Perhaps most important, we are recommending that faculty members and evaluators not advise junior colleagues to postpone public scholarship if that is where their passions lie.

Getting her work out of the pile is helped enormously by having done something more than what was expected

You must support her in doing the risky thing. Insist that she defend her experimental work, and then, in turn, defend her choice to anyone who doesn't understand her deviation from the road ordinarily traveled.

Scholars doing digital work require kinds of support that many more traditionally oriented humanists do not: access to technical resources for both their teaching and scholarship, as well as help maintaining those resources.

we run the risk of breaking the innovative spirit that we've hoped to bring to our departments

And where that spirit isn't broken, untenured digital scholars run the risk of burnout from having to produce twice as much—traditional scholarship and digital projects—as their counterparts do

While Dewey agrees with Lippmann

In this case, philosophers must be considered not as faculty members but as fellow citizens

If so, how does a philosophical community balance the opportunities for communication made possible by growing interest in the digital humanities with the need for active local communities?