Programmme 2012

Contents

1. Surgeries

The surgeries are informal discussion slots before the day's activities on a specific
topic. No booking is necessary and attendance is entirely optional.

Surgery A: Tuesday 3 July 2012, 09:30 - 10:00
"Focus Group on Sustainability and EEBO-TCP" Judith Siefring
(Bodleian)

The Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership (EEBO-TCP) at the Bodleian
Libraries has recently received JISC funding for a related project, SECT: Sustaining
the
EEBO-TCP Corpus in Transition. The project will explore various issues affecting the
sustainability of the corpus and seeks to engage widely with users to develop as
detailed a picture as possible of how the collection is received.

This focus group will concentrate on questions such as:

  • How do academics and students use EEBO-TCP?
  • How far is the use of digital resources like EEBO-TCP acknowledged in research
    and teaching?
  • Are users of EEBO-TCP interested in working with the underlying XML-encoded
    texts (based on the TEI guidelines) or are they content just to search them via the
    main interface provided by ProQuest, http://eebo.chadwyck.com?
  • Are there comparable online resources that are better (or worse) in some
    aspects?

For more information about EEBO-TCP, see textcreationpartnership.org.

Contact: Judith.siefring@bodleian.ox.ac.uk

Materials: siefring_FocusGroupEEBOTCP.docx

Surgery B: Wednesday 4 July 2012, 09:30 - 10:00
"Text Encoding Project Advice" James Cummings (OUCS)

This surgery will give those planning text encoding projects a chance to discuss the
issues they may face in undertaking them.

Surgery C: Thursday 5 July 2012, 09:30 - 10:00
"Web Project and Data Modelling" James Cummings (OUCS),
Alexander Dutton (OUCS), Monica Messaggi-Kaya (Bodleian), Pip Willcox(Bodleian)

This surgery is a chance for summer school delegates can discuss questions of web
project and data modelling questions with those who have experience in this area in
a
roundtable format.

Surgery D: Friday 6 July 2012, 09:30 - 10:00
"Making funding proposals for digital projects" Martin Wynne
(OUCS)

This surgery will give those planning funding applications a chance to discuss some
of
the issues they should consider when making such applications.

2. Plenary Lectures

Plenary lectures are provided by leaders in their field on general topics relating
to
digital humanities.

Monday Plenary Lecture: Monday 2 July 2012, 10:00 - 11:00
"Crowdsourcing in the Humanities" Chris Lintott
(Zooniverse)

Tuesday Plenary Lecture: Tuesday 3 July 2012, 10:00 - 11:00
"Humanities Research Data -- Rate me!" Wolfram Horstmann
(Bodleian)

Albeit looking from different angles, both researchers in the Humanities and Digital
Libraries are once again facing the same question: How to assess value, quality and
quantity of research data in the Humanities? Although not a new question, it deserves
revisiting in the light of funder's requiremensts and technological developments.
Digital Libraries are asking the question because research data in humanities introduce
subject specific requirements; The Bodleian Libraries at the University of Oxford
foresee unprecedented digitization activities resulting in millions of high-resolution
images -- to give only a simple example. Selection criteria, high capacity storage
and
access as well as cost models have to be defined. Researchers in the Humanities are
becoming increasingly data orientated and even being compared to other subject areas
with respect to the data they produce, apply and enrich. Descriptions, listings, ratings
are addressed by colleagues and research funders. The paper approaches the question
from
the Digital Library perpective.

Slides: horstmann_humanitiesResearchData.pptx

Wednesday Plenary Lecture: Wednesday 4 July 2012, 10:00 - 11:00
"Social Machines" Dave DeRoure (OeRC)

Slides: deroure_SocialMachinesDH.pptx

Thursday Plenary Lecture: Thursday 5 July 2012, 10:00 - 11:00
"Linked Data in the Humanities: An Open-and-Shut Case?"
Elton Barker (Open University) and Leif Isaksen (University of Southampton)

The ideas behind the Semantic Web have now been around for over 15 years and Humanists
have been experimenting with them for much of that time. This lecture will consider
the
relative merits of two different visions of semantic technologies, before taking a
look
at one specific case study that has sought to link data about the ancient world online.

The first half of our talk will consider trends in the development of the Semantic
Web, focusing on two primary, but divergent, approaches that have been adopted. The
first of these, dubbed Mixed-Source Knowledge Representation (MSKR), resembles the
Artificial Intelligence and Knowledge Representation research of the 1990s, but takes
particular account of Web technologies. The second, Linked Open Data (LOD), also bears
similarity to these movements, but relates more directly to the philosophy of the
Web as
espoused by Tim Berners-Lee. Linked Open Data is concerned with creating a relatively
open and strongly interlinked network of resources, whereas MSKR more commonly attempts
to locally integrate heterogeneous datasets. A 2010 survey of practitioners applying
semantic technologies to Cultural Heritage suggests that both approaches have been
influential in this domain, but that there is a strong correlation depending on whether
a project is fixed-term (MSKR) or open-ended (LOD).

In the second part of the paper we will further explore the Linked Open Data approach
with specific reference to the JISC-funded Pelagios Project. Involving partner projects
representing different kinds of data related to the ancient world (texts, images,
databases, etc), Pelagios is an open consortium that is using the Web to interconnect
related content.

Slides: barkerIsaksen_LODhumanities.ppt

Friday Plenary Lecture: Friday 6 July 2012, 10:00 - 11:00
"Making the Digital Human: Anxieties, Possibilities, and
Challenges" Andrew Prescott (King's College London)

In thinking about the digital humanities, we frequently emphasise the digital side
of
the equation and give less weight to the humanities. The digital humanities is often
presented as a means by which the study of the humanities can become more quantitative
and 'scientific' and less preoccupied with meaning and theory. Many of the anxieties
about digital cultures expressed by commentators ranging from Baudrillard to Stanley
Fish are prompted by a perceived risk of dehumanization. However, it may be that the
role of the digital humanities is rather to bring the human more to the centre of
the
digital stage. Data in the humanities is frequently messy, deceptive and ambiguous.
One
role of the digital humanities is to create digital environments which bring the
ambiguities and uncertainties of human culture to the forefront. In order to achieve
this, a new dialogue between humanities and the sciences is essential. One focus of
such
a dialogue may be the innovative exploration of the books, archives and material
artefacts which form the material basis of our explorations of human culture. The
potential of digital technologies to support the renewed and revivified study of such
material disciplines as bibliography and codicology represents one of the chief means
by
which the digital humanities will help avoid the threat of a dehumanizing
commodification of knowledge in the digital world. By triangulating cultural theory
with
curatorship and computer science, the digital humanities may help make the digital
more
human.

Blog: http://digitalriffs.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/making-digital-human-anxieties.html

3. Parallel Sessions

Each day at 16:30 there are two parallel sessions. Delegates can decide on the day
which
they want to attend, no booking is necessary.

Parallel Session 1: Monday 2 July 2012, 16:30 - 17:30
"Oxford adventures in crowdsourcing: models for engaging
communities and enhancing digital collections" Kate Lindsay (OUCS) and David
Tomkins (Bodleian)

Kate Lindsay, Manager for Engagement, OUCS will present on the pan-European community
digitisation project Europeana
1914-1918
 and other social and community crowdsourcing projects for open
educational content at OUCS. David Tomkins will discuss and related collaborative ventures at the Bodleian.

Slides: tomkins_oxfordCrowdsourcing.ppt

Parallel Session 2: Monday 2 July 2012, 16:30 - 17:30
"Creating Digital Data Resources: Issues to consider" David
Robey (OeRC)

The number of digital resources that have been created specifically for the humanities
is now enormous, and is increasingly transforming the kind of research that the
humanities conduct. Many of these resources have been supported by public funders,
and
while virtually all of them are valuable in different ways, they virtually all give
rise
to problems of one kind or another. The session will look at these problems, which
generally fall under the three headings of sustainability, visibility and optimization,
and will consider ways in which the problems can best be addressed, in general, and
in
the context of applications for funding.

Slides: robey_creatingDigitalDataResources.pptx

Parallel Session 3: Tuesday 3 July 2012, 16:30 - 17:30
"The other 99%: two approaches to project modelling" Pip
Willcox (Bodleian)

Inspiration strikes, and an idea for a project is born. How do you set about
germinating the kernel into a fully formed, functional, and funded project?

This talk takes an empirical look at two answers to this question, drawing on two
projects: the Stationers’ Register Online, a collaborative Bodleian-OUCS, TEI-encoded
editing project; and a Bodleian project to create a new image-resource around an iconic
edition of Shakespeare’s plays. Time will be allowed for discussion.

Slides: willcox_twoApproachesToProjectModelling.pdf

Parallel Session 4: Tuesday 3 July 2012, 16:30 - 17:30
"Encoding Music Text and Text with Music" Raffaele Viglianti
(King's College London)

This session will introduce fundamental issues of encoding music notation for
musicological research. It will first give and overview of how music score data is
created, used and shared today and will then focus on the Music Encoding Initiative
XML
format (MEI).

MEI is strongly inspired by TEI text encoding principles and functions as descriptive
markup for music notation in its textual manifestation. The session will show examples
of MEI usage for manuscript transcription and editorial work; furthermore, work-flows
for aiding note-entry in MEI and tools for displaying music notation will be briefly
addressed. Finally, the seminar will also introduce the use of the TEI element
notatedMusic in combination with MEI for encoding texts containing music notation.
Some
knowledge of music notation is strongly recommended, along with a basic understanding
of
other markup schemes such as HTML and TEI.

Slides: viglianti_EncMusText.pdf

Parallel Session 5: Wednesday 4 July 2012, 16:30 - 17:30
"Copyright and Open Licensing" Rowan Wilson (OUCS)

This session will discuss how we generate copyright works and how we can best exploit
them. We will cover open development and open licensing, in particular free and open
source software, Creative Commons and open data licences.

Parallel Session 6: Wednesday 4 July 2012, 16:30 - 17:30
"Silos and Street-Literature: Digitising and Linking Cheap Print
Collections and Traditions" Giles Bergel (Merton College and English
Faculty)

Giles Bergel (Tutorial Fellow in the Faculty of English and Research Fellow at Merton)
will discuss broadside ballads - single-sided printed song-sheets - which were once
sold
in large numbers on street-corners, in town-squares and at fairs by travelling
ballad-singers. Pinned on the walls of alehouses and other public places, they were
sung, read and viewed with pleasure by a wide audience, but have survived in only
small
numbers in scattered collections. This paper will outline two, complementary approaches
to digitisation: one based on the mass-digitization of historical collections and
the
other on outlining relationships between members of cultural traditions. The techniques
involved include linked-data; TEI; imaging and image-recognition; analytical
bibliography; transcription; textual criticism ('stemmatology'); and book history.
The
paper will argue for a holistic approach to digitisation.

Parallel Session 7: Thursday 5 July 2012, 16:30 - 17:30
"Impact as a process: Understanding and enhancing the reach of
digital resources" Eric Meyer (OII) and Kathryn Eccles (OII)

Digital resources are part of a growing trend towards a world where cultural and
educational materials are digitally produced and reproduced, and are available to
download at the click of a button. But how do you go about defining value and impact?
At
what point should you start thinking about your audience and how you will know whether
you have reached them? When is a digital resource a well used resource? How can niche
resources that will never see high-volume traffic demonstrate impact using qualitative
and quantitative measures? How can large and heavily-used resources see past the numbers
to better understand the context of their users to enhance impact? In this session,
Dr
Meyer and Dr Eccles will showcase results from their research in this area, and will
also present their Toolkit for the Impact of Digitised Scholarly Resources, in which
they present a set of best practices in this area, in the form of 'how to' guides,
tools
and resources.

Slides: http://www.slideshare.net/etmeyer/tidsrdhoxss2012

Parallel Session 8: Thursday 5 July 2012, 16:30 - 17:30
"Discoverability, Accessibility, and Machine-Readability"
Joseph Talbot (OUCS)

So you've got your work out there online... How are people going to find it? What
can
they do with it when they get there? This talk will look at:

  1. some useful tips for search engine optimisation to make your site more
    discoverable;
  2. some accessibility guidelines to ensure that everyone can use your site when
    they get there;
  3. how machine readability is a key factor in achieving both the above.

Parallel Session 9: Friday 6 July 2012, 16:30 - 17:30
"Digital Library Technologies and Best Practice" Neil
Jefferies (Bodleian) and Christine Madsen (Bodleian)

This session will draw together many of topics covered in other sessions. We will
discuss the direction that digital libraries are going in and the how the various
technologies will take us there. In particular, it is unlikely that any single technical
approach will be sufficient in the future so an integrated view is required. We will
explore how scholarly discourse and communication is changing and how this affects
the
types of material that a library will need to hold and how practice, in terms of
curation, preservation and discovery/re-use will need to evolve accordingly. Implicit
in
this is a shift from library-centric standards towards Internet standards that are
more
broadly-based and better supported. We will also deal with the practicalities of
producing data management, curation and preservation plans which are increasingly
required by funding-bodies as a condition of grant.

Slides: jefferies_digitalLibrary.pdfmadsen_digitalLibraries.pdf

Parallel Session 10: Friday 6 July 2012, 16:30 - 17:30
"Panel: Running Digital Humanities Summer Schools" James
Cummings (OUCS), Sebastian Rahtz (OUCS), Ray Siemens (University of Victoria), Erin
Snyder (OeRC), John Pybus (OeRC)

A panel session consisting of some of those involved in the organisation of the
Digital.Humanities@Oxford Summer School 2012 as well as Ray Siemens who runs the Digital Humanities Summer Institute at the University
of Victoria.

Slides: siemens_DHSI.ppt

4. Social Activities

Drinks Reception 1: Monday 2 July 2012, from 19:00

A drinks reception with nibbles to allow DHOXSS delegates to socialise. (No extra
charge)

Summer School Banquet: Wednesday 4 July 2012, from 19:00

A three-course banquet at Merton College.(£25, book when registering)

Drinks Reception 2: Thursday 5 July 2012, from 19:00

A drinks reception with nibbles to allow DHOXSS delegates to socialise. (No extra
charge)