Dariah Advisory Board June 2009 Peter

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Towards a new research infrastructure for the arts and

humanities

Peter DoornDirector, Data Archiving and Networked Services

The Hague, June 30th, 2009


What do humanities scholars have to do with digital research infrastructures?

Traditional image of the humanities scholar:

a loner in his study


Ideas about the future may be false...

How Rand Corporation envisioned the future (2004) home computer in 1954


The innovative scholar

Today’s scholars

Bookwheel, from Agostino Ramelli's "Le diverse et artifiose machine," 1588


From humanities computing to e-Humanities

Roots go back to the 1960s:

text analysis, e.g. bible studiesquantitative social and economic historylinguisticsarchaeology

e-Humanities as analogy of e-Science:

‘science increasingly done through distributed global collaborations enabled by the Internet, using very large data collections, large-scale computing resources and high performance visualisation.’


CLIWOC (Climate of the World Oceans)

Collaboration of historians and meteorologists


Journal entry, 26-29 September 1758


Shipping Routes 1750-1850

Courtesy of CLIWOC project, KNMI


Wind direction and speed

Courtesy of CLIWOC project, KNMI


Archaeology


Data collection in the field


Databases of finds


Photos, GIS, sherds


Electronic Depot Netherlands Archaeology (EDNA)


Archaeological Data Service (UK)


Digital Research data in the arts and humanities

Digital materials collected for research purposes, e.g.:

History: digitized archival sources such as population registers, shipping journals, historical censuses, judicial verdicts, medieval manuscripts

Archaeology: excavation data - field reports, databases of finds, photos of objects, digital maps of sites, drawings of shards

Linguistics: speech data, text corpora, video


What does data look like?

Multitude of data types: data bases, spreadsheets, texts, audio, video, still images

Multitude of formats: since 1960s! From home-grown applications (legacy data) via standard software to open standards

Data is often coded or “enriched”: cannot be understood or used without ample documentation

Often: difficult to use without specific software


Research Infrastructures (R.I.)

R.I. in general: permanent and physical

R.I. for the natural sciences: ice breakers for polar research, satellites, telescopes, particle accelerators, laboratories

R.I. for the humanities?• Cultural heritage in all forms is the main source of humanities

research• Libraries and archives are the traditional “laboratories” for the

humanities

In the digital age, essential for innovative humanities research is:

Access to digitised heritage data (data bases, text corpora, speech, image collections, etc.)

Tools to process this information

The most important new research infrastructure for the humanities is therefore a digital one


ESFRI Roadmap

ESFRI = European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures

First Roadmap launched in autumn 2006, update in 2008

About 30 proposals for large scale research facilities

Six proposals are in area of social sciences and humanities

DARIAH covers all arts and humanities



Preparation Project: Overview of the Work Packages

1. Project management

2. Dissemination

3. Strategic work

4. Financial work

5. Governance and logistical work

6. Legal work

7. Technical reference architecture

8. Technical: Conceptual modelling


DARIAH preparation project partners


Aspiring Partners

Italy

Spain

Austria

Switzerland

Other prospective partners in:

Rumania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Lithuania, Sweden, Norway,

Serbia, FYROM


Strategic, financial, organisational and legal objectives

Strategic:To determine the strategic vision, goals, objectives and policies for

DARIAH, ensuring they are based upon and will meet stakeholder requirements, clearly identified business drivers, and identified benefits for European research

Financial:To define a sustainable business model for DARIAH that allows for the

provision of long-term services to the European research community in the humanities, while ensuring adaptability to new user needs and new technological developments

Logistical:To deliver a business plan that describes the organisational set-up and the

management structure, the role of the institutions and persons involved (stakeholders, staff, experts, partners, expansion with new partners)

Legal:To determine the rights and obligations of different types of DARIAH

partners and allowing for the inclusion of new partners; draft licence agreements, products and services contracts;


Technical and conceptual objectives

Architectural: To draft the technical reference architecture of DARIAH, consisting of draft engineering plans, as well as demonstrators for key enabling technologies.

Conceptual: Develop foundation of a coherent, interlinked, and collaboratively maintained virtual infrastructure of digital resources in the partner institutes. Model and evaluate the research processes in selected digital humanities disciplines.


Relations to other projects and networks


Preparing DARIAH: time schedule

2008 2009

May 2007Deadline Capacities call

ESFRI projectsQ3 2008

Agreement EC funding

Q4 2008Start “Preparing DARIAH”

20102007

October 2006Publication ESFRI

Roadmap December 2006

Publication relevant FP7 call

Q1 2010 DARIAH

conferenceQ1 2011

Start construction DARIAH

Financial Commitment?

Dariah Advisory Board June 2009 Peter

Business

digital research data

humanities dariah

innovative humanities

humanities scholars

humanities digital materials

speech data

heritage data data bases

data archiving