Doing Digital Scholarship: Principles & Practices, Tools & Resources

Saga of a Textbook Project

eHumanities Research Meeting10 November 2011

Nicholas W. JankowskiVisiting Fellow, KNAW e-Humanities Group

Overview

• Background• Objectives• Features• Contents• Illustrations –Models–Websites– Tools

Periodic intermezzos for discussion

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Background

• Initially: dictionary for digital media studies

• Subsequently: textbook providing conceptual framework•Polity Press series Digital Media & Society

• Now: Doing Digital Scholarship

• What & why:•Changes in focus•Relation 2nd & 3rd foci•Relations to other projects (e.g., e-Research volume, Internet research, NM&S)

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Book: Objectives & Audiences

– Objectives• To acquaint readers with tools, skills, resources for conducting

scholarship in a digital and networked environment• To provide illustrations / cases of digital scholarship• To build on / extend methodology textbooks• To complement course instruction; suitable for online & classroom

venues• Note: a textbook; not original scholarship, not ‘new knowledge’

– Target audiences: university / college level• Undergraduate: upper-division• Graduate: masters-level programs• Across disciplines in SSH

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Features: Structure, Website

– Uniform chapter structure• Generic chapter outline with section divisions • Boxed texts, e.g., descriptions of tools, cases of digital scholarship• Annotated references & resources• Exercises / assignments / study questions

– Accompanying website• Excerpts from chapter materials (‘trailers’, not full text)

• Supplementary materials – readings– links– exercises

• Instructor’s guide; course syllabus; other syllabi• Website: not advanced ‘enhanced publication’

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Features: Style

• Active tense, first person• Academic, but not excessively scholarly• Informal, but without excess

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Illustrations of University-level Textbooks

Aspects of the genre•Book design

– Color– Figures, schemas, tables– Book format– Page layout

•Features– Boxed text– Examples, cases

•Exercises– Study questions– assignments

•Resources– Glossary – (Annotated) bibliography– (complementary) website– Institutions, centers, programs– Website links

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Intermezzo 1: Questions / Comments

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Table of Contents: short version (tentative)

Queries•Importance•Weight •Order•Difficulty / complexity

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Table of Contents: long version

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Intermezzo 2: Questions / Comments

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Models of ScholarshipBasic schemas of empirical research

Source: Google Images

Empirical cycle: A. D. de Groot

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Models of Scholarship:Recent Model: 1

Models of ScholarshipRecent Model: 2

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Models of Scholarship:Recent Model: 3

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Models of ScholarshipeResearch Model

Intermezzo 3: Questions / Comments

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Websites Accompanying Textbooks

• SAGE: Mass Communication Theory• Palgrave: Skills4Study• Pearson: Research methods

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Tools: Identifying Tools for Digital Scholarship

Source: Bulger et al. (2011)Reinventing Research?Information Practices in the Humanities, p. 63. Report available here

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Tools: Identifying Resources for Digital Scholarship

Online Learning: The Chronicle's 2011 Special Report(6 Nov. 2011)From Homeric Writings to Cellphone Forensics, Some Favorite Online Resources

Question posed:

What Web resources have you found most useful in teaching and research?

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Tools: Enhanced Publications on iPadChronicle story (6 Nov. 2011)From Homeric Writings to Cellphone Forensics, Some Favorite Online Resources

Intermezzo 4: Identifying Web Resources

Chronicle query: What Web resources have you found most useful in teaching and research?

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Tools: Mind / Concept Mapping

Mind mapping collaboratory tools

Robin Good, 2009masternewmedia

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Tools: Mind Mapping Google Plus

Tools: OU Mind Mapping software

Tools: Software for Collaboration

Robin Good, 2011Mindmeister mapCategories

Tools: Collaboration with Google Groups / Docs

Illustration: Hermeneuti Text Analysishttp://hermeneuti.ca/voyeur

Intermezzo 4: General Discussion

Personal concerns & challenges•Suitability of eResearch framework•Relation of project to originally contracted book•Preparing text appropriate for students at different levels of competence; from different disciplines•Completing book manuscript...with urgency

Invitation: reviewers of manuscript(e.g., colleagues, members of target groups; non-blind, closed)

Questions / Comments

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Thank You!

Nicholas W. JankowskiVisiting Fellow, KNAW e-Humanities Group

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