Digital Research Infrastructures in the Humanities: How to Use, Build and Maintain Them

Over the past 10 years, the digital humanities has undergone an ‘infrastructural turn,’ with more and more discourse, development and indeed funding being channeled into large-scale developments to support a broad range of sources and disciplinary approaches.  But infrastructure developments have also been accused of being exclusive and difficult to access.  This course will discuss the history, theory and practice of the infrastructure developments that are shaping digital humanities today, but also provide a very practical, hands’-on overview to the tools and services available through these initiatives.  In particular, it will delve into the lessons that these large-scale projects have learned about how they embed into the wider research ecosystem, lessons with broad-based applicability for any digital project.

This workshop has been developed in association with the PARTHENOS cluster of research infrastructure projects.

Part 1: What is infrastructure in the humanities?

• Old and new definitions (and criticisms) of infrastructure
• 1996 and the ‘birth’ of cyberinfrastructure for the humanities
• The infrastructure landscape today
• What do infrastructures offer, and how can they help me?
• How are infrastructures funded and developed, and how can I get involved?

Part 2: Infrastructures as relationships

• The curious case of humanities sources: research infrastructures and GLAMs/CHIs
• Opportunities, barriers and modalities for sharing between projects and initiatives
• The competing epistemics of humanists and computer scientists
• Project teams, project users and project management

Part 3: Envisioning and delivering infrastructure for the humanities

• Key issue 1: methods for defining the user base and its requirements
• Key issue 2: methods for defining and communicating with infrastructure project audiences
• Key issue 3: methods for sustaining infrastructure projects after the funded activity period