Introduction
Survey and audit of current e-Humanities research in Australia and internationally
Opportunities for e-Humanities research in Australia
December 2003 workshop
Structure of the proposed Network
Report of the Print Cultures Network
Print Cultures Network: Annotated hyperlinks
Database
List of annotated hyperlinks
Participants in Special Research Initiative Projects
Survey and audit of the current state and probable directions of e-Humanities research activity in Australia and internationally |
The following survey of e-humanities research activity nationally and internationally is selective yet comprehensive (it was not feasible to undertake an exhaustive survey given the tight timeframe in which this report has to be delivered). It represents the range of work under way: more detail of actual projects is incorporated in the database that forms part of this report. In our application for seed-funding, four nodes of e-humanities research activity were identified as having developed critical mass in Australia: digital text and image collections; audio and visual streaming; spatio-temporal mapping; 3-D modelling. We have subsequently decided to use the term "mode", emphasising methodology, in preference to "node", with its spatial connotations of being a junction or crossroads. The survey is organised according to these four modes. |
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Survey of current research activity in digital text and image creation |
The study of text and image is fundamental to traditional humanities research in such disciplines as fine art, history and literary studies. It remains fundamental in the digital era since text and image can now be transmitted, manipulated and stored electronically, opening great opportunities to develop new research methods and new perspectives and directions in the study of humanities. This survey will consider the scale of research facilities and databases; the activities of influential individuals and groups of researchers; the emerging standards, methodologies and tools that facilitate research activity; the nature of the diverse disciplines utilising e-humanities methods; linkages and collaborations with major activities overseas; and the nature of collaboration within the humanities. Electronic text is the most common form of expression in research in the e-humanities. Textual research activities range from using text databases primarily for retrieval of information, through to complex and sophisticated textual study and analysis. |
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Representative Australian projects |
Underpinning research activity has been the development of several large scale research infrastructure services - funded primarily through ARC Research Infrastructure Equipment and Facilities (RIEF) or Linkage - Infrastructure Equipment and Facilities (LIEF) grants - to support textual research. In addition a number of other key facilities have been developed by researchers using ARC Large and Discovery grants and other forms of funding to enable specific forms of textual study. Together this infrastructure and these key facilities provide part of the framework of the proposed Research Network, capitalising on the investment already made by the ARC. Large scale facilities provide or consolidate a mass of textual or graphic information as an infrastructure to facilitate research activity. Most notable among these are AustLit and AustLII, each representing significant investment by the ARC as well as the work and commitment of large communities of scholars.
These activities include close collaborations and linkages to overseas digital library activities including the Oxford Digital Library, the California Digital Library, and work at Michigan, Cornell, Virginia, New Brunswick and Auckland. While these databases provide infrastructure support, more critical and influential to network research activity is the work of research groups and their output. The methodologies adopted by these researchers in studying specific forms of textuality provide the foundations for other research activity. Examples of these key activities include:
International collaborations and linkages include the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities at the University of Virginia (IATH), the Center for Electronic Texts in the Humanities at Rutgers University (CETH) , Institute for Technology and the Arts at De Montfort University, and the Saganet (Iceland) text and image facility. In addition to these activities there are many smaller projects being undertaken by individual researchers across all institutions. At this level there is an uneven range of technical and functional sophistication. The intensive, customised and ongoing program of training envisaged for the Network has the potential to lift and promote the use of effective methodologies and research tools. The disciplines represented through electronic text and image banks include literary and historical studies, linguistics, classics, law, fine arts and architecture. The subject of research may vary widely according to the interests of individual researchers, while methodologies and tools, both existing and under development, are frequently discipline-neutral. Recognition of the transferability of methodologies and tools across disciplines is fundamental to extending research activity across the e-humanities. The use of open standards underpinning database development, and issues relating to archiving, sustainability, access, rights and intellectual property, are similarly fundamental for the management of the resources and facilities supporting e-humanities research. Standards include use of archival standard formats and specifications for imaging, and the use of SGML and XML as the basis for text creation and use of international tagging guidelines such as TEI, and incorporation of metadata standards for management and access. One crucial issue in regard to standards is balancing the development of local methods and technology or use of proprietary software to facilitate research outcomes with the need to use standard formats that enable long term preservation of these resources. |
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Directions |
The development of an effective and active research network in the e-humanities in regard to text and image would:
provide the scale to enable the incorporation of e-science methodologies for the analysis of large complex datasets. |
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Survey of current research activity in audiovisual (AV) e-humanities AV media and humanities research |
Researchers in a number of disciplines who depend on time-based media (audio and video) are now e-humanities practitioners. Even a decade ago, such researchers in Australia and elsewhere tended to operate as individuals utilising the capacities of the personal computer. The recent emergence of highspeed research and education networks and datagrid technologies has the potential to revolutionise the relationship between humanities research and AV data, because of the powerful new prospects of collecting, accessing and storing data opened up by digital technologies. In disciplines that are based on fieldwork or that study current events, such as musicology, linguistics, anthropology, performance and movement studies, media studies and oral history, AV recordings may constitute the primary data on which the research depends (for example, linguistic theories depend on reliable recording, transcription and analysis of speech events). For other humanities disciplines AV recordings may rather play a supporting role (for example, recorded interviews with authors may assist the researcher studying contemporary literature). |
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The crisis of format obsolescence |
Effective address to format obsolescence is vital to ensure the viability of projects using AV archives. Humanities researchers have tended to use consumer-level portable AV recording equipment, but archivists agree that all research data recorded and stored on analogue media such as reel-to-reel tape, cassette tape, VHS and Hi-8 video need to be digitised for ongoing preservation and access, since these media and the machines needed to play them back are reaching the end of their useful life. Unfortunately the lifecycle of digital recording technologies promises to be even shorter, so that material recorded quite recently on minidisc, mp3 recorder or DAT needs to be migrated into digital formats or storage options that allow for ongoing migration and management. At present the best option is to transfer uncompressed audio and video files onto mass storage systems so as to allow for efficiencies of backup and migration. Too often, awareness of the issues and ways of addressing them is confined to informal communication among colleagues. There is need both for consciousness-raising about the urgency of these issues; for informed and practical advice specific to particular needs; and for infrastructural support to allow preservation and access to AV humanities research data. |
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The benefits of digitising AV research data |
There are many advantages in dealing with AV data in digital form. Transcription is far easier, with a number of free or reasonably-priced digital audio tools allowing easy isolation of difficult passages, slowing down at pitch, and in some cases enhancement of the audio signal through noise reduction. Timecoding and indexing tools greatly enhance analysis, as instant access can be gained to relevant parts of the recordings, and presentation of research is also facilitated, for example by generation of subtitles or chapter headings from timecoded indexes. The creation of concordances and frequency analysis of AV phenomena are similarly facilitated by use of digitised media. The increasing prevalence of electronic publication has special benefits for humanities researchers using AV data, as AV data in digital form can be excerpted and incorporated into the publication in ways not possible in hard copy publication. |
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Metadata |
Provision of standard metadata is crucial for identifying AV media files as well as well as linking them to other media. International standards for description of AV materials have been developed, based on Dublin Core elements with refinements for the particular subject areas. |
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Future Developments and directions |
With the extension of highspeed research and education networks and datagrid technologies, virtual collections are starting to emerge, with resources stored in distributed locations made accessible through metadata clearinghouses and federated gateways. Effective means for delivering streaming web access to segments of files in online collections, and of providing an entry point to AV data from other digital media (such as text transcripts, images or maps) promises to integrate AV media into humanities research publication to an unprecedented extent, and to allow authentication and validation of research results. Presentation tools that excerpt and downsize AV data from online resources are also in a state of development. Tools to allow automated segmentation, transcription and information indexing of AV data will rely on well-structured metadata to describe accessible, sustainable and authenticated digital objects. |
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Some Australian Projects |
Australian humanities researchers have often been at the forefront of their disciplines in integrating these benefits of digital audio and video into their research, and are now moving to explore digital capabilities. • University resources In addition to providing access to electronic publications and databases on AV materials, several Australian university libraries and museums have created or house research resources that incorporate AV material. For copyright reasons such resources are typically copy protected and not available off-campus. The Australian National University hosted one of the first internet-enabled projects for research on Australian music, the National Networked Facility for Research in Australian Music (NFRAM) , conceived and directed by musicologist Robyn Holmes, who went on to head the MusicAustralia project at the National Library of Australia. This project linked with the resources of the Anthology of Australian Music on Disc , selections from which were made available online via NFRAM. • Archival collections of researchers' AV material Most University anthropological museums include some AV material collected by field researchers associated with the institution. Many research collections relevant to Indigenous Australia have been deposited in the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, but other collections, such as the personal collections of Ronald Berndt and Catherine Berndt, housed in the Berndt Museum of Anthropology , University of Western Australia, and the personal collection of A.P. Elkin in the University of Sydney archives have remained with their home university, while the musicologist Catherine Ellis donated her papers and many recordings to the National Library of Australia (duplicates of recordings are held at AIATSIS). Australian field researchers who worked outside Australia until recently had no safe place of deposit for their field recordings, because most institutions have Australian-only collection policies. PARADISEC, the Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures , was established in 2003 to preserve and make accessible by digitisation Australian researchers' field recordings from the Asia-Pacific region. Craig Bellamy's milkbar.com.au site is an important exemplar demonstrating access via thematic search to a corpus of digital video, in this case interviews on Fitzroy local history. • Creative arts resources A number of significant resources of interest to humanities researchers have been created by Australian sound and multimedia artists working within an academic framework. For example, the composer Ros Bandt's Australian Sound Design project is hosted by the Australian Centre at the University of Melbourne and funded by a large grant from the Australian Research Council. The site is " dedicated to researching and publishing original works and the discourse relating to sound and its design in public space. To date, over 50 sound designs in public space have been collated and published, using multimedia formats of sound, video, text and image." Other sites in this category are the Multimedia Art Asia Pacific (MAAP) , and the Australian Music Centre , which houses scores (including electronic scores) and sound recordings of Australian composers. • Public sector resources Subject to copyright clearances and authentication, Australian researchers can get access to digital audio and video material from Australian public institutions such as ScreenSound (the National Film and Sound Archives), the National Library of Australia , the Australian Archives , and the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies , which have been at the forefront of international efforts to digitise AV materials and make them publicly available. The National Library's oral history collection includes significant quantities of music in its 30,000 hours, and its federated search services MusicAustralia and Australia Dancing direct researchers to online AV resources as well as a wealth of contextual information about Australian music and dance. Useful information resources for Australian researchers interested in creation and management of digitised AV media are provided by the National Library's site Preserving Access to Digital Information and ScreenSound's preservation guides for audio, video and film collections also host useful and reliable resources on digitisation and preservation of digital resources. |
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International Links |
Australian humanities researchers often undertake research outside Australia, especially in the Asia-Pacific region. In addition to particular researchers' links with their international research sites, Australian researchers also interact with international colleagues via professional bodies such as the International Council for Traditional Music or the Foundation for Endangered Languages, as well as through international funding bodies (such as the DOBES project funded by the Volkswagen Foundation and administered via the Max Planck Institute, Nijmegen, Holland) and participation in international research consortia and standards-setting bodies, such as the Open Language Archives Community and E-MELD. The PARADISEC project (Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures) provides one relevant example of the complex ways in which Australian researchers are involved with international projects and bodies as demonstrated in the diagram below which shows its interrelationships and linkages with the international projects and organisations including DELAMAN (Digital Endangered Languages and Musics Archives Network), OLAC (Open Language Archives Community), E-MELD (Electronic Metastructures for Endangered Languages Data). |
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Survey of current research activity in spatio-temporal data |
The complex and sophisticated research now being undertaken using spatio-temporal data is a direct consequence of the exponential rate of developments in digital technologies especially over the last twenty years. Spatio-temporal data identify locations on the earth's surface (most often through latitude/longitude or a local map grid), and objects, events or observations which relate to those locations at particular times. Spatio-temporal data have a variety of applications within the humanities: there is very little humanities data which does not have some form of spatial and temporal structure. Spatial data include maps and their digital derivatives, as well as locational anchors for other information: images, sound, video, anthropological observations, historical events, contemporary performance, people, material culture and even art, literature and philosophy. Spatial data provide an unambiguous framework for indexing and locating information, studying relationships and visualising complex phenomena through maps. Geographers and the IT industry have developed a wealth of literature, techniques and software for handling spatial data, but Humanities scholars need to develop and communicate methodologies and exemplars appropriate to our disciplines. Temporal data situate objects, events and observations within a particular time range or historical period. Temporal data are often separated from spatial data and analysed independently, although location is generally implicit in any historical discussion. Information collected over a period of time is often treated as contemporary (atemporal), although repeated surveys or historical resources may give rise to a time series of 'snapshots'. Only within the last few years has much attention been paid to the temporal component of spatial data - for example tracking changes through time or time-stamping historical observations - so that adequate methods of recording, analysing and displaying spatio-temporal relationships are still quite experimental and little known. The application of mapping and spatial methods is most widely used in field-based disciplines such as archaeology, anthropology and linguistics, in the study of contemporary social data and to a lesser degree in historical studies. The development of spatio-temporal approaches offers new opportunities, particularly in historical disciplines, which will only be realised through the flow of information and tools which the proposed network will stimulate. |
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Overview |
From 1992 to 1996, the Spatial Information Infrastructure for Asian Studies in Australia (SIIASA) and the Spatial Information Infrastructure for Russian and Central Euro-Asia Studies in Australia (SIIRCEASA), with more than twenty University participants and funding of nearly $1.5M, jointly undertook a substantial project to develop a map data infrastructure for Asian Studies and studies on the former Soviet Union. The data infrastructure developed by this project, available from the Australian Consortium for the Asian Spatial Information and Analysis Network (ACASIAN - http://www.asian.gu.edu.au/), constitutes a sobering example of a resource that is under-utilised, because of the lack of continuing funding and inadequate communication channels. The data are far more often used by commercial interests (which contribute to its upkeep) than by the relatively small group of researchers who are expert practitioners of GIS (Geographic Information System or Geographic Information Science: the latter term is increasingly used to distinguish an analytical approach from a purely technological approach). A major project inaugurated in 1998 has made available a small part of these data to end users through the Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative (ECAI - www.ecai.org ), based at the University of California Berkeley but with worldwide membership. Technical development has been based at the University of Sydney Spatial Science Innovation Unit (SSIU). A product of this collaboration, financially supported by ECAI and ARC Linkage funding, has been the Time Map® software for web-based time-enabled mapping, which allows non-technical users to generate online interactive maps which combine datasets registered in the ECAI data clearinghouse but maintained by data producers on their own servers. ECAI has had marked success in networking individuals across national boundaries and across a broad range of humanities disciplines, providing a model for some aspects of the proposed Research Network. Examples include:
ECAI works closely with organizations such as the UK Arts and Humanities Data Service, UNESCO World Heritage Centre (Paris), Polis Center (Indianapolis), Alexandria Digital Library (Santa Barbara), International Dunhuang Project (British Library), Academia Sinica, H-Net, Great Britain Historical GIS, Perseus Project and numerous other national and international organizations. ECAI has also developed international GIS training programs for Humanities scholars, including a curriculum developed by the Polis Center ( www.polis.iupui.edu/polis/home.htm ), and contributions from t he SSIU at the University of Sydney, which also mounts GIS training workshops independently (offshore- at Siem Reap in Cambodia (January 2003) and at the UC Berkeley GIS Center (June 2003)-as well as locally). Uptake of these workshops has been particularly strong among Early Career Researchers seeking new methods of analysing and presenting their data. Conferences have been a significant factor in developing local and international linkages, not only in the spatial data areas but more broadly in digital humanities research. ECAI held its annual conference in Sydney in 2001 a few months before the DRRH conference, with key projects using spatial data for humanities research in Australia presenting. These include Internationalising South Asian Scholarly Data, an ambitious ARC-funded atlas project (Curtin, La Trobe, Monash, UNE - smi.curtin.edu.au/ecai/ ); The Greater Angkor Project (University of Sydney - acl.arts.usyd.edu.au/angkor ); which makes extensive use of GIS and remote sensed data to study the structure and decline of Angkor; and the Time Map development project ( www.timemap.net ). |
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Timemap Case Study |
Time Map has excited a great deal of interest both nationally and internationally, not only because it is ahead of the field in defining explicit metadata for describing spatio-temporal datasets, but because it has been implemented in a way that is sympathetic to the needs of Humanities users and supported by Humanities researchers while retaining flexibility, thus providing a low cost alternative to complex, expensive and generic commercial offerings. Time Map provides an exemplary case of international e-Humanities networking, as it is a joint project of researchers at the University of Sydney and a small software company in Saratov, Russia, managed largely through web-based communication. Apart from its role as the enabling technology for ECAI, TimeMap has been used for a kiosk at the Museum of Sydney, for the generation of a number of historical map animations, for interactive searching and display of online databases for the secondary education market (MacquarieNet - www.macnet.mq.edu.au ) and in a number of third party interactive web map applications. The project is currently exploring the use of Time Map for both historical and contemporary data: projects include a cultural atlas of Western Sydney in collaboration with the Centre for Cultural Research (University of Western Sydney), mapping of social indicators in conjunction with Westir P/L, and methods of locating and displaying historical maps in collaboration with the Rumsey Map Collection (San Francisco - www.davidrumsey.com ). |
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Needs |
Researchers in this mode share generic needs with other e-humanities researchers. Particular issues include:
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Possible Directions |
Spatial technologies, and particularly the handling of spatio-temporal data, are in rapid flux, with particular impetus coming from developments in technology (including the Internet, speed and capacity of personal computers, graphics capabilities and software infrastructure) and recent concerns with international security and emergency management. The GIS market is driven by massive funding from the military, commerce, facilities management, environmental management and spatially located information delivery. In the next few years we will see increasingly powerful tools come within the reach of the non-specialist user. Over the last decade, desktop mapping has become a consumer product easily learned by most graduate students. More advanced spatial manipulation, simulation and 3D modelling are beginning to come within range of the casual user, as well as technologies to place data and services on the Internet using low cost and Open Source platforms, particularly those conforming to the Open GIS Consortium (OGC) standards. Over the next decade we can expect an explosion of technologies for spatio-temporal analysis and visualisation, but there is the danger that aspects of Humanities research will become technology-driven, because the technologies are externally developed and highly seductive. We can see examples in archaeologists' embrace of environmental determinism driven by the first GIS tools, or the spread of poorly understood multivariate statistics with the arrival of SPSS. If the damaging influence of externally developed and highly seductive technologies is to be avoided, we must develop sympathetic methodologies, exemplary applications and information flow through the proposed network and training workshops. The network should also support collaboration towards the cost-effective provision of the modest infrastructure needed for web delivery (well-supported servers, databases and open source tools), and the academic reward structure provided for non-conventional delivery of scholarship. |
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Survey of current research activity in 3D modelling and visualisation |
The field of 3D digital modelling and visualisation evolved from the research ideas explored in Ivan Sutherland's project Sketchpad at MIT in the early 1960s. Since then the field has evolved along a spectrum defined on the one hand by discovery of fundamental knowledge for representation and manipulation of 3D information using graphic and nongraphic databases; and on the other hand, by application of those ideas in various disciplines including humanities. The primary motivation of work in this area is to gain insight and offer a qualitatively different mode of interaction through representation and manipulation of information in three-dimensional space. Whereas the early work in this area was primarily informed by disciplines such as architecture in which the need for 3D information representation is fundamental, the field has evolved to embrace needs of many other disciplines ranging from the highly abstract such as visualisation of computer programs, and engineering analysis of structural forces, to reconstruction, representation and simulation of archaeological finds and sites. At the same time, recent developments in computing and communications, combined with hyper-linked multimedia navigated through 3D representations, raise fundamentally new possibilities such as multi-user networked environments for use in education, research, and practice in various disciplines including humanities. |
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Representative Australian projects |
Visualisation of past artefacts and buildings through 3D reconstructions is becoming increasingly integral to disciplines such as classics and archaeology, art history, and architecture. • The reconstruction of Roman theatres project undertaken by researchers in classics and archaeology and architecture at the University of Melbourne relied upon 3D modelling and visualisation. In this project, these technologies were used not only for representational and documentary purposes but were essential in the very process of hypothesising various geometric proportioning schemes. (Frank Sear, Department of Fine Arts, Classics and Archaeology, The University of Melbourne) • An ongoing project in the Architecture Faculty at the University of Melbourne uses the historical context of Palenque, Mexico, a major Mayan cultural site with a rich and complex geographical environment and history, to investigate issues surrounding transmission of cultural understanding with the use of interactive 3D visualisation technologies. This work has evolved from "Cultural Immersion in Virtual Places", a project funded by an Australian Research Council University Industry Partnership (SPIRT) Grant to Associate Professor Bharat Dave, and Professor Ian Bishop, with Lonely Planet Publications as Industry Partner ( (Bharat Dave, Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning, The University of Melbourne) http://www.arbld.unimelb.edu.au/~bdave/spirt/palenque.htm • Thousand Years of the Olympic Games: Treasures of Ancient Greece was a project developed during the Sydney Olympics. It comprises an interactive model of the historic site of Olympia and associated information. It was developed by university and industry partners in collaboration with the Powerhouse Museum. (Powerhouse Museum, Sydney) http://www.phm.gov.au/ancient_greek_olympics/ • Garden Palace Exhibition, Sydney 1879, a project researching and re-creating this exhibition, was prepared for the World Expo of Expos at Hanover in 2000. carried out by a team led by Professor Peter Proudfoot, UNSW. It has an online version with visual materials. http://www.fbe.unsw.edu.au/events/expo2000/ • At the ANU, an interactive model of Borobudur was developed as part of art history teaching and research, subsequently used by the ANU Vizlab. (Michael Greenhalgh, ANU); similarly, the study of traditional Chinese timber construction through documentation and analysis undertaken in the architecture faculty at the University of Melbourne has resulted in an ongoing repository of digital 3D models that serves the subsequent research and teaching in this area. (Q. Guo, Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning, The University of Melbourne) • "Made in Light" is a project that aims to recreate part of Melbourne city centre in 1864. (Warik Lawrence, RMIT) |
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International Developments |
The selected key international projects and institutions involved in development of 3D modelling and visualisation technologies in humanities include: • UCLA Culture VR Lab at the University of California, Los Angeles. Some of the projects undertaken at the CVR Lab include: Temple of the Sun, Lake Titicaca, Bolivia, Lake Fayum, Egypt; The Second Temple, Jerusalem, and others around the world. The CVR Lab has also developed two online projects on The Roman Forum and Santa Maria Maggiore. (More information available online: http://www.cvrlab.org/index.html ). • Charismatic: A European Commission IST-funded research project involved multiple university and industry partners. The project scenarios centred on the Agora of Athens and Shakespeare's Globe theatre. ( http://www.charismatic-project.com/index.html ) • Virtual Heritage Network: An international network of researchers whose aims include promotion of digital technologies for the education, interpretation, conservation and preservation of the natural, cultural and world heritage. A key activity of VHN is the annual international conference Virtual Systems and Multimedia (More information: http://www.virtualheritage.net/ ) • Foundation of the Hellenic World: A non-profit institution aimed at promoting the use of ' state-of-the-art, cutting-edge information and computer technology in its pursuit of the research, awareness and understanding of Hellenic history and culture.' (More information: http://www.ime.gr/fhw/en/info/index.html ) • DigiCult: A thematic funding programme initiated under the European Commission's 5 th and 6 th Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development. The current research clusters include (1) community memory, (2) digital libraries, (3) digitisation/preservation, (4) intelligent heritage, (5) virtual reality and tourism, and (6) supporting networks. (More information: http://www.cordis.lu/ist/directorate_e/digicult/index.htm ). |
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Future research directions |
The nominated projects from Australia and overseas indicate that 3D modelling and visualisation techniques increasingly underpin work in diverse disciplines. It is also apparent that much of the work is inter-disciplinary in nature. The future developments in this area are likely to be shaped around the following issues: • Semantic overlays : As more information gets represented as multimedia data, there is a pressing need to develop semantic ontologies and frameworks. They are essential to support future reuse and harvesting of such information. • Interpretive frameworks : Unlike many scientific disciplines, application of 3D visualisation in humanities requires support for multiple interpretive views that may be incomplete or inconsistent. Examples include alternate and often conflicting historical accounts of artefacts, buildings and environmental settings. • Distributed access and storage : 3D representations synthesised with temporal and multimedia data require large amounts of storage and processing power. Since the bulk of these data evolve over time, future developments in this field will require increasingly sophisticated schemes for distributed repositories of information from which data are accessed on demand. • Scaleable information retrieval and displays : Future use of 3D modelling information and visualisation will range from small-scale displays to surround information environments. To meet such diverse use of information requires representation of information at various levels of resolution. Such research directions lie at the intersection of computational technologies and discipline-specific needs and ethos, and will be addressed most effectively through interdisciplinary research collaborations. |
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Opportunities for e-humanities research in Australia |
The analyses presented in the surveys of e-humanities research in Australia have common themes, frequently expressed in terms of needs. The recurrent elements in the surveys, and in discussions at the Network planning workshop in December 2003, coincide strikingly with the American e-humanities guru John Unsworth's recent speculation about the requirements of an advanced cyberinfrastructure for humanities, social sciences, and science (it is notable that his analysis highlights shared needs across this range of disciplines). Here is his list:
Unsworth goes on to isolate current needs or characteristics peculiar to the humanities, such as access to semantic content, pluralistic content management systems, and emphasis on data preservation. He also ventures on a forecast of likely imminent changes in humanities scholarship which at once constitute needs and outline future directions
The agenda for e-humanities research in Australia, then, is a very full and complex one. Identification of these needs and opportunities informs the structure and activities of the proposed Network, which will service a number of constituencies. At one end of the spectrum, we aim to encourage e-humanities work by those who aren't yet doing it. It is important to be able to communicate the capacity and potential of digital technologies to the estimated 80% of colleagues in this position, in order to stimulate the formulation of new research questions, perhaps in the context of new disciplinary configurations. At the same time, we aim to extend the reach of the 20% of colleagues already engaged in e-humanities research. So we would expect both to facilitate new developments in current activities-say, in literary stylistics and in 3D modelling- and also to incubate cross-fertilisation of research in various disciplines by transdisciplinary methodologies-say, by adopting techniques currently applied mainly in spatio-temporal mapping to textual work. These are simply evident possibilities among many more imaginative ones. Implicit in such ambitions is a recognition of a number of basic issues which challenge orthodox assumptions about humanities scholars working independently and autonomously, from a defined disciplinary base. In particular, digital technologies change the basis on which scholarly communication proceeds. Australian humanities scholars increasingly have the technological means to work with, and create new, digital resources in their research. This offers innovative ways to further their work's accessibility, within Australia and internationally, and its value to the research community and the wider public. The wider and deeper diffusion of digital technologies in humanities education, research and practice sets up substantial challenges to humanities researchers who face significant intellectual property law issues in relation to accessing, transforming and communicating the material with which they work. Unprecedented intricacies in relation to the regulation of the production, representation and exchange of ideas are being recognised. These issues in relation to intellectual property will be a major site for proactive work by the Network. Digital technologies mean intellectual property law is undergoing its most significant period of change in decades. In particular, digitisation dramatically alters the nature of accessing copyright material and its subsequent publication, promotion and distribution. Maintaining a balance between copyright owners' rights and the public interest in access to copyright material is a key issue in digitisation, and it is one in which researchers play a central role as important users and disseminators of digital copyright material while pursuing their broad public interest mission. Two points about digital technologies are particularly noteworthy for humanities researchers: the way digital technology allows copyright material to be reproduced; and the way it changes markets for copyright works. First, digital technologies give huge potential to access and reproduce copyright works. For example, the fair dealing provisions of the Copyright Act allow certain uses to be made of copyright material for the purposes of research and study. If such a legal reproduction is made, then it is comparatively simple to make further unauthorised reproductions without permission from copyright owners and without gaining direct access to any physical objects containing copyright works. Second, digital technology can be seen to change copyright markets. Instead of selling physical objects containing works, copyright owners may licence digital access to works. Analogue publication involves permanent physical copies. Digitisation gives far greater potential to monitor and control the use of copyright material. These changes in the publication, promotion and distribution of copyright works have significant implications for the ways in which researchers can create and distribute their work, and for the wider public interest in a vibrant research environment. |
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Reference |
Unsworth, John. "Humanities and Cyberinfrastructure: Changes in Disciplinary Practice," report on closing plenary panel of a forum convened by the Coalition for Networked Information, Portland, Oregon, 9 December 2003. <http://www.iath.virginia.edu/~jmu2m/cni.2003.html> | |