Towards a new research infrastructure for the arts and humanities

Peter DoornDirector, Data Archiving and Networked Services

AthensMay 6th, 2009

www.dariah.eu

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

Traditional image of the humanities scholar: a loner in his study

www.dariah.eu

Ideas about the future may be false...

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

www.dariah.eu

From Humanities computingto e-humanities

Roots go back to the 1960s:• text analysis, e.g. bible studies• quantitative social and economic history• linguistics• archaeology

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.’

www.dariah.eu

Humanities computing

www.dariah.eu

Aetolian Studies Project: settlement

history from prehistory to modern times

www.dariah.eu

CLIWOC-project (Climate of the World Oceans)

Collaboration of historians and meteorologists

www.dariah.eu

Journal entry, 26-29 September 1758

www.dariah.eu

Shipping Routes 1750-1850

Courtesy of CLIWOC project, KNMI

www.dariah.eu

Average yearly temperatures, 1750-1850

Courtesy of CLIWOC project, KNMI

www.dariah.eu

Wind direction and speed

Courtesy of CLIWOC project, KNMI

www.dariah.eu

Wind directions and rainy days, Atlantic, 1770-1780

Courtesy of CLIWOC project, KNMI

www.dariah.eu

Archaeology

www.dariah.eu

Data collection in the field

www.dariah.eu

Databases of finds

www.dariah.eu

Photos, GIS, sherds

www.dariah.eu

Virtual archive of finds, publications, data and documentation

www.dariah.eu

Electronic Depot Netherlands Archaeology (EDNA)

www.dariah.eu

Archaeological Data Service (UK)

www.dariah.eu

POLEMONGreek National Monuments Record System

Main characteristics• Geographical distribution – federated architecture• Administrative documentation for site monuments and moveable objects• Cartographic documentation (GIS component)• Connection with thematic databases and term thesauri• Operation modes: distributed, centralized, mixed• Easy installation and startup

By: Panos Constantopoulos

Installation and deployment on a national scale

~ 65 installations in Greece

~ 120,000 monuments recorded

Trained personnel in every ephorate

..

ΥΠΠΟ/ΔΑΜΔ

.

.

www.dariah.eu

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

www.dariah.eu

What does data look like?

Multitude of forms: 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

www.dariah.eu

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

www.dariah.eu

European infrastructure challenges

• In spite of some achievements, existing infrastructures are primarily national... if they are there at all!

• European activities are until now funded on a project basis and carried out as voluntary activities by national partners

• Stable, pan-European data infrastructures for the humanities hardly exist

• Increasing internationalisation of humanities research puts new requirements for such infrastructures

www.dariah.eu

ESFRI Roadmap

ESFRI = European Strategy Forum on Research InfrastructuresFirst Roadmap launched in autumn 2006, update in 2008About 30 proposals for large scale research facilitiesSix proposals are in area of social sciences and humanities

www.dariah.eu

The DARIAH ideaThe Grand Vision:

• Provide Access to European humanities and cultural heritage information across time

• A Research Infrastructure that can Coordinate, Catalyse, Enhance, Support the digital humanities

Digital research infrastructure for the humanities:• Provide permanent access to data collected/digitised in

European projects: providing continuity for discontinuous activities

• Support research networks in the digital humanities• Structure: a strong nucleus in a cluster of networked

organisations and satellites

www.dariah.eu

Science Case

• Changing research practice in a networked environment:• Data (including text, images, and other media) is the

laboratory of the scholar in the humanities• Resources on the web are distributed (data grid)• The scale of research goes up: networked projects • New technologies and methods of analysis

• However, European projects have no continuity• The existing structures are too weak (ad hoc

networks, no permanence) and national in scope• Answer: strong European data infrastructure

www.dariah.eu

A digital research infrastructure for the humanities is comparable to a virtual

astrophysics observatory

www.dariah.eu

www.dariah.eu

www.dariah.eu

Outline of tasks of DARIAH Digitise – Curate – Preserve

• Standards development and promotion• Preservation and digitisation support• R&D, technology platforms, tools development• Legal services and advice on open access and I.P.R.

Discover – Access – Deliver• Authentication and authorisation, • Harvesting, aggregating, hosting• User-friendly discovery and delivery

Connect – Collaborate – Use• Supporting communities of practice in digital humanities• Facilitating innovative research practices• Tools development and tools registries

www.dariah.eu

Preparation Project: Overview of the Work Packages

1. Project management2. Dissemination3. Strategic work4. Financial work5. Governance and logistical work6. Legal work7. Technical reference architecture8. Technical: Conceptual modelling

www.dariah.eu

DARIAH preparation project partners

www.dariah.eu

Aspiring Partners

• Italy• Spain• Austria• Switzerland

Other prospective partners in:Rumania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Lithuania, Sweden, Norway, Serbia, FYROM

www.dariah.eu

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; ERI or non-ERI, that is the question.

www.dariah.eu

Technical and conceptual objectives

Architecture: 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.

 

www.dariah.eu

Arena Demonstrator

Exemplary Service-Oriented Architecture:• ARENA at ADS a Culture 2000 portal• Added value of DARIAH: Migrate legacy applications• Database integration: Integrate access

www.dariah.eu

Fedora (manuscript) demonstrator

The NFI collection - The manuscripts AM 366-371 fol. in the Arnamagnaean Collection contain drawings and descriptions of all the Danish and Norwegian runic monuments (stones with runic inscriptions) which were known in the 1620s

www.dariah.eu

Arts and humanities disciplines according

to European Reference Index for

the Humanities (ERIH) and in selected countries

www.dariah.eu

Relations to other projects and networks

www.dariah.eu

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 conference

Q1 2011Start construction DARIAH

Financial Commitment?

www.dariah.eu

Summary• Mission: to enhance the European research

infrastructure in the humanities • linking (and upgrading) distributed digital resources

and merging them into a grid-empowered architecture• designing new facilities for pioneering research,

preferably of an international and interdisciplinary nature

• Structure: a single, distributed organisation that combines specialist knowledge of the fields with technology expertise in digital information and communication structures

www.dariah.eu

Summary (continued)

• Organising principle: a decentralised network; an international core in a cluster of national and thematic satellites• The core will bear responsibility for organising and

supporting the network, for the basic infrastructure, and for the method and means of communication.

• The national ‘hubs’ will bear responsibility for the specific thematic or disciplinary expertise. The hubs will be prominent institutes and research networks with a leading role within the European context. The model is an open one and will be able to embrace new, promising fields that are as yet unable to play such a leading role in Europe.

www.dariah.eu

Additional information

www.dariah.eu