Monthly Archive: May 2019
At the beginning of 2019, the Austrian Centre for Digital Humanities of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ACDH) started an experiment: For the first time ever, we published the calls for participation in three virtual hackathons. The hackathons would focus on Open Data sets publicly available online, and the tasks to perform on these data would involve creating Open Source code. Each of the hackathons had a special theme and was co-timed with events that involve an aspect of Openness. These events also inspired the choice of the respective data sets. The best contributions would be determined by an international board of judges and receive cash prizes. The criteria for judgement were the following: Creativity, innovation (e.g. Is the approach/idea new and unique? Does it do something that hasn’t been done before? Does it provide new insights into the data? Does the hack provide a new/faster/clearer solution to the old...
On 16 May 2019, Knowledge Unlatched announced the launch of a new hosting platform for Open Access books, the Open Research Library (ORL). Since the announcement multiple actor groups involved in the production of open monographs have voiced their concerns about the new platform as it goes against the fundamental principles and values that define open, transparent and community-led scholarly infrastructures. At DARIAH, we believe that the sustainability, optimal coverage, and most importantly the openness of scholarly infrastructural components are key in shaping the future of scholarly communication for the better. Therefore, we would here like to express our endorsement for the statement by our sister infrastructure, OPERAS, in response to the Open Research Library. The full text of their statement can be found below. In support of open infrastructures: A statement from OPERAS in response to the ‘Open Research Library’, a new initiative from Knowledge Unlatched On May 16,...
In the arts and humanities, digital data production is still expensive, challenging and time-consuming. We all know this, and yet the results of these processes often in the end can’t be reused by other researchers, meaning that we reinvent (or redigitise) the wheel far too often. This resource is aimed at giving practical advice for arts and humanities scholars who are willing to take their first steps in research data management but don’t know where to begin. Our approach to data management views it as a reflective process that exposes and tweaks existing behaviours, rather than one that introduces specific tools. It is intended to encourage awareness of one’s own processes and mindfulness about how they could be more open and how and how small changes across three points in your research workflow can make big differences.