Category: digital humanities

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Article 'Creating Deep Maps and Spatial Narratives through Design'

Creating Deep Maps and Spatial Narratives through Design with Don Lafreniere and Scott Nesbit for the International Journal of Humanities and Arts Computing, based on our work at the Summer 2012 NEH Advanced Institute on Spatial Narrative and Deep Maps: Explorations in the Spatial Humanities.

Ridge, Mia; Lafreniere, Don and Nesbit, Scott (2013). Creating deep maps and spatial narratives through design. International Journal of Humanities and Arts Computing, 7(1-2) pp. 176–189.

Abstract: An interdisciplinary team of researchers were challenged to create a model of a deep map during a three-day charette at the NEH Institute on Spatial Narratives and Deep Maps. Through a reflexive process of ingesting data, probing for fruitful research questions, and considering how a deep map might be used by different audiences, we created a wireframe model of a deep map and explored how it related to spatial narratives. We explored the tension between interfaces for exploratory and structured views of data and sources, and devised a model for the intersections between spatial narratives and deep maps. The process of creating wireframes and prototype screens—and more importantly, the discussions and debates they initiated—helped us understand the complex requirements for deep maps and showed how a deep map can support a humanistic interpretation of the role of space in historical processes.

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Article: 'From tagging to theorizing: deepening engagement with cultural heritage through crowdsourcing'

Peer-reviewed article 'From tagging to theorizing: deepening engagement with cultural heritage through crowdsourcing' published in Curator journal

Ridge, Mia (2013). From tagging to theorizing: deepening engagement with cultural heritage through crowdsourcing. Curator: The Museum Journal, 56(4) pp. 435–450.

Proof copy available at http://oro.open.ac.uk/39117/.

Abstract: Crowdsourcing, or “obtaining information or services by soliciting input from a large number of people,” is becoming known for the impressive productivity of projects that ask the public to help transcribe, describe, locate, or categorize cultural heritage resources. This essay argues that crowdsourcing projects can also be a powerful platform for audience engagement with museums, offering truly deep and valuable connection with cultural heritage through online collaboration around shared goals or resources. It includes examples of well-designed crowdsourcing projects that provide platforms for deepening involvement with citizen history and citizen science; useful definitions of “engagement”; and evidence for why some activities help audiences interact with heritage and scientific material. It discusses projects with committed participants and considers the role of communities of participants in engaging participants more deeply.

The article was based on my keynote: 'The gift that gives twice: crowdsourcing as productive engagement with cultural heritage' for 'The Shape of Things: New and emerging technology-enabled models of participation through VGC' at the School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester.

If you found this post useful, you might be interested in my book, Crowdsourcing Our Cultural Heritage.

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Workshop: 'Designing successful digital humanities crowdsourcing projects'

I ran a half-day workshop on 'Designing successful digital humanities crowdsourcing projects' at the Digital Humanities 2013 conference in sunny Lincoln, Nebraska.

Workshop attendees: download the slides (2mb PDF) DH2013 Crowdsourcing workshop slides and exercises handout (Word doc): DH2013 Crowdsourcing workshop exercises.

I've started a braindump of 'emerging best practice' tips and questions from the workshop below…

Tips for designing humanities crowdsourcing projects Continue reading "Workshop: 'Designing successful digital humanities crowdsourcing projects'"

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Workshop: Data visualisation as a gateway to programming

I was invited to run a workshop at THATCamp Feminisms West at Scripps College in Claremont, California, and thought 'Data visualisations as gateway to programming' would be a good way to provide a gentle introduction to 'computational thinking' by working through the effects different data structures have on potential visualisations in ManyEyes, the online visualisation tool. I also prepared some material on basic concepts in programming and put together a page of 'Inspiring women through history' mapped across time and space that contained heavily commented code that suggested various things to try to get a sense of how code (in this case, JavaScript, HTML, CSS) works. My slides are below, you can play with content prepared for ManyEyes, or 'view source' at the 'inspiring women' link above, save the file to your hard drive and have a play.

 

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Conference paper: New Challenges in Digital History: Sharing Women's History on Wikipedia

I'll be presenting 'New Challenges in Digital History: Sharing Women's History on Wikipedia' in the 'Developments in Digital Women's History' strand of the Women’s History in the Digital World conference at The Albert M. Greenfield Digital Center for the History of Women's Education at Bryn Mawr on March 23, 2013.

Abstract:

In 1908 Ina von Grumbkow undertook an expedition to Iceland. She later made significant contributions to the field of natural history and wrote several books but other than passing references online and a mention on her husband's Wikipedia page, her story is only available to those with access to sources like the 'Earth Sciences History' journal.

Cumulative centuries of archival and theoretical work have been spent recovering women's histories, yet much of this inspiring scholarship is invisible outside academia. Inspired by research into the use and creation of digital resources and the wider impact of these resources on historians and their scholarship, this paper is a deliberate provocation: if we believe the subjects of our research are important, then we should ensure they are represented on freely available encyclopaedic sites like Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is the fifth most visited website in the world and the first port of call for most students and the public, yet women's history is poorly represented. This paper discusses how the difficulties of adding women's histories to Wikipedia exemplify some of the new challenges and opportunities of digital history and the ways in which it blurs the line between public history and purely academic research.

Update: I've posted my talk notes at New challenges in digital history: sharing women's history on Wikipedia – my draft talk notes.