[open-humanities] Introduction

Wed Jul 21 09:48:10 UTC 2010

Hi All!
First I wanna thank you for putting me into the working group. I think this 
goes out to Jonathan (we should meet again)
I am really excited to see the forming of a working group bringing together 
concepts of digital openness with the special needs and perspectives in 
Humanities. In fact it was always my impression that the idea of openness has 
to be clarified from a theoretical point of view replenish the technical and 
legals aspect.
For example making public a set of governmental data about crime rates in city 
districts often leeds to the conclusion that migrants are more criminal than 
other people. But analyzing the definition of district borders and relating the 
data to aspects of social value often relatives this impression. What I want 
to say with this example of data is that resources are always build up upon 
and in a context which is significant for its understanding. This means it is 
an integrated part of it transparency/openness.
The problem described above is even more important for the humanities where 
resources are often qualitative and the structure of meaning is symbolic and 
causal. Because of this I would add another topic to the list presented by 
Janneke: The identification of special needs making resources open in the 
humanities and the discussion of openness in the perspective of the 
humanities.
I am really looking forward to the activities in this group
Regards
Niels-Oliver Walkowski
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Niels-Oliver Walkowski

Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften
TELOTA - The Electronic Life Of The Academy
Jägerstr. 22/23
10117

+49 30 20370 264 

http://www.bbaw.de
http://www.telota.de
walkowski at bbaw.de
Twitter: http://twitter.com/PersDatRep
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=138792842142&ref=nf
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Institut für Dokumentologie und Editorik
http://www.i-d-e.de
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Working Group on Open Data in Science
http://wiki.okfn.org/wg/science
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Am Montag, 19. Juli 2010, um 18:46:08 schrieb Janneke Adema:
> Dear all,
> 
> As an introductionary email I would like to take the opportunity to
> introduce myself and to kick off the discussion on the purpose of the
> Working Group on Open Resources in the Humanities
> (http://wiki.okfn.org/wg/humanities) and the potential projects we would
> like to pursue. Just as a first foundation, please permit me to start by
> presenting my own vision on what I feel the group might be about and some
> of the projects or themes we may want to develop further. I am very
> curious to hear your ideas and visions on these matters.
> 
> First a little bit about me. At the moment I am doing a PhD in Media and
> Communication at Coventry University. Before that I have been involved in
> the OAPEN<http://www.oapen.org/> project, where I did amongst others
> research on user needs and business models concerning Open Access
> monographs in the Humanities. I am heavily interested in discourses
> pertaining to digital monographs, informal, open and alternative
> communication and publication spaces, copyright, digital humanities and
> media and remix theory. I blog about these issues over at
> www.openreflections.wordpress.com<http://www.openreflections.wordpress.com
> />.
> 
> About the ORH working group. After having a chat with Jonathan my vision is
> that this group will basically serve four main goals:
> 
> -          Creating lists and archives of openly available resources and
> free/open source software tools that fulfil a certain need for researchers
> in the (digital) humanities. This means finding a way to engage with
> researchers to find out what their research and educational needs are and
> connecting them to either already available resources or otherwise to the
> necessary (software) developers and/or research funders that can assist
> them with obtaining these.
> 
> -          Setting up a network of visionaries, or, as Jonathan coined
> them, a ‘super user group’, consisting of people who represent and can
> connect back to their communities. This group can identify projects and
> can brainstorm about innovative ideas to create a future agenda for open
> resources or an ecosystem of data within the humanities. This network can
> basically be similar to or based upon the group we are currently
> developing here.
> 
> -          Connected to the first point: creating a ‘space’ were objects,
> data and people can connect in an open and collaborative atmosphere by
> building upon already available resources in the public domain and by
> enabling possibilities to create new ones from them.
> 
> -          Informing researchers not only about which resources are openly
> available but also about how they can use them in their research and
> teaching. This includes information about licensing, legal aspects etc.
> but also guiding them to places where they can find information about how
> to use open source software and open educational resources.
> 
> 
> What I am particularly interested in myself:
> 
> -          Paying special attention to or specifically reaching out to PhD
> students. These are the researchers of the future and I feel it is of the
> utmost importance to show them what the possibilities of openness and
> digital tools within the Humanities are. That they are by default younger
> scholars does not mean that they are automatically web-savvy and
> knowledgeable about these issues. This is also a group that could benefit
> very much from establishing connections and from working in collaborative
> environments.
> 
> -          The possibility of organizing some workshops to get Humanities
> scholars from various backgrounds together and get them to talk about
> their experiences with (working with and using) open resources and tools,
> open research, collaboratories, open access publishing and open education
> (just to name a few themes). This will give them the opportunity to
> discuss possibilities and drawbacks and will give them a chance to present
> their work and ideas in an informal setting.
> 
> -          Looking into the development and possibilities of open
> resources, tools and software within an institutional setting. How can we
> use open resources, the public domain and open access publishing tools to
> create connections on campus between researchers, research groups,
> publishers and librarians to enhance research, education and
> communication? At Coventry University we are in the middle of setting up
> an Open Media Group which is investigating these matters more closely. I
> will report more about these developments as they evolve.
> 
> That’s it for me for now, looking forward to hearing other ideas and
> suggestions. I hope it will be a fruitful discussion!
> 
> Best wishes,
> Janneke
> 
> Janneke Adema | Email:
> ademaj at uni.coventry.ac.uk<mailto:ademaj at uni.coventry.ac.uk> | Mobile: ++31
> (0)642157996 |
> www.openreflections.wordpress.com<http://openreflections.wordpress.com/> |
> http://twitter.com/Openreflections