Digital Scholarship in the Humanities: Transforming Research and Evaluation

The world of research, teaching, and publishing has undergone a significant transformation due to digital technology. This article provides an overview of digital scholarship in the humanities, addressing its characteristics, evaluation, and impact on the academic landscape. It explores the evolving nature of scholarship in the digital age and the challenges and opportunities it presents for both creators and evaluators.

What is Digital Scholarship?

Digital scholarship is scholarly activity that makes significant use of new digital tools and methods to advance a scholarly argument. It's a broad term best described by identifying certain hallmarks that qualify a practice or work as such. Not all digital scholarship is all these things at once, but it commonly includes some of the following:

Innovation: Digital scholarship often involves innovative approaches to research questions, leveraging digital tools and methods to explore new avenues of inquiry.
Collaboration: Many digital projects are collaborative, bringing together scholars from different disciplines and institutions to work together on complex problems.
Interdisciplinarity: Digital scholarship frequently bridges disciplinary silos, drawing on multiple perspectives, methodologies, and tools to address research questions.
Open Access: Ideally, digital scholarship is open access, making research and teaching resources available to a wider audience.
Reusability: Digital scholarship should be reusable, downloadable, manipulable, or transformable, allowing others to build upon and adapt existing work.

Examples of digital scholarship include works that are born digital, multimedia projects, database technology-based research, analysis of born-digital material, digital text and images, digital music or art, and data sets. Some digital scholarship is public-facing, but much is never intended to be formally published. This form of scholarly data, presentations, and dissemination represents a shift from traditional publishing and the kind of scholarship generally collected and preserved in libraries. It is a natural evolution and adaptation of digital technology to scholarship.

The Imperative for Evaluation

Despite the transformative impact of digital technology on research, teaching, and publishing, many departments and institutions have not fully integrated new forms of scholarship into hiring, tenure, and promotion guidelines. The need to do so is especially acute in areas like the humanities where collaborative projects and digital creative works do not fit the standard model of scholarly production. The question of what "counts" as scholarship - as well as how hiring, tenure, and promotion committees should evaluate digital work - has become critical in higher education, but this is not a new concern.

As Mark Sample argued in his 2013 post “When Does Service Become Scholarship?”: “A creative or intellectual act becomes scholarship when it is public and circulates in a community of peers that evaluates and builds upon it.” This is particularly relevant for digital work, which is often published in non-traditional platforms online. In a 2013 piece for Inside Higher Ed, Ruth Starkman asks “What ‘Counts’?”, related to how departments are and should be evaluating digital scholarship. The editors of the Journal of Digital Humanities emphasize the importance of assessment for digital scholarship in their introduction to the 2012 issue dedicated to this topic, “Closing the Evaluation Gap”. The 2011 volume of the MLA Journal Profession also includes a section with numerous contributions on the subject of “Evaluating Digital Scholarship”.

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Considerations for Creators

Scholars engaged in research, teaching, or publishing with digital media, or who create and collaborate on digital projects, may find the following topics especially important in demonstrating the academic significance and public value of digital creative work: innovation, collaboration, interdisciplinarity, and research impact. Because digital scholarship is not widely credited in the promotion and tenure process, scholars often do this work in more advanced stages of their career. This lack of career incentives for digital work can discourage graduate students and new faculty from pursuing innovative forms of scholarship, which could answer new research questions and generate new knowledge. Kathleen Fitzpatrick’s article, “Do ‘the Risky Thing’ in Digital Humanities”, offers perspectives on the importance and potential of innovative scholarship early in an academic career.

In an era where the value of higher education is being questioned, public digital scholarship together with open access models can increase the impact of research and teaching beyond the academy. See, for example, Julie Ellison and Timothy K. Eatman’s contribution to Imagining America, “Scholarship in Public: Knowledge Creation and Tenure Policy in the Engaged University”.

The Journal of Digital Humanities has published several articles that offer guidance to scholars who need to make the case for tenure and promotion but who may not have institutional guidelines for the evaluation of digital scholarship. “Documenting a New Media Case” offers a checklist of documents and example research report language that could help you make your case. The checklist and associated materials were developed by an online collaborative: the Evaluation Wiki of the Committee on Information Technology, Modern Language Association. In “Explaining Digital Humanities in Promotion Documents”, Katherine D. Harris shares a candidate’s statement for promotion to Associate Professor, incorporating evidence for her digital humanities, digital pedagogy, and scholarly editing work.

Guidance for Evaluators

In “Closing the Evaluation Gap,” contributors to this 2012 issue of the Journal of Digital Humanities offer a comprehensive look at issues from assessment to bibliographies, including a candidate’s statement for promotion and an open letter to a promotion and tenure committee regarding evaluating digital work. Particularly useful for academic review committees, department chairs, deans and provosts is Todd Presner’s article, “How to Evaluate Digital Scholarship”. Evaluators within libraries will find relevant guidelines in Zach Coble’s contribution, “Evaluating Digital Humanities Work: Guidelines for Librarians”.

Several professional associations have developed sample guidelines for evaluating digital scholarship throughout the hiring, promotion and tenure processes. These include:

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Modern Language Association (MLA)
American Historical Association (AHA)
College Art Association and the Society for Architectural Historians (CAA / SAH)
Archaeological Institute of America (AIA)

Peer review of digital scholarship plays an important role in the evaluation process, but finding forums for peer review of creative digital work can be challenging. Frontiers is an Open Access Publisher and Open Science Platform, covering more than 600 academic disciplines. It serves as both a source of OA scholarship and as a publisher.

Key Journals in Digital Scholarship

Several journals are dedicated to publishing and promoting digital scholarship in the humanities. These journals provide a platform for scholars to share their research, discuss emerging trends, and engage in critical conversations about the field. Some notable journals include:

Digital Scholarship in the Humanities (DSH): Formerly known as Literary and Linguistic Computing, DSH is a peer-reviewed academic journal of the European Association for Digital Humanities. It covers all aspects of computing and information technology applied to Arts and Humanities research and is one of the main journals in the field.
DHQ: Digital Humanities Quarterly: This is an open-access, peer-reviewed, digital journal covering all aspects of digital media in the humanities.
Journal of Digital Humanities: An open-access, peer-reviewed, online journal published by the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media.
International Journal of Humanities and Arts Computing: A multidisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal that publishes articles on theoretical approaches to digital humanities as well as case studies demonstrating practical applications of digital methodologies to traditional topics in the arts and humanities.

Other relevant journals include Ariadne, Computing in the Humanities Working Papers, Digital Investigation, Digital Medievalist, Digital Studies/Le Champ Numérique, Fibreculture Journal, First Monday, Journal of Electronic Publishing, Journal of the Text Encoding Initiative, Kairos, and Language Resources and Evaluation.

"Digital Scholarship in the Humanities": A Deeper Look

"Digital Scholarship in the Humanities" (DSH) stands as a crucial platform for disseminating cutting-edge research and fostering dialogue within the field. The journal's scope encompasses a wide array of topics, reflecting the diverse applications of digital technologies in humanities research.

Research Focus

The journal aims to foster the development of research in Linguistics, Artificial intelligence, Natural language processing, Literature and Digital humanities. It features Natural language processing research that overlaps with concepts in Word (computer architecture). Literature works presented in Digital Scholarship in the Humanities have a specific focus on Poetry.

Most Cited Papers:

On the features of translationese (88 citations)
Does Size Matter? Authorship Attribution, Small Samples, Big Problem (84 citations)
ANNIS3: A new architecture for generic corpus query and visualization (80 citations)

The published articles tackle a plethora of topics, such as Artificial intelligence, Natural language processing, Information retrieval, Visualization and Data science. Artificial intelligence study tackled in the most cited publications is connected to the field of Data mining. In addition to Natural language processing research, the journal publications aim to explore topics under Attributive, Linguistics and Feature (machine learning).

Recent Trends

The previous edition of the journal focused in particular on these issues: Linguistics, Literature, Digital humanities, Artificial intelligence and Media studies are the subjects of interest in Digital Scholarship in the Humanities. Some problems in Linguistics that were presented in the journal overlapped with concepts under Period (music), Word (computer architecture) and Eye tracking. Drama and Poetry are all topics related to Literature research discussed.

It focuses on Digital humanities research which is adjacent to topics in Data science. The in-depth study on Artificial intelligence also explores topics in the intersecting field of Natural language processing.

Most Cited Articles from the Last Journal:

Withdrawn as Duplicate: Distant viewing: analyzing large visual corpora (4 citations)
Chinese Text Project: A dynamic digital library of premodern Chinese (4 citations)
Research trends on big data domain using text mining algorithms (3 citations)

Key Contributors

Top Authors Publishing in Digital Scholarship in the Humanities (based on the number of publications):

Jacques Savoy (7 papers) published 2 papers at the last edition
Melissa Terras (7 papers) absent at the last edition
Hartmut Ilsemann (6 papers) published 2 papers at the last edition
Heshaam Faili (6 papers) absent at the last edition
Mohammad Reza Mahmoudi (6 papers) absent at the last edition

Top Affiliations Publishing in Digital Scholarship in the Humanities (based on the number of publications):

King's College London (9 papers) published 2 papers at the last edition the same number as at the previous edition
University of Edinburgh (8 papers) published 1 paper at the last edition the same number as at the previous edition
University of Helsinki (8 papers) published 2 papers at the last edition
University of Antwerp (8 papers) published 1 paper at the last edition
University of Tehran (7 papers) absent at the last edition

Publication Chance

During the most recent edition, 4.26% of publications had an unrecognized affiliation. Out of the publications with recognized affiliations, 14.44% were posted by at least one author from the top 10 institutions publishing in the journal. Another 8.89% included authors affiliated with research institutions from the top 11-20 affiliations. Institutions from the 21-50 range included 18.89% of all publications and 57.78% were from other institutions.

Author Experience

The experience to innovation index was created to show a cross-section of the experience level of authors publishing in a journal. The index includes the authors publishing at the last edition of a journal, grouped by total number of publications throughout their academic career (P) and the total number of citations of these publications ever received (C).

The authors were divided into the following groups:

Novice - P < 5 or C < 25
Competent - P < 10 or C < 100
Experienced - P < 25 or C < 625
Master - P < 50 or C < 2500
Star - P ≥ 50 and C ≥ 2500

Career Paths in Digital Humanities Research

For those inspired by the diverse research topics covered in Digital Scholarship in the Humanities such as Linguistics, Artificial Intelligence, and Natural Language Processing, choosing a career path in this exciting field may be of interest. One potential path is in the area of teaching and education. Professional roles in education offer individuals the chance to go beyond theoretical understanding and focus on practical applications of digital humanities research. One such role could be a Special Education Teacher, who utilizes methods and theories from the field of digital humanities to create comprehensive and inclusive teaching methods. Becoming a Special Education Teacher involves obtaining relevant educational degrees, gaining valuable experience, and obtaining licensure in the state where one aims to teach. For those seeking specific guidance, the article on {how to become a special education teacher in Maine} may be particularly useful. Aside from roles in education, further career options in digital humanities research may include Data Scientist, Data Analyst, and Researcher in Artificial Intelligence, all offering the opportunity to delve more deeply into the various research topics previously discussed. Seeking such a career path not only contributes to the development of these fields but also drives innovation and pushes the boundaries of knowledge.

Feminist Contributions to Digital Humanities

Bodies of Information addresses this crucial question by assembling a varied group of leading voices, showcasing feminist contributions to a panoply of topics, including ubiquitous computing, game studies, new materialisms, and cultural phenomena like hashtag activism, hacktivism, and campaigns against online misogyny. Taking intersectional feminism as the starting point for doing digital humanities, Bodies of Information is diverse in discipline, identity, location, and method. Helpfully organized around keywords of materiality, values, embodiment, affect, labor, and situatedness, this comprehensive volume is ideal for classrooms. And with its multiplicity of viewpoints and arguments, it's also an important addition to the evolving conversations around one of the fastest growing fields in the academy.

Challenges and Opportunities

Digital scholarship faces several challenges, including the lack of recognition in promotion and tenure processes, the difficulty of evaluating non-traditional forms of scholarship, and the need for new models of peer review. However, it also presents significant opportunities for innovation, collaboration, and public engagement. By embracing digital tools and methods, scholars can ask new research questions, reach wider audiences, and contribute to a more open and accessible academy.

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