A New Issue Brief From Ithaka S+R: Are the Humanities Ready for Data Sharing?

From an Ithaka S+R Blog Post by the Brief’s Co-Authors Dylan Ruediger and Ruby MacDougall:

Today, Ithaka S+R is publishing an issue brief exploring the current state of data sharing in the humanities and what a productive engagement with data might look like. Our findings are based on semi-structured interviews with key personnel at several humanities projects with strong data components, a review of relevant literature, and insights gained through  previous work exploring data-intensive research practices and data-sharing challenges across fields.

What have we learned?

• Humanists have much they can learn from how other fields have worked over the past several decades to build momentum towards data sharing.
• The work and experiences of digital humanists provide useful starting points for engaging with data in the humanities.
• Figuring out what reproducibility and replicability mean in humanities contexts, and how they relate to professional values about research integrity in the humanities should be a priority for humanists. Likewise, there is an urgent need for humanists—who are adept at reusing familiar sources to generate new knowledge—to develop capacities for understanding how to ask new questions of existing structured data.
• The domain repositories that have fostered data sharing communities in STEM fields do not exist in the humanities, leaving existing humanities datasets vulnerable to disappearing as project websites become obsolete and exacerbating discovery challenges.
• The humanities have a uniquely well-developed infrastructure for the public sharing of knowledge creation, exemplified in the many public humanities initiatives that are a highly visible and vibrant part of humanities scholarship.

What’s next for Ithaka S+R?

Ithaka S+R is continuing to develop research projects that explore data practices across fields and consider how technological change shapes academic research.

This fall, we will launch a new cohort project to assess the immediate and emerging AI applications most likely to disrupt teaching, learning, and research activities and explore the needs of institutions, instructors, and scholars as they navigate this environment.

Direct to Complete Blog Post

Direct to Full Text Issue Brief: Are the Humanities Ready for Data Sharing?
Direct to PDF Version (15 pages: PDF)
DOI: 10.18665/sr.318526

Filed under: Data Files, Interviews, New Issue, News, Open Access