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forum: Shut all our websites down
Submitted by Torsten Reimer on Thu, 23/10/2008 - 14:00.
I am proposing to turn off all online resources for the digital arts and humanities. Really? Really! Well, almost.
Last week I was speaking at the philtag n=7 workshop on "Communicating eHumanities: Archives, Textcentres, Portals" in Trier, Germany. Several of the presentations dealt with more strategic issues: Susan Schreibman was introducing the Digital Humanities Observatory in Dublin, Heike Neuroth presented on "Research data Curation in eHumanities" and I talked about the community building experience that was the AHRC ICT Methods Network.
One of the issues the discussions focussed on was how to increase the academic recognition our work gets, especially in the context of citations. Examples of well used digital resources were mentioned that no-one ever cites. People seem happy to use them to find and access digital resourced but then they quote the original source. Interestingly, the same issue had come up a few weeks earlier when I was interviewing a well know Byzantinist for a case study - researchers use digital resources, they may even thank the creators, but do still quote the analogue source.
When we discussed this in Trier, Susan, who had experienced the same, said (only half jokingly) that we should maybe think about turning off our websites for a while so that people would realise the value. Now, we could be that radical, form an alliance, including a few of the larger content providers, and shut it all down for a week. Or we could think about ways to raise awareness. Why not have a banner “support digital resources” on our project websites and explain why it would help us if people were citing these resources. We could even go a step further and agree on a standard to cite our online resources and make these citations easily visible.
Would that be useful? Could the community agree on that? I am curious to hear your thoughts.
Re: Shut all our websites down
Hi Torsten,
This is a very good question. The HRI's Old Bailey Online is used extensively by many researchers but rarely cited, despite the presence of a citation guide. In one sense we see this as a good thing: that maybe Old Bailey Online is accepted as a fundamental tool of research in much the same way as the OED and DNB. After all, we don't cite the OED every time we consult it. However, this can also make it difficult to assess impact and formally demonstrate its value.
Mike
Re: Shut all our websites down
It is a good question and a good idea. Withdrawing the fruits of ones labour to address injustice has worked a treat for the labour movement for over a century and a half now. Academic labour should be no different.
Still, what I see as one of the best means to promote digital resources is perhaps not through large scale collectivist strike action (as much as I agree with this), but thorough the promotion of 'significance'. If a digital item is significant to a field and the questions that are addressed within that field, then the digital item will be seen as significant. Unfortunately if it is a mere facsimile of an original, then the original will perhaps be seen as more significant (and the researcher will cite the original as they perhaps don't want to appear to be lazy). It is when the digital item becomes a work of scholarship in itself through annotations, the use of tools and scholarly interpretations etc. (or it is a 'born digital' work), then it becomes a work of scholarship in itself and thus more 'significant'. It is then about finding significant questions to ask of this significant resources and fining innovative ways to communicate the results (citations is part of this).
Now, what are the significant questions we can ask of these resources?
I am about to read a book on the history of the institutional English Department. Perhaps a significant history for digital resources would be the history of the institutional computer centre.
Kind regards,
Craig
Re: Shut all our websites down
Hi,
Why are citations, in particular, so important? You can publish papers about the resources themselves. Surely those get cited in the appropriate communities. You can track how a particular resource is being used and do surveys to establish its value. Seems, according to this reasoning every scholar should be citing Google or their OS manufacturer.
Is there something I'm missing?
Best,
-- Duane
Re: Shut all our websites down
I've talked with a colleague about this and I guess I did misunderstand, in part, what the problem is. I can clearly see why certain resources should always be cited if they source the material. For whatever reason, I thought the tools in question where more about indexing and accessing already sourced materials.
In any case. I should hope that departments, institutions, and the like should accept usage statistics and survey information as proper signification of value in lieu of citation lapses. But I can readily see how this would be very disappointing.
Please shut off my access at least for stupidity :-).
Best,
-- Duane
Re: Shut all our websites down
IMO you are making an important point (if I do understand it correctly): Real usage, weblinks and the like can be measured statistically, and provide apt metrics for the evaluation of websites.
Citation habits in "traditional" publications should not influence too much our judgements concerning "non-traditional" material.
Re: Shut all our websites down
I understand the scepticism about citations but I feel that they are useful for two reasons:
1) Whether you like them or not, traditional citations are still an important part of the RAE in the UK. That means the more citations in academic publications you get the more money for your department - and that in turn increases your employability. The RAE is changing and there is a lot of criticism but as long as this focus on citations stands we have to take it into account.
2) I agree that links and usage statistics can tell us a lot and that we should use them as best as we can. However, citation in a well known journal shows that the academic establishment is taking note of your work in some way at least. As long as the majority of relevant publications are still printed journals, and in the arts and humanities that is still the case, I think we should make sure that our work is being noticed there.
Having said all that I have to admit that I personally prefer links, good web stats and citations in mailing lists, blogs etc. as they can give much better direct feedback that is relevant to my work. But funding is too...
--
Torsten Reimer
editor arts-humanities.net
Re: Shut all our websites down
I understand the scepticism about citations but I feel that they are useful for two reasons:
1) Whether you like them or not, traditional citations are still an important part of the RAE in the UK. That means the more citations in academic publications you get the more money for your department - and that in turn increases your employability. The RAE is changing and there is a lot of criticism but as long as this focus on citations stands we have to take it into account.
2) I agree that links and usage statistics can tell us a lot and that we should use them as best as we can. However, citation in a well known journal shows that the academic establishment is taking note of your work in some way at least. As long as the majority of relevant publications are still printed journals, and in the arts and humanities that is still the case, I think we should make sure that our work is being noticed there.
Do they really use the amount of citations for judgements in the arts and humanities? (I agree that citations are useful for evaluations in the sciences, but for that we seem to know they are far less useful when it comes to mathematics, and hardly useful when applied to the humanities. Serendipity, chance and friendships apparently are too important factors determining citation behaviour in (most of?) the humanities use the number (and place) of citations for judgements on the cited literature.) Yes, we want our electronic products/productions to be noticed by those publishing in the printed journals; yes, we want to be noted by "the academic establishment" (if, where, and when there is such a thing as "the academic establishment"), but: as long as it results in use and in respect and in funding: I don't care whether it is documented via a citation in a traditional journal or not.
But maybe I'm living in an environment which is just too backward and old fashioned to treat the humanities in every aspect (except, of course, the amount of funding) like the sciences ... .
Re: Shut all our websites down
And the actual content's content is important component in this tale of down-troddeness as well? ie. is it content that relate to working class radical social movements in Britain in the 19th Century or is it content that relate to the rise of the populist new-right through activist think tanks in the 1980s. The method, the tool, the citation, the platform are all very important components of the puzzle (and legitimate research projects in themselves...well done)...but what about the content of the content? Citations that link content to other content exist in a political economy of ideas; and a computerised rationalist empirical framework that counts citations...where is the love in that? It just means that counters are more important than the people who don't count. How do you count good ideas? I'll ask one of my digital poet mates.
Re: Shut all our websites down
Do they really use the amount of citations for judgements in the arts and humanities?
Yes, they do - this is partly what inspired this thread... I should maybe have made this more obvious as the RAE is something specific to the UK. Having said that, I still get the impression that printed publications/editions are often seen as more valuable then electronic ones. This has changed a lot, obviously, but maybe not enough.
--
Torsten Reimer
editor arts-humanities.net
Re: Shut all our websites down
Are there any archivists out there who are radical enough to make primary sources available online only, rather than merely replicating online what is already available in the archives? Would it ever be possible to move away from the box and folder format in physical archives and create a new system for digitized primary sources? Wouldn't a new system of organizing information in the digital realm force historians to change their habits and formats of citation?