Researchers in the Humanities have embraced digital technologies for decades and are continuing to do so in increasing numbers. Two workshops at earlier IEEE eScience conferences, along with numerous other events, have given interesting insights into these activities. However, advances in the digital humanities have been rather fragmented, and have been tailored to specific research questions and methodologies. In an attempt to connect the digital islands that have thus emerged, this event will focus on applications and infrastructures for re-usability, integration and interoperability of research data for e-Humanities, addressing such
issues as the interoperability of existing tools to enable more complex workflows, and shared virtual research environments for typical work environments of Humanities scholars.

A multiplicity of large initiatives have already started addressing the these issues, among them ANDS in Australia (http://ands.org.au/), Project Bamboo in the USA (http://projectbamboo.org/), as well as the ESFRI-projects CLARIN (http://www.clarin.eu/) and DARIAH (http://www.dariah.eu/) in Europe, to name but a few. All these initiatives are facing the huge problem of fragmentation and
heterogeneity in research in the Humanities, which has repercussions on formats and encodings for datasets, the ways of analyzing phenomena and the traditions of scholarly discourse. Not surprisingly these initiatives in particular try to get a deeper understanding of layers of abstractions required which might address the goal of harmonization on the one hand, without ignoring the specificities of the various Humanities disciplines on the other hand.

This e-Humanities track aims to showcase projects that contribute to e-Humanities, whether by providing integrated and interoperable infrastructures, or by offering new types of applications making use of such infrastructures and connecting the digital islands. At the same time this track aims to trigger critical discussion and to move us forward in our goal to establish an international e-Humanities debate. Submission of papers is invited from all stakeholders: humanities researchers, technologists, as well as cultural heritage institutions and e-Humanities/e-Infrastructure researchers.

Location