Network of Expert Centres

The Network of Expert Centres is a collaboration of centres with expertise in digital arts and humanities research and scholarship, including practice-led research. This includes data creation, curation, preservation, management (including rights and legal issues), access and dissemination, and methodologies of data use and re-use. Its membership is open to all such centres in Great Britain and Ireland.

Aims and Objectives

The purpose of the Network is to enable its members to collaborate in the pursuit of the following aims and objectives. For a number of these activities arts-humanities.net will provide a central resource.

1. Advocate, promote and raise awareness and understanding of the use of ICT in research and scholarship in arts and humanities (broadly defined)

  • Demonstrating the transformative effect and value of digital resources and methods in arts and humanities research outputs.
  • Developing and maintaining public registries of members, other centres and experts.
  • Developing advocacy policies and initiatives to support and take forward digital humanities nationally and internationally.
  • Disseminating project outputs and activities.

2. Take the lead in the use of digital methods and resources for arts and humanities research and scholarship

  • Producing research and scholarly outputs of all kinds in the digital arts and humanities.
  • Taking an active role in developing the scholarly communication agenda in relation to all aspects of digital publications, including open access, peer review and evaluation, sustainability, etc.
  • Promoting and facilitating joint development of research projects, infrastructure and resources, within the Network and between Network members and scholars, scientists and other expert partners within and outside the arts and humanities.

3. Develop and exchange expertise, knowledge, standards and best practices.

  • Promoting and supporting the use of standards and good practice in the creation, management and use of digital resources.
  • Developing and sharing information resources about the use of ICT in arts and humanities research.
  • Developing and providing training and teaching.
  • Sharing information about funding opportunities.
  • Developing methodologies and tools.
  • Holding joint workshops and events.
  • Encouraging and facilitating experimentation and innovation.

4. Identify and represent the needs of the research community.

  • Formulating strategies and policies to support digital arts and humanities development and capacity building at institutional, regional, and national/UK level.
  • oting understanding of the potential for use and re-use of digital research outputs and resources, including for learning and teaching.
  • Promoting and facilitating engagement with digital methodologies within the research community.

5. Conduct dialogue with relevant stakeholders

  • Advising funders on key opportunities and issues (including standards, methods, tools and infrastructures).
  • Liaising and exchanging knowledge with, and advising other stakeholders, including museums, libraries, archives and other cultural heritage organisations.
  • Creating links with relevant commercial organisations (e.g. cultural and creative industries, and technology companies).
  • Liaising with learned societies and other expert bodies
  • Liaising and working with appropriate national, overseas and international organizations

Qualifications and conditions of membership

Membership is open to all qualifying centres of expertise in the digital arts and humanities. They need not be designated as a centre within their own institution, but must have a formal institutional status that recognizes their role in the digital arts and humanities. A qualifying centre

  • is more than a single digital arts and humanities project,
  • must have some history or promise of persistence, and
  • should provide an institutional or inter-institutional focus of activity in the digital arts and humanities.

Network members must demonstrate their ability to contribute to one or more of the strategic aims and objectives of the Network. All members are required to actively contribute time and/or expertise to the activities of the Network.
Membership in the Network is on the level of centre, so institutions can have multiple members. All voting is by the heads of the Centres or their designated representatives. Other representatives of Centres may attend meetings where appropriate, but regardless of the number of representatives of a given Centre at a meeting each Centre will have only one vote.
Candidates for membership of the Network will be submitted for approval to all members and admitted on a simple majority of those voting.

Organisation

The Network will have a steering committee of six voting members drawn from member centres. There will be an open process of nomination of candidates for election to the steering committee who must be proposed and seconded by members. Steering committee members can be a representative of a Centre, not necessarily the head of a Centre. The steering committee will be elected by members through an open electronic vote. There may not be more than one voting steering committee member from each Centre. Each Centre may vote for as many candidates as there are vacant committee posts.
The committee may co-opt up to three further non-voting members from within or outside the Network. Co-opted members will serve for one year at a time. The steering committee will elect a chair from within its members, and in addition appoint a non-voting secretary, both for a period to be determined. The steering committee chair will also chair full meetings of the Network.

Members of the steering committee will serve for 3 years, with a possible additional 3 year-term, after which they may not be re-elected until a year has passed. In order to provide continuity, the committee should seek as far as possible to exist on a rotating basis, so that two committee posts will be up for election each year. This means that in the first round of elections, two posts will serve for three years, two posts will serve for two years, and two will serve for one year.

The role of the steering committee will be to:

  • propose initiatives and activities for approval by the membership and carry out those that the membership has agreed,
  • consider all proposals for initiatives and activities by the membership,
  • provide regular reports to the membership on its activities,
  • convene regular meetings of the full Network, at least once a year, to which it may invite persons outside the Network where appropriate (e.g. representatives of funding bodies),
  • convene workgroups around specific topics and activities.

The Network has been contracted by the AHRC to carry out the following activities under the joint direction of David Robey and Sheila Anderson:

  • deliver a web page that outlines, with links, the digital resources linked to current AHRC projects
  • assist AHRC both with reviewing the efficacy of the current technical appendix and training technical reviewers in the peer review college
  • establish contact with University research ICT departments in an effort to expand its reach and expertise and possibly the network itself
  • consider options and make recommendations to improve sustainability of key digital resources created through the Research Grants scheme, including amongst others considering the feasibility and legality of a dowry system.
  • advise AHRC on its longer term ICT strategy via the new Advisory Board

The Network will be developing other activities alongside these. It is supported by Lorna Hughes and the JISC-funded arts-humanities.net site.

If you are interested in joining the Network and believe you qualify as an expert centre, please contact David Robey at David.Robey@oerc.ox.ac.uk.

The Network of Expert Centres user group keeps you up to date with news from the Network.


Current members are, in alphabetical order:

centre: Archaeology Data Service (ADS)

Link to project
Host institution: 
University of York
About the centre:

The Archaeology Data Service (ADS) is part of the Department of Archaeology at the University of York. The ADS supports research, learning and teaching with high quality and dependable digital resources. It does this by preserving digital data in the long term, and by promoting and disseminating a broad range of data in archaeology. The ADS promotes good practice in the use of digital data in archaeology, it provides technical advice to the research community, and supports the deployment of digital technologies.

centre: Centre for Computing in the Humanities (CCH)

Link to project
Host institution: 
King's College London
About the centre:

The Centre for Computing in the Humanities (CCH) is in the School of Humanities at King's College London and is an international leader in the application of technology in research in the arts and humanities, and in the social sciences. The primary objective of the CCH is to foster awareness, understanding and skill in the scholarly applications of computing. [read more...]

centre: Centre for Data Digitisation and Analysis (CDDA)

Host institution: 
Queen's University Belfast
About the centre:

The Centre is a research unit with interests in temporal Geographical Information Systems, the development of electronic research resources, e-Science and Grid technologies. It provides a comprehensive digitisation service to create key e-resources including capture of material, quality assurance, data post-processing and data delivery to user requirements. An image scanning service is also offered. It has a range of specialised scanning equipment (including flatbed, book page and microfilm scanners) and associated software and an experienced staff. [read more...]

centre: Centre for e-Research (CeRch)

Link to project
Host institution: 
King's College London
About the centre:

The Centre for e-Research (CeRch) is located in the Information Services and Systems department of King's College London with a broad remit to work across discipline areas. The Centre works at the intersection between research methods and practice, digital informatics, and e-infrastructure development and practice. CeRch incorporates the AHDS Executive and its projects.

centre: Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH)

Link to project
Host institution: 
University of Cambridge
About the centre:

CRASSH was founded in 2001, with the aim of creating a new focus for disciplinary innovation and, in particular, interdisciplinary dialogues across the full spectrum of the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. In 2011, the Centre will move into a purpose-built new building on the University's main Humanities site. We support the work of scholars at all career levels, from graduate researchers onwards, and encourage interaction across those levels. CRASSH is now known nationally and internationally as a centre of excellence for such work. [read more...]

centre: Digital Design Studio (DDS)

Link to project
Host institution: 
Glasgow School of Art
About the centre:

The Digital Design Studio (DDS) is a postgraduate research and commercial centre of Glasgow School of Art. Its intense learning and research environment exploits the interface between science, technology and the arts to explore imaginative and novel uses of advanced 3D digital visualisation and interaction technologies. Research activity at the DDS is underpinned by one and two year masters degrees and a growing PhD community. The DDS is dedicated to developing ways in which people can engage and interact with data and emerging digital visualisation systems. [read more...]

centre: Digital Humanities Observatory (DHO)

Link to project
Host institution: 
Royal Irish Academy
About the centre:

The Digital Humanities Observatory (DHO) is a central component within the Humanities Serving Irish Society (HSIS) initiative. The DHO was established under auspices of the Royal Irish Academy to manage and co-ordinate the increasingly complex e-resources created in the arts and humanities. It will enable research and researchers in Ireland to keep abreast of international developments in the creation, use, and preservation of digital resources.

The staff of the DHO comprises a Director, IT Manager, Metadata Manager, Digital Humanities Specialists, and a Programme Coordinator.

centre: History Data Service (HDS)

Link to project
Host institution: 
University of Essex
About the centre:

The History Data Service collects, preserves, and promotes the use of digital resources, which result from or support historical research, learning and teaching. The History Data Service is a successor service to AHDS History which from 1996 to March 2008 was one of the five centres of the Arts and Humanities Data Service. [read more...]

centre: Humanities Advanced Technology & Information Institute (HATII)

Link to project
Host institution: 
University of Glasgow
About the centre:

HATII is one of the world's leading centres for computing and information studies in the arts and humanities. The Institute offers a pioneering joint honours undergraduate degree in Arts and Media Informatics as well as innovative Masters degrees in Information Management and Preservation, Computer Forensics and e-Discovery, and Museum Theory and Practice. [read more...]

centre: Humanities Research Institute (HRI)

Link to project
Host institution: 
University of Sheffield
About the centre:

The award-winning Humanities Research Institute at the University of Sheffield is one of the leading providers of research and development services for the digital Arts and Humanities. With over 16 years experience, our mission is to support the innovative use of technology within Arts and Humanities research as both a method of inquiry and a means of dissemination. We perform a range of activities under the name HRI Digital: [read more...]

centre: Institute for Textual Scholarship and Electronic Editing (ITSEE)

Host institution: 
University of Birmingham
About the centre:

The Institute for Textual Scholarship and Electronic Editing is founded on the premise that computer methods are now fundamental to every stage of the editorial process. We use digital tools to locate and view the original materials; to transcribe them into electronic form; to compare the texts and to analyze the patterns of variation; and we publish them electronically. We are the home of two major projects built to this formula: the St John's Gospel editions led by David Parker, and the Canterbury Tales Project, led by Barbara Bordalejo and Peter Robinson.

centre: The Oxford Text Archive (OTA)

Host institution: 
University of Oxford
About the centre:

The Oxford Text Archive (OTA) develops, collects, catalogues and preserves electronic literary and linguistic resources. We also give advice on the creation and use of these resources, and are involved in the development of standards and infrastructure for electronic language resources. [read more...]

centre: UCL Centre for Digital Humanities

Link to project
Host institution: 
University College London
About the centre:

UCL is proud to announce the establishment of a new Centre for Digital Humanities. Capitalising on UCL's interdisciplinary expertise in information studies, computing science, and the arts and humanities, this new centre will bring together disparate individuals to foster Digital Humanities research and teaching at UCL. [read more...]

centre: VADS - Visual Arts Data Service

Link to project
Host institution: 
University for the Creative Arts
About the centre:

VADS is the online resource for visual arts. It has provided services to the academic community for 13 years and has built up a considerable portfolio of visual art collections comprising over 100,000 images that are freely available and copyright cleared for use in teaching, learning and research in the UK.

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