UCL Centre for Digital Humanities

IEEE e-Science 2010 Conference
7 – 10 DECEMBER 2010

The sixth IEEE e–Science conference, sponsored by the IEEE Computer Society´s Technical Committee for Scalable Computing (TCSC), will be held in Brisbane, Australia from 7th – 10th December 2010.

Scientific research is increasingly carried out by communities of researchers that span disciplines, laboratories, organizations, and national boundaries. The e-Science 2010 conference is designed to bring together leading international and interdisciplinary research communities, developers, and users of e-Science applications and enabling IT technologies. The conference serves as a forum to present the results of the latest research and product/tool developments and to highlight related activities from around the world.

Call for Papers

Building on last year’s emphasis, they are particularly interested in advances in the application of technology in a particular discipline. Accordingly, significant advances in practice will be considered as important as the development of new technologies themselves. Further, we welcome contributions in educational activities under any of these disciplines.

The conference will be structured around a number of e-Science themes, shown below:

Arts, Humanities and e-Social Science
Bioinformatics and Health
Physical Sciences and Engineering
Climate & Earth Sciences
Research Tools, Workflow and systems, novel infrastructure
Digital Repositories and Data Management
Education and e-Science practice
It is expected that the proceedings will be published by the IEEE Computer Society Press, USA and will be made available online through the IEEE Digital Library.

Call for Papers e-Science 2010 (PDF 116kb)

Submission Process

Authors are invited to submit papers with unpublished, original work of not more than 8 pages of double column text using single spaced 10 point size on 8.5 x 11 inch pages, as per IEEE 8.5 x 11 manuscript guidelines.

Templates are available from here: http://www.ieee.org/web/publications/pubservices/confpub/AuthorTools/conferenceTemplates.html.

Authors should submit a PDF or PostScript (level 2) file that will print on a PostScript printer. Papers conforming to the above guidelines can be submitted through the e-Science 2010 paper submission system.

It is expected that the proceedings will be published by the IEEE CS Press, USA and will be made available online through the IEEE Digital Library.

It is a requirement that at least one author of each accepted paper attend the conference.

Papers should be submitted to: https://cmt2.research.microsoft.com/ESCIENCE10/

Important dates

Papers Due: Friday 16th July 2010

Notification of Acceptance: 3rd September 2010

Monday night saw our Decoding with a twist meet up.  There had been a lot of discussion following the Launch of the Centre for Digital Humanities so we followed it up. Setting three readings which looked at  the value and differences between paid for and free content and software.  What does copyright, paywalls, and open source mean for the Humanities, educational institutions and cultural content?

Many thanks to all who came, including the lovely students from the Pratt Institute School of Information and Library Science, New York who are taking part in the DIS e-publishing Summer School.

The topic provoked quite a lot of discussion and the majority was captured by the wonderful Ernesto Priego producing a real time tweet account of the disscussion. Ernesto has kindly allowed us to reproduce his Twitter feed here in order to provide a view of the discussion.

I have used Twapper Keeper to capture the tweets, which is a brilliant service, but it seems the times of tweets are a bit out of sync, but the content remains the same.

ernestopriego	The hashtag for Decoding Digital Humanities is #ddh	Mon Jun 21 01:45:52 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	The crew gets together at the Jeremy Bentham pub… #ddh	Mon Jun 21 01:45:54 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	Academia 2.0 at #ddh @UCLDH http://twitpic.com/1yrr6d	Mon Jun 21 01:45:55 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	Participants introducing themselves. #ddh	Mon Jun 21 03:15:52 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	Computer science art history library science humanities all well represented at #ddh	Mon Jun 21 03:15:57 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	.@kathrynpiquette introduces the first topic on copyright and open access. How are information and creativity made available? #ddh	Mon Jun 21 04:45:57 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	Difference between open source and free content explained #ddh	Mon Jun 21 04:45:59 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	.@melissaterras on the myth that creating content is cheap/free #ddh	Mon Jun 21 04:46:00 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	.@clhw1 a real problem with the lack of model to keep content available #ddh	Mon Jun 21 04:46:02 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	.@clhw1: commercial resources are available but the academic resources are not #ddh	Mon Jun 21 04:46:03 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	.@clhw1: we need a model to update digital content #ddh	Mon Jun 21 05:46:04 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	Questions of license and money need to be addressed #ddh	Mon Jun 21 05:46:05 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	.kathrynpiquette on the models of the cathedral and the bazaar; cites the Bentham project directed by @melissaterras #ddh	Mon Jun 21 05:46:09 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	.@clhw1: at the moment cultural organisations do not see digital preservation/curation as part of their responsibilities #ddh	Mon Jun 21 07:46:03 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	Who gets the money from publishing in academic journals? #ddh	Mon Jun 21 07:46:04 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	Should scholars charge for the peer review process? [do they?] #ddh	Mon Jun 21 07:46:06 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	[Journalists panicking about lack of new business models for journalism but scholarly publishing seems in more trouble! #ddh]	Mon Jun 21 09:16:01 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	Very interesting discussion about the future of journalism and new business models for digital publishing in #ddh	Mon Jun 21 09:16:03 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	Refreshment break! #ddh	Mon Jun 21 09:16:04 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	Ale-sourcing the Digital Humanities @UCLDH #ddh http://twitpic.com/1ys4u2	Mon Jun 21 09:16:06 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	At #ddh @clairey_ross @lewisrichard @tiedeu @virtualdutch @schopflin @janrito @melissaterras @clhw1 @caitefa @babeelibrarian @volume_knob	Mon Jun 21 09:16:07 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	At #ddh @bravadoavocado @briansuldo @kathrynpiquette	Mon Jun 21 10:46:13 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	and of course @simon_mahony ! #ddh	Mon Jun 21 10:46:15 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	RT @anterotesis: @ernestopriego and @anterotesis is at #ddh	Mon Jun 21 11:46:03 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	RT @anterotesis @ernestopriego and @anterotesis is at #ddh <–yes!	Mon Jun 21 12:15:56 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	Now discussing ways in which publishers and scholars can collaborate #ddh	Mon Jun 21 12:15:57 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	Thinking @ChandosTweets would have lots to say in this conversation! #ddh	Mon Jun 21 13:30:02 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	…and between librarians archivists and scholars #ddh	Mon Jun 21 13:57:38 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	.@simon_mahony on the ironies of academic libraries the cutting of funds for e-journals e-journals seen as peripheric publications #ddh	Mon Jun 21 14:20:23 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	We need an academic pirate bay! -@anterotesis  #ddh	Mon Jun 21 14:23:12 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	.@clhw1 on manuscript circulation in the 16th century a social networking #ddh	Mon Jun 21 14:42:48 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	RT @canadiancat: @ernestopriego I feel as if I’m missing out on something #ddh. The pace of work has been busy and tweeting has slowed v …	Mon Jun 21 15:15:52 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	How do public libraries deal with the transition to digital? #ddh	Mon Jun 21 15:15:54 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	RT @epriani: RT @ernestopriego: We need an academic pirate bay! -@anterotesis  #ddh  // si…	Mon Jun 21 15:15:55 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	.@simon_mahony on the flawed logic of News Corp #ddh	Mon Jun 21 15:18:25 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	#ddh now on the disappearance of books hops and records shops	Mon Jun 21 16:18:51 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	Now media specificity is discussed… the role of experience #ddh	Mon Jun 21 16:19:26 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	‘the more you digitise the more you want to see the real object’ -@clhw1 #ddh	Mon Jun 21 16:43:38 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	What are all the other values not just the monetary value we give to content? -@kathrynpiquette #ddh	Mon Jun 21 16:46:16 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	The http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_Assessment_Exercise now discussed #ddh	Mon Jun 21 16:53:10 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	The http://www.hefce.ac.uk/research/ref/ discussed #ddh	Mon Jun 21 16:56:04 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	.@simon_mahony: irony of citation metrics: ‘if I disagree with you if I cite you your ranking will go up’ #ddh	Mon Jun 21 16:57:22 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	the different temporality of citation in the humanities and the sciences #ddh	Mon Jun 21 16:58:29 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	.@virtualdutch now on ‘Publish or Perish’ based on Google Scholar http://www.harzing.com/pop.htm #ddh	Mon Jun 21 17:00:16 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	Summarising the discussion now #ddh	Mon Jun 21 17:00:31 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	How accessible is what we do? #ddh	Mon Jun 21 17:01:57 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	Separation between media concerns and looking at the commercial model and how to find a middle ground #ddh	Mon Jun 21 17:02:41 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	Do we need to find a way to monetise more what we do? #ddh	Mon Jun 21 17:03:46 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	How will we deal with government cuts to research? We need commercial money. #ddh	Mon Jun 21 17:06:22 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	Sources of revenue combined with saving money -@clhw1 #ddh	Mon 21 Jun 2010 17:07:58 +0000
ernestopriego	Getting commercial funding does not mean you will be unethical. #ddh	Mon Jun 21 17:12:24 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	We must not assume humanities people only consume technology; digital humanities exists because we can teach scientists things #ddh	Mon 21 Jun 2010 17:16:27 +0000
ernestopriego	That last tweet was a quote from -@clhw1 #ddh	Mon Jun 21 17:17:47 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	Digital humanities is not useless. People need to know that. XML. MS Windows. Invented by Digital Humanities. #ddh	Mon Jun 21 17:21:44 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	Physics and digital humanities. Archeology and digital humanities. Factual realities. Very useful research. #ddh	Mon Jun 21 17:25:09 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	We need to know how much the humanities contribute to the general economy. #ddh	Mon Jun 21 17:27:08 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	We cannot quantify everything that we call culture. #ddh	Mon Jun 21 17:36:21 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	The cultural value of what we do needs to be articulated. We have to learn to demonstrate it. #ddh	Mon Jun 21 17:40:17 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	In digital humanities we CAN communicate the positive economic and intangible value of what we do -@clhw1 #ddh	Mon Jun 21 17:41:33 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	@samplereality never underestimate the power of the tweet #hackacad #ddh	Mon Jun 21 17:42:03 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	Decoding Digital Humanities is every month; started in February this year. Follow @UCLDH and #ddh for updates.	Mon Jun 21 17:42:29 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	RT @SimonTanner: @ernestopriego Higher Ed as a whole generates £59 billion for UK economy and about 680000 jobs – thus Humanities a big chunk of impact #ddh	Mon Jun 21 17:43:01 +0000 2010
ernestopriego	RT @mwidner: RT @ernestopriego: [Don't] assume humanities ppl only consume technology; digital humanities exists b/c we can teach scientists things #ddh	Mon Jun 21 17:43:24 +0000 2010

Tuesday night saw our digital excursion to the Institute of Archaeology .  It was a great event looking at four different elements of archaeology that utilise digital technology and in particular to see expertise that the Institute contains.  Guests were split into small groups to view the showscases below:

• The Institute of Archaeology holds an extensive teaching collections of artefactual material, including artefacts from prehistoric Europe, the ancient Near East, Egypt, the Americas and beyond. We had the pleasure of  handling some very exciting objects, in particular a really nice piece from Olduvai Gorge!  the Institute also has a collections database which they are looking to expand.
• We also had the opportunity to examine  plant material from one of the world’s finest botanical collections. Personally I’m not very good at looking throught through microscopes I end up squinting through one eye.  It was really good to see all the work that goes into the analysis of archaeological botanical remains and how they are utilisng digital cameras and live streaming.
• We also looked at a 3D documentation project at World Heritage Site Merv in collaboration with CyArk. You can read more about the project here
• We also saw Digital photographic equipment used in archaeology,  where we discussed the importance of photography in teaching and research, and the transition from analogue to digital techniques, as well as dicussing photgraphy platforms.

Some images from the event (sorry for the low quality – the iphone was all we had to hand).

XML? TEI? RDF?        Eh?

Ever wondered what on earth Digital Humanities is?  Who we are? What we do?

Come along to our painless introduction, a brief seminar designed to introduce researchers to basic concepts and techniques in digital humanities.
Date: Monday 28th June
Time: 13:00 to 13:45
Location: Room 101 Foster Court, UCL

The next Decoding Digital Humanities meet up will be held on 21^st June, 2010.

Decoding with a twist

There is a slight twist to this meet up.  There has been a lot of discussion following the Launch of the Centre for Digital Humanities so we are following it up! We are going to focus on the value and differences between paid for and free content and software.  What does copyright, paywalls, and open source mean for the Humanities, educational institutions and cultural content?

As before, we have assigned some reading to provide a focus for our discussions:

Murdoch, J. 2010. Tomorrow’s Humanities: Lecture for the launch of the UCL Centre for Digital Humanities

Or you can watch the webcast here

Raymond, E.S. 2005. The Cathedral and the Bazaar

McCracken, R. 2006. Cultural responses to open licences and the accessibility and usability of open educational resources.

Date: Monday, 21st June 2010

Time: 5.30pm – 7.30pm

Location: Jeremy Bentham pub, 31 University Street, London, WC1E 6JL (map)

This event is open to UCL staff and students, and their guests. RSVP is appreciated but not required. If you cannot make this date but are interested in future events, you can subscribe to the Decoding DH mailing list or send us a quick email .

Date: Tuesday 8th June

Time: 17:30 to 19:30

Location: the Leventis Gallery, Ground Floor, UCL Institute of Archaeology (map)

The UCL Centre for Digital Humanities is pleased to announce its second Digital Excursion. Following the highly successful Excursion to the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, this next event will take place at the UCL Institute of Archaeology. Digital Excursions provide an opportunity for UCL staff, students and their guests to visit a UCL department that has specialist equipment and expertise of relevance to the field of digital humanities. Excursions typically involve a short talk given by a specialist from the host department accompanied by a chance to look over interesting bits of kit and research materials, and for those attending to discuss the opportunities that the gadgetry and skills presented may provide for collaborative project development in the area of digital humanities.

The following four projects will be showcased:

• The study of botanical remains using microscopes and digital cameras and discussion of the problems of scanning small scale objects. Guests will have the opportunity to examine through microscopes plant material from one of the world’s finest botanical collections.
• Digital photographic equipment used in archaeology, with discussion of the transition from analogue to digital techniques in teaching and research. Guests will examine a recently ‘re-discovered’ collection of photographic plates in need of digitisation.
• The Institute of Archaeology Collections, including artefacts from prehistoric Europe, the ancient Near East, Egypt, the Americas and beyond. Guests will have the rare opportunity to handle objects and discuss the potential for collaborative development of artefact digitisation projects and expansion of the online catalogue.
• Digital preservation of the ancient world heritage site of Merv in collaboration with CyArk. Guests will learn about this ancient city which lies beneath the Karakum desert, and its documentation using long range 3D laser scanning.

Project showcasing will be followed by a wine reception in the Leventis Gallery where guests will have the opportunity to network with each other, speak further with the various presenters, and meet other members of the Institute of Archaeology.

Book a place on this Digital Excursion: Institute of Archaeology