Humanities Informatics The application of information technology to

Humanities Informatics “The application of information technology to the understanding of the human record” Steering Committee for Computer Science and Humanities, 1998

Humanities Informatics: Excellence in Research and Education l l l l l Challenge and Importance Existing Work Participants Specific Objectives Management and Evaluation National Excellence Existing Programs and Collections Educational Aspects Accomplishments

Challenge l Information technology and networking are revolutionizing traditional scholarly practice l Fundamentally challenging our notions of research and teaching in the humanities

Challenge l Imperative that we prepare our students for the new forms of scholarship l Expanding research opportunities l Expanding interdisciplinary course offerings

Importance Nationally l Steering Committee for Computer Science and the Humanities (August 1998) – National Academy of Sciences – National Academy of Engineering – Computer Science and Telecommunications Board (NRC) – Coalition for Networked Information – American Council of Learned Societies – National Initiative for a Networked Cultural Heritage – American Historical Association

Importance Nationally l Steering committee goals – Foster the establishment of a scalable and extensible humanities informatics (HI) – Ongoing storage and retrieval of the human record – Means to create new knowledge upon a stable base

Importance Nationally l Steering committee goals – Establish HI as an academically recognized, integral component of, and bridge between, CS and Humanities – Encourage research and development of mutual benefit – Advance understanding of knowledge representation and information preservation in the digital era

Importance Locally l Vision 2020 – Texas A&M University’s long range planning document – Identifies key areas for improvement – Goal: to be recognized as one of the ten best public universities

Importance Locally l Critical areas for enhancement – Strengthening graduate programs in the Humanities – Maintaining and enhancing our leadership role in information technology research and application

Humanities Informatics Initiative l Responds to the national and local needs l Consortium to catalyze the discipline of Humanities Informatics at Texas A&M l Goal: excellence in research and education

Humanities Informatics Initiative l Internationally recognized scholars l Established external funding records l Areas: human-centered systems, digital libraries and bibliographical, textual, and archival studies l Builds on strong base of interdisciplinary collaboration and established scholarly projects

Humanities Informatics Initiative Create new knowledge through cuttingedge, externally funded research l Prepare next generation of humanities scholars l Develop innovative computing tools, digital library collections, and hypertextual archives l Broadly significant academic and educational value to the humanities l

Humanities Informatics Initiative l Build a culture of excellence in graduate research and education l Host a series of invited workshops l Lay the groundwork for developing a graduate degree in Humanities Informatics

Humanities Informatics: Excellence in Research and Education l l l l l Challenge and Importance Existing Work Participants Specific Objectives Management and Evaluation National Excellence Existing Programs and Collections Educational Aspects Accomplishments

Existing Work l Digital collection development l Information technology research

Existing Work l Digital collection development – Cervantes Project – World Shakespeare Bibliography – Science Fiction and Fantasy Research Database

Cervantes Project Comprehensive web-accessible reference and research site on life and works l Comprised of: l – International Bibliography Online – Digital Library – Digital Archive of Images l Current focus: – Electronic variorum edition of Don Quixote de la Mancha

Cervantes Project – – Started in 1995 Three year NSF ITR grant in 2000 Drs. Richard Furuta and Eduardo Urbina Dr. Urbina • Nominated to receive National Humanities Center’s Richard W. Lyman award (in recognition of outstanding achievement in humanities through innovative use of information technology) • Named permanent visiting professor and holder of the Cervantes Chair at University of Castilla-La Mancha, Spain – http: //www. csdl. tamu. edu/cervantes/

World Shakespeare Bibliography Records and annotates all important books, articles, book reviews, dissertations, theatrical productions, audio-visual resources, and other popular and scholarly materials l Published in cooperation with The Arden Shakespeare (London) and The Folger Shakespeare Library (Washington) l Recognized as one of the preeminent serial bibliographies in the humanities l

World Shakespeare Bibliography Edited with the assistance of more than 100 Shakespeare scholars around the world l WSB Online awarded the Besterman Medal by The Library Association (London) in 1997 and 2001 (in recognition of its pioneering use of information technology) l Dr. James L. Harner, Editor l www. worldshakesbib. com l

Science Fiction and Fantasy Research Database More than 50, 000 history and criticism titles l Based upon previously published reference books titled The Science Fiction and Fantasy Reference Index l Received the Pilgrim Award of the Science Fiction Research Association (in recognition of lifetime achievement in science fiction and fantasy scholarship) l

Science Fiction and Fantasy Research Database l Earlier versions won Choice magazine’s outstanding reference books (1988) and the J. Lloyd Eaton Memorial Award (1991) l Hal W. Hall, Editor l http: //library. tamu. edu/cushing/sffrd/

Existing Work l Information technology research – Metadocuments – Distributed Digital Libraries – Evaluation Protocols

Metadocuments l l l Metadocuments as Communicative Artifacts to Enable Use of a Research Digital Library in Undergraduate SMET Education Funded by NSF/NSDL program Explores the applications of paths as an organizing mechanism in support of undergraduate education Drs. Richard Furuta and Frank Shipman http: //www. csdl. tamu. edu/walden/

Controls Original Web page Annotation

Distributed Digital Libraries Design and Evaluation of Maintenance Tools for Distributed Digital Libraries l Funded by NSF/NSDL program l Explores tools that recognize problems with referenced resources in distributed digital libraries l Drs. Richard Furuta and Frank Shipman l

Guided paths WWW Host Web Page Internet Backbone A Path Guided path - An ordering of existing materials independent of underlying structure.

Evaluation Protocols National Science Digital Library Evaluation Protocol l Funded by NSF/NSDL program l Goals: l – Define dimensions of DL service quality from user perspective – Develop a tool for measuring user perceptions and expectations of DL service quality across NSDL DL contexts – Identify DL best practices that permit generalization across operations and platforms

Evaluation Protocols l Goals (continued): – Enhance student learning by effectively managing user perceptions and expectations of DL services – Establish a DL service quality assessment program as an integral part of the library service quality assessment program (Lib. QUAL+) at the Association of Research Libraries Drs. Colleen Cook and Fred Heath l www. arl. org/libqual/ l

Humanities Informatics: Excellence in Research and Education l l l l l Challenge and Importance Existing Work Participants Specific Objectives Management and Evaluation National Excellence Existing Programs and Collections Educational Aspects Accomplishments

Participants l College of Liberal Arts – Center for Humanities Research – Cervantes Project – World Shakespeare Bibliography Online l College of Engineering – Center for the Study of Digital Libraries – Human Centered Systems group (Computer Science) l Texas A&M University Libraries – Digital Library Evaluation Project – Science Fiction and Fantasy Research Database

Participants – College of Liberal Arts • Content and scholarly processes – College of Engineering • Information technology and pedagogy – Texas A&M University Libraries • Information infrastructure and evaluation methodologies

Participants – Center for Humanities Research • Fosters research on humanities scholarship • Dr. James Rosenheim • www. tamu. edu/chr/ – Center for the Study of Digital Libraries • Fosters research on theory and application of DLs • Drs. Richard Furuta and John Leggett • http: //www. csdl. tamu. edu/ – Texas A&M University Libraries • Ranks in top 40 of Association of Research Libraries • Acquiring resources globally and ensuring enduring access to scholarly research • http: //library. tamu. edu/

Humanities Informatics: Excellence in Research and Education l l l l l Challenge and Importance Existing Work Participants Specific Objectives Management and Evaluation National Excellence Existing Programs and Collections Educational Aspects Accomplishments

Specific Objectives l Four areas – Collections development – Digital library evaluation – Transferring research collections to production – Environment building l Six Objectives

Specific Objective One l Increase national relevance of existing award-winning collections – Number of artifacts – Breadth of coverage – Quality of expression – Educational and scientific reach l Develop IT for ingesting, digesting and presenting content

Specific Objective Two l Incubate new and diverse collections – Funding seed efforts – Offering workshops – Maintaining a clearinghouse for IT tools and processes – Partnering on research proposals

Specific Objective Three l Integrate evaluation across activities and research products – Artifact acquisition – Accession – Indexing/organizing – Preservation – Use

Specific Objective Four l Bridge divide between research and production collections – Migrating CSDL research collections to Texas A&M Libraries – Institutional commitment “Few, if any, DL research projects at universities are actually working with their libraries on sustainable economic models for their collections” Mike Lesk

Specific Objective Five l Building a culture of excellence – Focus on graduate student research – Externally-funded research projects – Creation of new knowledge – National impact

Specific Objective Six l Lay foundation for future graduate degree in Humanities Informatics – Cutting-edge research – Promoting interdisciplinary research committees – Building research community – Identify graduate education needs

Humanities Informatics: Excellence in Research and Education l l l l l Challenge and Importance Existing Work Participants Specific Objectives Management and Evaluation National Excellence Existing Programs and Collections Educational Aspects Accomplishments

Management l Center for Humanities Research – Institutional umbrella for HI projects – Clearinghouse for HI information – Outreach through lecture series, stipendiary fellowships, travel grants, seed funding l Governed by board of PI’s

Evaluation l Formative and summative evaluations l E-Metrics guidelines (ARL) – Collection growth and usage l Modified Lib. QUAL+ – End user satisfaction with quality of service

Humanities Informatics: Excellence in Research and Education l l l l l Challenge and Importance Existing Work Participants Specific Objectives Management and Evaluation National Excellence Existing Programs and Collections Educational Aspects Accomplishments

National Excellence l Potential is based upon: – – High quality of collections Broad applicability of IT tools Stability of infrastructure Efforts to develop a community of active scholars

Humanities Informatics: Excellence in Research and Education l l l l l Challenge and Importance Existing Work Participants Specific Objectives Management and Evaluation National Excellence Existing Programs and Collections Educational Aspects Accomplishments

Selected Existing Programs and Collections in the Humanities Exemplary university HI efforts l Notable digital collections l NSF/DLI 2 Projects l

Exemplary University HI Efforts IATH: The Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities (Virginia) l MITH: The Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (Maryland) l STG: Scholarly Technology Group (Brown) l CCARH: Center for Computer Assisted Research in the Humanities (Stanford) l

Notable Digital Collections l Rossetti Archive (University of Virginia) – http: //www. iath. virginia. edu/rossetti/ l Shakespeare Electronic Archive (MIT) – http: //shea. mit. edu/ l Canterbury Tales Project (De Montfort University) – http: //www. cta. dmu. ac. uk/projects/ctp/ l LOC’s American Memory Project – http: //memory. loc. gov/ammem/

NSF/DLI 2 Projects – DL of Folk Literature (UC Davis) • http: //flsj. ucdavis. edu/home/ – Digital Music Library (Indiana University) • http: //www. dlib. indiana. edu/variations/ – Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Stanford) • http: //plato. stanford. edu/ – Digital Atheneum (University of Kentucky) • http: //www. digitalatheneum. org/

Humanities Informatics: Excellence in Research and Education l l l l l Challenge and Importance Existing Work Participants Specific Objectives Management and Evaluation National Excellence Existing Programs and Collections Educational Aspects Accomplishments

Educational Aspects l Existing courses – Human Centered Systems (9) – Humanities (2) – Library Science (1) l New courses – Effects of IT on society and scholarly practice in CS (2) – Application of IT to scholarly practice in the Humanities (2) – Information delivery/assessment (2)

Humanities Informatics: Excellence in Research and Education l l l l l Challenge and Importance Existing Work Participants Specific Objectives Management and Evaluation National Excellence Existing Programs and Collections Educational Aspects Accomplishments

Accomplishments (6 months) l Research l Outreach l Seed Grant Program l Proposals l Publications

Accomplishments – Research l Development of textual iconography for Don Quijote (Cervantes Project)

Accomplishments – Research l Establishment of Shakespeare website repository (World Shakespeare Bibliography) l http: //www. worldshakesbib. org/

Accomplishments – Research l IT Infrastructure – Image manager – Timeline editor/viewer – Bibliography management/presentation

Accomplishments – Research l IT Infrastructure – Image manager

Accomplishments – Research l IT Infrastructure – Timeline editor/viewer

Depicts several editions at once Provides overview Depicts variants along their offset in the text

Provides more detail

Analyzing copies of the same edition Identifying false variants

Accomplishments – Research l IT Infrastructure – Bibliography management/presentation

Accomplishments – Research l Algorithms and Environments – Storytelling engines – Social construction of metadata – Collection understanding via streaming collage

Accomplishments – Research l Algorithms and Environments – Storytelling engines

Accomplishments – Research l Algorithms and Environments – Social construction of metadata

Accomplishments – Research l Algorithms and Environments – Collection understanding via streaming collage

Accomplishments – Outreach l HI website established – www. tamu. edu/hi/ l HI technology open house l HI lecture series – Andrew Dillon, Cliff Lynch, Greg Crane l HI working group

Accomplishments – Seed Grants l l l Texas A&M Genre Evolution Project A Semantic Associative Model for Streaming Collage Browsing On-Line Picasso Project Hum Dekhenge: A Digital Archive of Resources By and About South Asian Women The Virtual Texas Art Museum Texas Images: An On-Line Repository of Pre-1900 Prints

Accomplishments – Seed Grants l Texas A&M Genre Evolution Project – Testing the hypothesis that culture and cultural materials co-evolve much as do biological organisms, that is, as complex adaptive systems – Areas: literary criticism, text coding, statistical analysis – L. Brett Cooke, Modern and Classical Languages and Halbert W. Hall, Cushing Library

Accomplishments – Seed Grants l A Semantic Associative Model for Streaming Collage Browsing – An ambient visualization mechanism that affords dynamic knowledge building by sifting through focused subsets of the web space – Areas: term-based information retrieval and natural language processing added to the existing Collage Machine – Andruid Kerne, Computer Science and Center for the Study of Digital Libraries

Accomplishments – Seed Grants l On-Line Picasso Project – Digital library of artworks, biographical data and critical analysis of Pablo Picasso – Areas: Information presentation/organization, personalization, culturally situated knowledge – Enrique Mallen, Modern and Classical Languages

Visualizing and Exploring Picasso’s World

Visualizing and Exploring Picasso’s World Overview 3 rd level of detail 1 st level of detail 2 nd level of detail

Analyzing Picasso’s World What kind of artworks did he create during any given period of time? Was there any trend in which he painted in two different decades? What kind of techniques did he use the most in any given year or season? Was he more productive during a particular season: summer, fall, spring, or winter? Discovering correlations of Picasso’s series in different periods.

Discovering Patterns in Picasso

Accomplishments – Seed Grants l Hum Dekhenge: A Digital Archive of Resources By and About South Asian Women – Digital library documenting the efforts and writings of individual women scholars, artists, and activists from South Asia – Areas: Acquisition and digitization of texts, bibliography, information organization/presentation – Jyotsna Vaid, Sociology

Accomplishments – Seed Grants l The Virtual Texas Art Museum – Digital library of artworks, biographical data and bibliography of Texas arts and artists – Areas: Acquisition of images, bibliography, information organization/presentation, copyright – James Baker, Architecture – http: //archone. tamu. edu/texmus

Accomplishments – Seed Grants l Texas Images: An On-Line Repository of Pre-1900 Prints – Digital library documenting the culture, history and people of Texas prior to 1900 through the printed visual record – Areas: Acquisition of images of first edition illustrations, bibliography, information organization/presentation – Steve Smith, Cushing Library – http: //library. tamu. edu/cushing/txi/index. htm

Accomplishments – Proposals l NSF/ITR – Exploring the Design Space for Interactive Scholarly Communication – Enhancing Interactive Information Organization and Presentation for a Heterogeneous Display Environment – Visualizing a recombinant knowledge space for the purpose of augmenting creative process

Accomplishments – Proposals l NEH Preservation and Access Program – Editorial History and Textual Iconography of Don Quixote (1605 -2005) l Institute of Museum and Library Services – Texas Images Project

Accomplishments – Publications l E. Urbina, R. Furuta, et al. “Texto, contextos e hipertexto: La crítica textual en la era digital y la edición electrónica variorum del Quijote. ” Quaderni di letterature iberiche e iberoamericane (Milan) 27 (19992000) [2002]: 21 -49.

Accomplishments – Publications Ong, T. and Leggett, J. , “Design of the HEFTI Storytelling Engine, ” Proceedings of the TIDSE 2003 Conference, Darmstadt, Germany, March 2003, forthcoming. l Ong, T. , and Leggett, J. , “A New Approach to the Design of Interactive Storytelling Engines with Applications in the Educational Setting, ” Proceedings of the Ed-Media 2002 Conference, Honolulu, Hawaii, June 2003, forthcoming. l

Accomplishments – Publications l Monroy, C. , Furuta, R. and Mallen, E. , “Visualizing and Exploring Picasso’s World, ” Proceedings of the JCDL 2003 Conference, Houston, Texas, May 2003, forthcoming.

Conclusion “Humanities Informatics is a very important research area that is fundamental to all institutions that claim scholarship as their primary activity” John Leggett