TwinTalks 3:  Understanding and Facilitating Collaboration in DH

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1. Abstract

Virtual Workshop “TwinTalks 3: Understanding and Facilitating Collaboration in DH”

Workshop organisers:

This workshop is a joint initiative of CLARIN ERIC (http://www.clarin.eu) and DARIAH ERIC (http://www.dariah.eu) , and is supported by the SSHOC project (https://sshopencloud.eu/)

Workshop website: https://www.clarin.eu/event/2020/twintalksdh2020

Abstract:

The main objective of the proposed workshop is to get a better understanding of the dynamics on the Digital Humanities work floor when researchers and professionals with different areas of competence work in tandem to solve humanities research questions, and to explore how education and training of both humanities scholars and of technical experts can help making collaboration across disciplines more efficient, effective and (where possible) more creative and innovative. The insights gained should help those involved in the education of humanities scholars with various levels of technical capabilities, as well as technical experts with and/or without the understanding of humanities research to develop better training programmes. To this end we invite (i) submissions by pairs (or teams) consisting of members with different skill sets, as well as (ii) submissions by educators with experience in cross-discipline training. An invited talk at the beginning and a round table discussion at the end will complete the program. Please note that the chosen workshop format with the open call for submissions is in line with common practice in many sub-disciplines of Digital Humanities, and serves to attract contributions from a wide range of disciplines and sub-disciplines of Digital Humanities in a broad sense, including Social Sciences and Cultural Heritage Studies.

Background:

Research in the Humanities in a very broad sense (including Cultural Heritage Studies and Social Sciences) can only truly benefit from new developments in technology if researchers and professionals with different capabilities team up. This situation is very similar to the hard sciences, where research is done in teams working on a specific problem, where everybody brings in his/her specific content and technical expertise and skills. Co-design, co-development and co-creation are the rule rather than the exception, and the proposers want to investigate how this could be facilitated in the disciplines mentioned above. In the rest of this proposal we will use the term humanities in the broad sense described above, and digital humanities to refer to humanities research using digital data and tools.

The proposed workshop is a follow-up of the first, successful TwinTalks workshop that took place on March 5 2019 at the Nordic DH conference in Copenhagen, and the second TwinTalks workshop to take place at the Nordic DH conference in Riga planned for March 2020, now postponed to October. Whereas in the first workshop the focus was on analysing what happened on the work floor from the perspective of the researchers, and on identifying possible obstacles for collaboration, in the follow-up workshops we have added a new perspective: that of the humanities or digital humanities educator who has experience in bridging the gap between humanities and technical skills. The programme will reflect this.

Objectives:

The main objective of the proposed workshop is to get a better understanding of the dynamics on the Digital Humanities work floor when researchers and professionals with different areas of competence work in tandem to solve humanities research questions, and to explore how education and training of both humanities scholars and technical experts can help making collaboration across disciplines more efficient, effective and (where possible) more creative and innovative. What does it mean to pose a research question in the humanities that is technically tractable and how does it change our understanding of interpretative work? Conversely, is there room for creativity in the application of technical tools and what are the limitations? How can we ensure that have the same understanding of the research question to be answered and of the technical (im)possibilities?

The insights gained should help those involved in the education of humanities scholars, professionals and technical experts alike to develop better training programmes, tailored towards the needs of a diverse group of potential learners.

Audience:

Researchers, professionals, educators, and Research Infrastructure operators with a special interest in creating the conditions where people with humanities research skills and technical expertise (or both) can fruitfully collaborate in answering humanities research questions.

Originally proposed format (pre-COVID-19):

The programme starts with an invited talk by a prominent speaker, which will set the scene for the rest of the day.

The main component of the workshop programme consists of two types of (submitted) talks:

The final component of the programme, which makes the event a workshop rather than a mini-conference, is a round table discussion between speakers, invited experts and the audience to discuss and analyse the findings of the talks, and to formulate conclusions and recommendations for developing better training programmes.

Revised format:

Due to the coronavirus the DH2020 conference will go virtual, and so will the TwinTalks 3 workshop. This has consequences for the format.

The duration of the virtual workshop will be 2 hours, and it will have an interactive, panel-like format, with short pitches (duration dependent on number of accepted talks). The Twin Talk pitches should briefly describe (i) the research problem addressed, (ii) its solution, including the technical aspects, (iii) a report on the collaboration experience itself, including obstacles encountered and (iv) recommendations how better training and education could help to make collaboration more efficient and effective.

The Teach Talks should briefly describe (i) the collaboration settings on which they are based, (ii) the approach adopted, and (iii) recommendations.

After the talks there will be a discussion with all participants to formulate the lessons learned from the presentations, and to identify further steps that could be taken.

Reading material and expected learning outcomes:

The workshop is a follow-up to a successful first Twin Talks workshop at DHN2019 in Copenhagen (https://www.clarin.eu/event/2019/twintalksdhn2019) and a workshop to take place at DNH2020 in Riga (moved to October 2020), where the scene for the discussion of this topic was set.

Reading material:

Learning outcomes:

Revised time schedule:

International workshop programme committee (for peer review of submissions and composition of the final programme):

Steven Krauwer (steven@clarin.eu), CLARIN ERIC and Darja Fišer (darja.fiser@ff.uni-lj.si), University of Ljubljana, Jožef Stefan Institute

Theme: Lux by Bootswatch.