Almila Akdag Salah, Andrea Scharnhorst, Sally Wyatt
e-Humanities group Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences Analysing an academic field through the lenses
of Internet Science: Digital Humanities as a
Virtual Community
What is a virtual community? Koopman, R., Wang, S., Scharnhorst, A., Englebienne, G.: Ariadne's thread:
Interactive navigation in a world of networked information. In: CHI'15 Extended
Abstracts. (2015)
http://thoth.pica.nl/relate?input=virtual+communities
+&type=1&type=3&dots=&hubness=5&show=100&fsize=100
EINS Final Conference
Virtual communities as a topic
Virtual communities cited by different fields
EINS Conference, 27-29 May
A baseline matrix for the analysis of VC Evolution over time
User views
institutionalization
JRA 6 – typology
Analysis of shared/unique features of VC
behavioural
EINS Conference, 27-29 May
The case of Digital Humani,es Digital libraries
Science, Computer
Science, ontologies
Many different humanities fields
Prominently language &
Literary studies
Koopman, R., Wang, S., Scharnhorst, A., Englebienne, G.: Ariadne's thread:
EINS 1st PLENARY
Interactive navigation in a world of networked information. In: CHI'15 Extended
Abstracts. (2015)
Rafols, I., Porter, A.L., Leydesdor, L.: Science overlay maps: A new tool for research policy and library management. Journal of the American
Society for information Science and Technology 61(9) (2010).
EINS Conference, 27-29 May
(a) Institutional Collaboration of DH
(b) International Collaboration of DH
Leydesdor, L., Wagner, C.S.: International collaboration in science and the formation of a core group.
Journal of Informetrics 2(4) (2008)
EINS Conference, 27-29 May
EINS Conference, 27-29 May
Lessons we learned What can we learn to analyse Digital Humanities if we
conceive this research arena as a VC
-  Certain aspects of Digital Humanities Research
practices are emphasized, such as:
-  Scientific blogs
-  Use of social media such as Twitter, Facebook
etc.
-  E-publications that are not archived (DH doesn’t
have a publication outlet such as arxiv)
-  Publication of code/software/tools developed for
DH projects
-  Offline aspects such as attendance to DH
conferences, workshops, meetings become more
important
EINS Conference, 27-29 May
Monitoring of VC – ques1on of data Part of the Infographic
Melissa Terras started a data collection 2011, see her blog http://melissaterras.blogspot.nl/2011/11/stats-and-digital-humanities.html
Analy1c frames for a new scien1ﬁc ﬁeld Funding, university facul@es, projects, start-‐ups Methods, textbooks, courses, chairs Self-‐organized, autonomous academia Norms, values, behavior, ins1tu1ons What are legi,mate ques,ons and answers? Who is recognized for valuable contribu,ons? What are the appropriate places to talk and publish? What are the most visible ins,tu,ons? Potential traces: researchers, publications, journals, books, courses,
conferences, funding, chairs, …..
References •  Koopman, R., Wang, S., Scharnhorst, A., Englebienne, G.: Ariadne's thread: Interac@ve naviga@on in a world of networked informa@on. In: CHI'15 Extended Abstracts. (2015) •  WyaV, S., Millen, D., eds.: Meaning and Perspec@ves in the Digital Humani@es. Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (2014) •  Akdag Salah, A.A., Scharnhorst, A., Leydesdor, L.: Mapping the ow of digital humani@es. In: Digital Humani@es Conference (DH2010), Kings College, London, UK (June 2010) •  Leydesdor, L., Akdag Salah, A.A.: Maps on the basis of the arts & humani@es cita@on index: The journals leonardo and art journal versus digital humani@es as a topic. Journal of the American Society for informa@on Science and Technology 61(4) (2010) •  WyaV, S., Leydesdorf, L.: e-‐humani@es or digital humani@es: Is that the ques@on? In: Digital Humani@es Workshop. (2013)