The document discusses the development of the Digital Classicist, a case study of building a digital humanities community in classics. It began with seminars in 2006 and has expanded to include an annual conference, wiki, and blog to connect scholars interested in digital approaches to classics. Key events included establishing regular seminars and panels at conferences to showcase member research and foster discussion. Funding has come from hosting institutions and outreach is important for sustainability. The community is defined by shared interests in digital humanities for classics rather than geographical proximity.
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1. The Digital Classicist: building a Digital
Humanities Community.
Simon Mahony (University College London)
s.mahony@ucl.ac.uk
All original content is licenced under a
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License
2. The Digital Classicist
? A case study for developing and importantly
sustaining a Digital Humanities community
¨C Background
? how did this all this start?
¨C Development
? why did it evolve in the way it did?
¨C Reflection
? what have we learned from all this?
¨C Future
? where will we go from here
3. Background
? Motivation
¨C A critical mass of people coming together with similar
interests
? Antecedents
¨C The Stoa Consortium established 1997: Ross Scaife
¨C Digital Medievalist established 2003
4. Background
? Early days
¨C Poster at DHR 2005 Lancaster (programme)
¨C CLiP 2006 conference at King's College London
¨C Seminar series launched at ICSL (2006)
? Institute of Classical Studies, London
? Building on what experiences?
¨C Department of Classics research seminars (KCL 2003-4)
¨C Work-in-Progress (WiP) Postgraduate seminar series
¨C Ersatz series (2004)
6. Background
? Early days
¨C Poster at DHR 2005 Lancaster (programme)
¨C CLiP 2006 conference at King's College London
¨C Seminar series launched at ICSL (2006)
? Institute of Classical Studies, London
? Building on what experiences?
¨C Department of Classics research seminars (KCL 2003-4)
¨C Work-in-Progress (WiP) Postgraduate seminar series
¨C Ersatz series (2004)
7. The Summer Ersatz WiP
Institute of Classical Studies
Work- in- Progress Seminars
Fri 13 August at 16:30
Senate House Rm 331
How to "Read" a Film:
"taking the classics department to the movies"
Kim Shahabudin
(University of Reading)
There will be refreshments after the seminar,
followed by a visit to a local tavern.
For more information, contact
simon.mahony@kcl.ac.uk or gabriel.bodard@kcl.ac.uk
11/08/2004 11:27
The Summer Ersatz WiP
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Institute of Classical Studies
Work-in-Progress Seminars
Fri 13 August at 16:30
Senate House Rm 331
How to "Read" a Film:
"taking the classics department to the movies"
Kim Shahabudin
(University of Reading)
There will be refreshments after the seminar,
followed by a visit to a
local tavern.
For more information, contact
simon.mahony@kcl.ac.uk or
gabriel.bodard@kcl.ac.uk
8. Background
? Early days
¨C Poster at DHR 2005 Lancaster (programme)
¨C CLiP 2006 conference at King's College London
¨C Seminar series launched at ICSL (2006)
? Institute of Classical Studies, London
? Building on what experiences?
¨C Department of Classics research seminars (KCL 2003-4)
¨C Work-in-Progress (WiP) Postgraduate seminar series
¨C Ersatz series (2004)
10. Background
? Conference panels
¨C Classical Association Annual Conference (UK)
? 2007 Birmingham: Research into people and places
? 2007 Birmingham: Interdisciplinary approaches to research and
pedagogy
? 2009 Glasgow: Ancient World and e-Science
? 2010 Cardiff: Linked data for archaeology and geography
? 2011 Durham: Teaching and Publication of Classics in the Internet
Age
? 2011 Durham: Ancient Space, Linked Data and Digital Research
? 2011 Digital Classicist Training Day
¨C Generic Web Tools
¨C Papyrological Editor
11. Background
¨C Digital Resources in the Humanities 2008 Cambridge
? A discipline-specific community of practice and interdisciplinary
methods
¨C APA/AIA Panel
? 2010 Digital research and developments in collaborative work
in Classics
¨C AHRC Methods Network Expert Seminars (KCL 2006)
? Open Source Critical Editions
12. Development
? Digital Classicist
¨C A network
¨C A central hub to link people and organisations
¨C A community of users
¨C Set up by and for practitioners interested in the
application of DH methodologies to the study of the
ancient world.
13. Development
? Website (www.digitalclassicist.org)
¨C The Digital Classicist was always conceived of as a
community, a network of users
¨C Links with other organisations
¨C Putting out information
? Seminars (the voice and focus)
? Conference panels
15. Development
? Wiki (wiki.digitalclassicist.org)
? No pre-set design structure
? Grows organically in response to users
? The opportunity for collaboration makes all the
difference
? Wiki allows ongoing peer review
? More than just the static website.
? Focus for a community
? Collaboratively compile, review and comment on digital
tools, projects, research questions
? List guides to good practice
17. Blog
? After an initial period incorporated with the Stoa,to
avoid repetition and to keep one central focus
20. Seminars
? Become central to our activities
? Promotes research activity of our members
? Allow promotion of Digital Classicist
? Raise profile of our speakers
? Plug in and use social media
¨C #digiclass
¨C Stoa consortium
¨C ICLS
? Changes the focus and become dynamic
¨C Now space as well as time
¨C Audio and presentation files
21. Seminars 2006
? Leif Isaksen (Southampton):
¨C Network Analysis of Transport Vectors in Roman Spain
? Amy Smith (Reading):
¨C The Virtual Lightbox for Museums and Archives
? Eleonora Litta (KCL):
¨C Digital Critical Editions of Latin Texts
? Hafed Walda (KCL):
¨C Archaeological mashups in Google Maps: Roman North Africa as a case study
? Notis Toufexis (Cambridge):
¨C XML-based transcriptions of medieval Greek manuscripts
? Juan Garc¨¦s (KCL)
¨C Digital editing and collating of Greek Pseudepigraphic texts
? Timothy Hill (Cambridge)
¨C Only Connect? Text, Hypertext and the Commentary Tradition
? Simon Mahony (KCL)
¨C New tools for collaborative research ¨C the Digital Classicist Wiki..
? Ruth Kirkham & John Pybus (Oxford)
¨C Building a Virtual Research Environment for the Humanities
? Willard McCarty (KCL)
¨C Modelling Personification in Ovid's Metamorphoses
22. Seminars 2007
? Richard Beacham (KCL)
¨C Using computer modelling to investigate relationships
? Neel Smith (Holy Cross, MA)
¨C Digital infrastructure and the Homer Multitext
? Boris Rankov (RHUL)
¨C 3D-Simulation of Ancient Naval Warfare
? Timothy Hill (Cambridge)
¨C Wiser than the Undeceived? Past Worlds as Virtual Worlds in the Electronic Media
? Michael Fulford (Reading)
¨C Silchester Roman Town: developing virtual research practice
? Brian Fuchs (Imperial)
¨C Lexical Communities: networking morphological resources in the Archimedes Project
? Dunstan Lowe (Reading) I
¨C intangible Cities: 'Authentic' Romes in Recreational Software
? Eleanor OKell (Durham) & Cary MacMahon (Glasgow)
¨C Creating a Generative Learning Object for Classics
? Janice Siegel (Hampden-Sydney, VA)
¨C The New AV Classics Database: a community-annotated resource
? Melissa Terras (UCL)
¨C Can computers ever read ancient texts?
? Stuart Dunn (KCL)
¨C Space as an artefact: understanding past perceptions and uses of space with and without
computers
? Charles Crowther (Oxford)
¨C A Virtual Research Environment for Documents and Manuscripts
23. Seminars 2008
? Elaine Matthews and Sebastian Rahtz (Oxford)
¨C The Lexicon of Greek Personal Names and classical web services
? Brent Seales (University of Kentucky)
¨C EDUCE: Non-invasive scanning for classical materials
? Dot Porter (University of Kentucky)
¨C The Son of Suda On Line: a next generation collaborative editing tool
? Bruce Fraser (Cambridge)
¨C The value and price of information: reflections on e-publishing in the humanities
? Andrew Bevan (UCL)
¨C Computational Approaches to Human and Animal Movement in the Archaeological Record
? Frances Foster (KCL)
¨C A digital presentation of the text of Servius
? Ryan Bauman (University of Kentucky)
¨C Towards the Digital Squeeze: 3-D imaging of inscriptions and curse tablets
? Charlotte Tupman (KCL)
¨C Markup of the epigraphy and archaeology of Roman Libya
? Juan Garc¨¦s (British Library)
¨C Digitizing the oldest complete Greek Bible: The Codex Sinaiticus project
? Charlotte Rouech¨¦ (KCL)
¨C From Stone to Byte: Implications of the XML publication of inscriptions
? Ioannis Doukas (KCL)
¨C Towards a digital publication for the Homeric Catalogue of Ships
? Peter Heslin (Durham)
¨C Diogenes: Past development and future plans
24. Seminars 2009
? Bart Van Beek (Leuven)
¨C Onomastics and Name-extraction in Graeco-Egyptian Papyri
? Philip Murgatroyd (Birmingham)
¨C Starting out on the Journey to Manzikert: Agent-based modelling and Mediaeval warfare
logistics
? Mark Hedges & Tobias Blanke (KCL)
¨C Linking and Querying Ancient Texts: A multi-database case study with epigraphic corpora
? Marco B¨¹chler & Annette Loos (Leipzig)
¨C Textual Re-use of Ancient Greek Texts: A case study on Plato¡¯s works
? Roger Boyle & Kia Ng (Leeds)
¨C Extracting the Hidden: Paper Watermark Location and Identification
? Cristina Vertan (Hamburg)
¨C Teuchos: An Online Knowledge-based Platform for Classical Philology
? Christine Pappelau (Berlin)
¨C Roman Spolia in 3D: High Resolution Leica 3D Laser-scanner meets ancient building
structures
? Leif Isaksen (Southampton)
¨C Linking Archaeological Data
? Elton Barker (Oxford) & Leif Isaksen (Southampton)
¨C Herodotos Encoded Space-Text-Imaging Archive
? Alexandra Trachsel (Hamburg)
¨C An Online Edition of the Fragments of Demetrios of Skepsis
25. Seminars 2010
? Leif Isaksen (Southampton)
¨C Reading Between the Lines: unearthing structure in Ptolemy¡¯s Geography
? Hafed Walda (King¡¯s College London) and Charles Lequesne (RPS Group)
¨C Towards a National Inventory for Libyan Archaeology
? Timothy Hill (King¡¯s College London)
¨C After Prosopography? Data modelling, models of history, and new directions for a scholarly genre
? Matteo Romanello (King¡¯s College London)
¨C Towards a Tool for the Automatic Extraction of Canonical References
? Mona Hess (University College London)
¨C 3D Colour Imaging For Cultural Heritage Artefacts
? Annemarie La Pens¨¦e (National Conservation Centre) and Fran?oise Rutland (World
Museum Liverpool)
¨C Non-contact 3D laser scanning as a tool to aid identification and interpretation of archaeological
artefacts: the case of a Middle Bronze Age Hittite Dice
? Mike Priddy (King¡¯s College London)
¨C On-demand Virtual Research Environments: a case study from the Humanities
? Monica Berti (Torino) and Marco B¨¹chler (Leipzig)
¨C Fragmentary Texts and Digital Collections of Fragmentary Authors
? Kathryn Piquette (University College London)
¨C Material Mediates Meaning: Exploring the artefactuality of writing utilising qualitative data analysis
software
? Linda Spinazz¨¨ (Venice)
¨C Musisque Deoque. Developing new features: manuscripts tracing on the net
26. Seminar 2011
? Kathryn Piquette and Charles Crowther (Oxford)
¨C Developing a Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) System for Inscription Documentation in
Museum Collections and the Field: Case studies on ancient Egyptian and Classical material
? David Scott and Mike Jackson (Edinburgh University)
¨C Supporting Productive Queries for Research (SPQR): Aggregating Classical Datasets with Linked Data
? Charlotte Rouech¨¦ and Charlotte Tupman (King's College London)
¨C Sharing Ancient Wisdoms: developing structures for charting textual transfer
? Alessandro Vatri (Oxford University)
¨C HdtDep: a treebank and search engine for Greek word order study
? Agiatis Benardou (Digital Curation Unit, R.C. ¡°Athena¡±)
¨C Classical Studies facing digital research infrastructures: From practice to requirements
? Timothy Hill (New York University)
¨C Semantics and Semantic Constructs in Cultural Comparison: The Case of Late Antiquity
? Elton Barker (Open University) and Leif Isaksen (Southampton)
¨C Mine the GAP: Finding ancient places in the Google Books corpus
? Sandra Blakely (Emory)
¨C Modeling the mysteries: GIS technology, network models, and the cult of the Great Gods of
Samothrace
? Marco B¨¹chler (Leipzig)
¨C Bringing Modern Spell Checking Approaches to Ancient Texts: Automatized Suggestions for
Incomplete Words
? Daniel Pett (British Museum)
¨C The Portable Antiquities Scheme: a tool for studying the Ancient landscape of England and Wales
? Valentina Asciutti and Stuart Dunn (King's College London)
¨C Digital diasporas: remaking cultural heritage in cyberspace
27. Seminar 2012
? Chiara Salvagni (KCL)
¨C Digital Critical Editions of Homer
? Jari Pakkanen (RHUL)
¨C Pattern detection in archaeological data: quantum modelling, Bronze Age Aegean lead weights
and Greek Classical Doric architecture
? Angeliki Chrysanthi (Southampton)
¨C A visitor-sourced methodology for the interpretation of archaeological sites
? Alejandro Giacometti, Lindsay MacDonald (UCL) & Alberto Campagnolo (University of
the Arts)
¨C Cultural Heritage Destruction: Documenting Parchment Degradation via Multispectral Imaging
? Marco Buchler & Gregory Crane (Leipzig)
¨C Historical Text Re-use Detection on Perseus Digital Library
? Charlotte Tupman (KCL)
¨C Digital epigraphy beyond the Classical: creating (inter?)national standards for recording
modern and early modern gravestones
? Maggie Robb (KCL)
¨C Digitising the Prosopography of the Roman Republic
? Paolo Monella (Centro Linceo, Roma)
¨C In the Tower of Babel: modelling primary sources of multi-testimonial textual transmissions
28. Seminars
? Research papers in their own right
? Explore highly collaborative research in this area
? Collaboration always been core to Classical Studies
? Innovation and creativity in study of Ancient World
? Rigorous scholarship
29. Development
? Research output (wiki ¨C ongoing peer review)
¨C FAQs
¨C Guides to practice
? Publications (peer review)
¨C Bodard & Mahony eds. (2008) '"Though much is taken, much
abides": Recovering antiquity through innovative digital
methodologies', Digital Classicist special issue, Digital Medievalist 4
¨C Bodard & Mahony eds (2010) Digital Research in the Study of
Classical Antiquity, Ashgate.
¨C Dunn & Mahony eds (forthcoming) Digital Classicist Supplement:
Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, Wiley-Blackwell
31. Community?
? Gemeinschaft
¨C Community
¨C Strong ties
? Gesellschaft
¨C Association
¨C Weak ties
? Oxford English Dictionary (online)
¨C s.v. community: 5B 'a group of people who share the
same interests, pursuits, or occupation ¡'
? Foundational term in social sciences
? Subject for another talk (Ferdinand T?nnies)
32. Community
? Community of users defined by what we do
? Events more than anything else define DC
community
¨C showcase for members research
¨C Venue for discussions
¨C Introductions and inspiration
33. Community at a distance?
? New technologies
¨C Spatial dimension less important
¨C Time becomes more so
¨C Symbolic
¨C Mental construct
¨C (seminars give a focus)
? Shared values and interests
¨C Feeling of belonging
¨C Psychological Sense of Community (SCI)
? Common needs and goals
? Interaction with rest of community
35. Funding
? Outreach
? Networking
? Public engagement
? Impact
? Knowledge Transfer
? Knowledge Exchange
? Engage wider international community
¨C Social media (Blog / Twitter / Facebook)
36. Reflection
? Building communities
¨C Community driven
¨C Discussion lists
¨C Showcase for members
¨C Sense of ownership
? To flourish
¨C Sense of community
¨C Sensible management
¨C Inclusive not exclusive
¨C All are welcome
37. Reflection
? Sustaining communities (at a distance)
¨C Community = foundational term for social sciences
¨C Reciprocity (Marcel Mauss)
¨C Community of users become stakeholders
¨C Value
¨C Focus
¨C Dynamic
38. Essential
? Quality (in all areas)
? Rigorous scholarship
? Advance research in both Classics and
Computing
? Meaningful to both research agendas
? Research must drive forward both agendas
? Institutional support and long term commitment
? Build a team
39. Future
? Seminars
? Conferences
? Publications BICS
? eHumanities Centre Leipzig
? Digital Classicist Germany
? Digital Classicist Berlin
¨C Keynote: Garbriel Bodard 23 October
? One day mini-conference
¨C Respondents from main stream Classics