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Hi Folks, Well, I dont know that there's anything particularly about the use and impact of classics digital resources, but evaluating use and impact of digital resources is becoming a hot topic. Jisc have commissioned a few reports, such as "usage and impact study" http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/digitisation/reports/usagestudy.aspx (final report at bottom) and "Benefits and impact of digital resources" (which hasnt reported yet, although Simon Tanner recently tweeted about it, so its coming). http://www.jisc.ac.uk//whatwedo/programmes/digitisation/reports/digitisationbenefits. But he presented at #digimpact (http://www.jisc.ac.uk/events/2010/07/digihistory.aspx) in the summer, and you can see the slides here: http://www.slideshare.net/JISC/inspiring-research-inspiring-scholarship-simon-tanner Lorna Hughes is currently editing a book about the use and impact of digital resources, but that wont be out til mid 2011 at the earliest. We at UCLDH have done a few studies - such as the Log Analysis of Internet Resources in the Humanities project http://www.ucl.ac.uk/infostudies/research/circah/lairah/ I'm currently working on a study with the British Museum which is looking at their use of their collections online - particularly academic users, and we have come up with lots of interesting findings, which we are writing up. Then there's the PhD studentsthip we've just announced which will look at the use and impact of large scale digitised collections, particularly those at the British Library. http://www.ucl.ac.uk/dh-blog/2010/08/05/phd-studentship-in-the-impact-of-large-scale-digital-collections/ And there's the Oxford Internet Institute work RIN funded study on Humanities Information Practices which is about to report: http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/research/?id=58 So - a lot of interesting stuff is happening, but most of it is in the pipeline.... I would be interested if others had come across any other research on the impact and use of digitised resource on scholarly behaviour. Melissa On 26/08/2010 19:22, Leif Isaksen wrote: > Hi Robert > > It's an interesting question and one that I've also been reflecting on > recently. Unfortunately I don't have any good articles to recommend > (and would be keen to hear of any) but a potentially interesting > statistic: > > I've just completed a survey of projects utilising Semantic > technologies in archaeology and cultural heritage, which include a > handful of Classics projects as well. The survey covers about 50 > projects (the majority of those undertaken in the field to date). One > of the questions was whether the projects were deemed to emphasise > 'utility' vs 'integrity' of data. In other words, was a certain degree > of data corruption permissible if the overall dataset is easier to > make use of? > > I had presumed that integrity would be foremost, leading to problems > in adopting many of the automated 'semantifying' services developed > for other sectors. It turns out however that 2/3 of respondents see > utility as more desirable (for their project) than data integrity. > Obviously there are many caveats that need to be taken into account > (the archaeological emphasis, the requirements of semantic > technologies, etc.) but the results certainly suggest that a lot of > researchers are willing to permit some wooliness and uncertainty when > trying to ascertain the Big Picture. It's also worth bearing in mind > that our sources are _inherently_ corrupt (and largely arbitrary) so > perhaps too great an emphasis on 'quality' would be meaningless in any > case. > > A final thought is that these two trends play off each other. The > HESTIA project required us to do a lot of cleaning by hand, but this > was possible largely because the bulk of the work had already been > done automatically by Perseus. We intend to feed our results back to > Perseus in turn. Likewise, the hard work done by Pleiades in order to > provide a high quality and technically sophisticated gazetteer will > enable us to produce better (but still imperfect) results applying NLP > to the Google Corpus for our Google Ancient Places project. Thus, > while it remains meaningful to ask this question for a given project, > perhaps it is less so across the discipline as whole. > > Best > > Leif > > > > On Thu, Aug 26, 2010 at 6:47 PM, Robert Barron<[log in to unmask]> wrote: > >> Hi, >> >> Seeing as the list has erupted in a flurry of activity, I thought I'd >> ask a question :) >> >> I'm looking for material on the qualitative vs quantitative difference >> of the use of digital research in the classics. >> I'll explain with an example: >> Reading ancients texts on-line in, say, project Gutenberg, is a a >> difference of quantity compared to reading it in a Loeb book. >> You're seeing the same material, it's just faster/cheaper/easier to access. >> >> On the other hand, reading it on Perseus is a real difference - you >> are getting more context. If you add something like project Hestia for >> Herodotus then the difference is even more marked. >> >> I'll quote Wikipedia on "Digital Humanities" : Most researchers across >> the disciplines agree with Fr Roberto Busa's argument that the primary >> effect of computing is not to accelerate the pace of humanities >> research, but rather to provide new ways of approach and new paradigms >> for the enduring problems in the study of human cultural artifacts. >> >> I've found plenty of implicit material, but I wondered if there are >> any explicit articles on this subject (besides my future seminar >> paper, of course :) ) >> >> Robert Barron >> Enterprise Management Specialist - IBM Israel >> http://classicarete.blogspot.com >> >> >> >> On Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 9:45 PM, Matteo Romanello >> <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >> >>> Dear members of the list, >>> As part of my PhD I'm working on a bibliography about "Classics and the >>> Computers". >>> I'm looking specifically at general surveys, studies and discussions about >>> the relationship between classics and the computers, also known as Digital >>> Classics. >>> I drafted a first list that I'd be happy to share with other Digital >>> Classicists or anyone else having an interest in this. >>> I'd also welcome additions to my initial list: I'm thinking in particular of >>> publications that I have unintentionally neglected and/or publications in >>> other languages that I was not aware of. Therefore I'd like to share it >>> using a tool that allows others to easily augment it. >>> Do you think that for this purpose it'd be better a group on Zotero or a >>> page on the DigitalClassicist wiki, or what else? >>> Best, >>> Matteo >>> ______________ >>> Matteo Romanello >>> PhD candidate >>> Centre for Computing in the Humanities (CCH) >>> King's College, London >>> http://wiki.digitalclassicist.org/User:MatteoRomanello >>> http://kcl.academia.edu/MatteoRomanello >>> http://www.linkedin.com/in/matteoromanello >>> >> -- Melissa M. Terras MA MSc DPhil CLTHE CITP FHEA Senior Lecturer in Electronic Communication Department of Information Studies Henry Morley Building University College London Gower Street WC1E 6BT Tel: 020-7679-7206 (direct), 020-7679-7204 (dept), 020-7383-0557 (fax) Email: [log in to unmask] Web: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/infostudies/melissa-terras/ Blog: http://melissaterras.blogspot.com/ Deputy Director, UCL Centre for Digital Humanities: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/dh/ General Editor, Digital Humanities Quarterly: http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/