CALL FOR PROPOSALS

doing digital: using digital resources in the arts and humanities

DRHA07 : Dartington College of Art : 9 - 12  September 2007

Bringing together creators, practitioners, users, distributors,
and custodians of Digital Resources in the Arts and Humanities

Over the last decade the annual Digital Resources for the Humanities and Arts 
(DRHA) conferences have constructed an unusual kind of meeting place: a space 
in which researchers, curators, and distributors of digital resources could 
meet and share perspectives on their complementary agendas. Last year, that 
forum was expanded to include participants from the creative and performing 
arts, giving the event a new flavour and a new direction. This year, the 
conference aims to explore further major issues at the interface between 
traditional humanities scholarship and the creative arts, by focussing on their 
differing or complementary approaches to the deployment of digital 
technologies. Can the Arts and the Humanities share expertise? Are they divided 
by a common tongue? To what extent are they developing common technical 
solutions to different problem areas? As in previous years, the conference will 
articulate these questions by showcasing the very best in current practice 
across the widest spectrum of digital applications in the arts and humanities 
and by fostering informed but accessible debate amongst professionals.

The Programme Committee for DRHA07 is now soliciting imaginative and 
provocative contributions for the conference addressing such topics as:

     * the benefits and the challenges of  using digital resources in creative 
work, in teaching and learning, and in scholarship;
     * the challenges and opportunities associated with scale and sustainability 
in the digital arena;
     * new insights and new forms of expression arising from the integration of 
digital resources in the arts, humanities, and sciences;
     * social and political issues surrounding digital resource provision in the 
context of global ICT developments;
     * the implications of "born-digital" resources for curators, consumers, and 
performers;
     * training methods and best practice for digital arts and humanities 
practitioners.

Other themes include: interactivity and performance; digital media in time and 
space; integration and deployment of existing digital resources in new 
contexts; policies and strategies for digital deployment, both commercial and 
non-commercial; cataloguing and metadata aspects of resource discovery; digital 
repositories; Web 2.0 and other new technologies; encoding standards; 
intellectual property rights; funding, cost-recovery, and charging mechanisms; 
digitization techniques and problems.

Format: The conference will take up three intensive days, comprising 
presentation of academic papers and technical reports, performance and 
installation events,  software and product demonstrations, debates and training 
events.  The atmosphere will be informal, the discussion energetic. Leading 
practitioners and representatives of key funding agencies, such as the the Arts 
Council, the AHRC, the JISC, and the AHDS  will be amongst the participants. We 
hope that from this occasion a new consensus will emerge based on real life 
experience of the application of digital techniques and resources in the 
Humanities and Arts.

Timetable: Proposals are now invited for academic papers, themed panel sessions 
and reports of work in progress.Your proposal should be no smaller than 500 
words and no longer than 2000; closing date for proposals is  May 2nd 2007. All 
proposals will be reviewed by an independent panel of reviewers, and 
notifications of acceptance will be sent out by 13th June 2007. All accepted 
proposals will be included in the Conference preprint volume, and will also be 
considered for a post-conference publication.

Cost: The all-in conference rate covering all meals and accomodation as well as 
conference registration and proceedings will not exceed £400. Reduced rates for 
early registration, and partial rates for one-day or non-residential attendance 
will be announced shortly on the conference website.

Further information: The conference web site at 
http://www.dartington.ac.uk/drha07/ will be regularly updated, and includes 
full details of the procedure for submitting proposals, the programme, and 
registration information. Bookmark it now!