ICT in Arts and Humanities Research

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ICT in Arts and Humanities Research
e-Science Institute Public Lecture A Potential
for All e-Science for the Arts and
Humanities 30 April 2007
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• What is e-Science in the Arts and humanities
• Agenda rather than a methodology, still less a
  subject
• An Oxymoron?
• e-Science vs e-Research
• National agenda developed in the natural sciences
  and technology
• Infrastructure of advanced technologies for
  secure collaboration and resource-sharing across
  the Internet
• all Research Councils committed in their Delivery
  Plans

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• Grid technologies
• Computational grid
• Data grid
• Communications grid (Access Grid)
• Associated technologies (service grid)
• Visualization
• Data mining
• Security
• But looser definition

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• First phase of the Programme 2000-
• 98m spread across Research Councils
• Core e-Science Programme managed by EPSRC on
  behalf of all the Research Councils
• AHRB misses out
• Tony Hey Director of the e-Science Core Programme

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• Third phase of the Programme 2006-
• No earmarked money AHRC misses out again
• Core e-Science Programme managed by EPSRC on
  behalf of all the Research Councils
• Malcolm Atkinson e-Science Envoy

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• e-Science
• Why is it important for the humanities?
• Money
• tools and generic resource development
• Injection of new technologies
• collaborations between computer scientists and
  arts and humanities researchers
• Dispersed and heterogenous nature of typical
  humanities data resource
• the typical AHRC-funded resource
• Not an instant solution
• Combination of top-down and bottom-up
  developments to integrate resources
• But not just the data grid

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• Existing provision
• AHRC Research Panels
• Up to 2003, about 50 of 100m of research
  projects have some kind of digital output and/or
  input
• What kind of projects?
• Support services funded by AHRC and JISC
• Arts and Humanities Data Service (AHDS)
• creation, curation, preservation, and on-line
  dissemination of digitised research materials
• Resource Discovery Network (RDN now Intute)
• gateways for the discovery of online resources

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• ICT in Arts and Humanities Research Programme
• includes the creative and performing arts
• practice-led research
• 3.8m for 5 years from October 2003
• Part of a uniquely centralized system of public
  support for ICT in the arts and humanities
• but...

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• ICT Programmes aims
• to build capacity nation-wide in the use of ICT
  for arts and humanities research
• complementing existing provision
• to advise on the AHRC's ICT strategy
• later...
• strong infrastructure in place on which to build
  up e-Science activities
• despite arriving at the table very late

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• Main activities
• ICT Methods Network 1m for 3 years from April
  2005
• use of advanced ICT methods
• Projects and methods database (with support from
  JISC)
• methods taxonomy
• will be part of a unified on-line resource
  ICTGuides (AHDS)
• including training materials at all levels
• register of experts
• list of centres
• ICT Strategy Projects (1m)
• knowledge-gathering needs, uses, scoping surveys
• resource-development
• Problems of funding tools development

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• AHRC-EPSRC-JISC Arts and Humanties e-Science
  Initiative
• Scoping survey
• JISC AH e-Science Support Centre (Kings
  2006-8)
• based in AHDS and Methods Network
• AHRC AH e-Science Research Workshops
• EPSRC e-Science demonstrators
• six 4-year AHRC e-Science postgraduate
  studentships.
• AHRC-JISC e-Science research projects (1.2m
  EPSRC?)
• varying emphasis on tools development and
  research findings

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ICT in Arts and Humanities Research
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• cross dataset searching (across complex and fuzzy
  data) and developing a configurable tool to
  undertake record matching
• not merely limited to historians and census
  material
• physicists and astrophysicists working on the
  Astrogrid
• to track and trace different entities in space
  across massive datasets

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ICT in Arts and Humanities Research
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• Research Grants and Studentships Scheme
• Aims
• to advance research in the AH through the use
  and development of e-Science technologies
• build up the infrastructure of tools and
  resources for ICT-based research in the AH,
• and to demonstrate the value of such tools and
  resources through the achievement of significant
  AH research findings.

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• Balance between development and research findings
  may vary from one project to another
• the development of e-Science tools or resources
  specifically for research in the arts and/or
  humanities
• must present a significant research or
  development challenge in terms of the technology
• and/or the achievement of significant research
  findings in an arts or humanities subject using
  e-Science technologies.
• must achieve significant research findings
• panel expects to fund a selection of both types
  of project

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• The Panel sought to fund a broad range of
  activities,
• covering a number of different technologies and
  subject areas,
• including practice-led research in the creative
  and performing arts.
• Projects of varying size, which may last for a
  period of from six months up to a maximum of four
  years
• maximum FEC of 400,000 (plus any studentships)

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• Projects must involve an appropriate level of
  collaboration between ICT specialists and arts or
  humanities scholars
• expressed in terms of time commitment
• and demonstrate that their participants possess
  collectively the appropriate level of expertise
  in both areas.

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• Malcolm Atkinson, national e-Science Envoy
• e-Science is the systematic development of
  methods using advanced ICT to enable better
  research (20th March 2007)