Slides for presentation given at the first Digital Humanities Congress held in Sheffield from 6 – 8 September 2012 with the support of the Network of Expert Centres and Centernet. URL http://www.shef.ac.uk/hri/dhc2012

1. Researchers as INfrastructure
Erik Champion
DIGHUMLAB.dk

2. Digital Humanities - Digital Humanism
• Dave Parry: Digital Humanities should be the
application of computing, or an inquiry as to how
digital media has irrevocably changed the
Humanities -> major practical consequences.
• I have been entrusted with managing the
development of a national research infrastructure
for the Digital Humanities.
• Even before logistic issues, we have major
fundamental, political and theoretical challenges.
David Parry. (n.d.). The Digital Humanities or a Digital Humanism. Debates in the
Digital Humanities - Matthew K. Gold - Google Bøger. Retrieved
from http://books.google.dk/books?id=_6mo2tApzQQC&printsec=frontcover&hl=
da&source=gbs_vpt_reviews#v=onepage&q&f=false

3. DANISH ROAD MAP
SOCIAL SCIENCES AND
HUMANITIES
CESSDA - Council of European
Social Science Data Archives
Considerations going forward
concerning Danish participation in
and funding of CESSDA will be
included in the planned efforts to
reorganise and strengthen Danish
register research.
CLARIN - Common Language
Resources and Technology
Infrastructure
Danish membership of CLARIN will
be funded by the anticipated grant
for the Digital Humanities Lab
(DigHumLab) project.
DARIAH – Digital Research
Infrastructure for the Arts and
Humanities
Danish membership of DARIAH will
be funded by the anticipated grant
for the Digital Humanities Lab
(DigHumLab) project.
ESS - European Social Survey
Upgrade
Considerations going forward
concerning Danish participation in
and funding of ESS-Survey will be
included in the planned efforts to
reorganise and strengthen Danish
register research.
SHARE - Upgrade of the Survey of
Health, Ageing and Retirement in
Europe
Denmark will be participating in
SHARE with a view to execution of
phase 1 of the project. The cost of
participation will be covered by the
University of Southern Denmark.
Considerations going forward
concerning Danish participation in
and funding of SHARE will be
included in the planned efforts to
reorganise and strengthen Danish
register research.
http://www.fi.dk/filer/publikationer/2011/Danish_roadmap_for_research_infrastructures_2011/html/kap02.htm

4. “research infrastructure” via ERIC
Legal framework
for a European
Research
Infrastructure
Consortium - ERIC
Practical Guidelines
Research
• …facilities, resources and related services
that are used by the scientific community
to conduct top-level research in their
respective fields and covers major scientific
equipment or sets of instruments;
knowledge-based resources such as
collections, archives or structures for
scientific information; enabling ICT-based
infrastructures such as Grid, computing,
software and communication, or any other
entity of a unique nature essential to
achieve excellence in research.
• Such infrastructures may be “single-sited”
or “distributed” (an organised network of
resources)..

5. DIGIHUMLAB in brief
• DIGHUMLAB is a national consortium of four Danish universities: Aalborg
University, Aarhus University, the University of Copenhagen and the
University of Southern Denmark. Together with the State and University
Library and the Royal Library, the lab will work to promote access to digital
research resources, the development of research tools and education as
well as strengthening ties to international networks.
• The Ministry of Science, Innovation and Higher Education has contributed
a grant of DKK 30 million to the development of the Danish Digital
Humanities Laboratory (DIGHUMLAB). The establishment of DIGHUMLAB
was named as a priority in the ministry's roadmap for research
infrastructure in 2010, and is intended to promote research in the
humanities and social sciences, education and knowledge exchange by
providing access to digital resources and developing new research
methods and practices.
• Learn more about the new digital humanities and find the programme for
the official opening at www.dighumlab.dk

6. DIGHUMLAB Research Themes
Theme 1: Language-based
materials and tools, CLARIN,
see http://clarin.dk
Theme 2: Mediatools (the
Net Archive, Net Lab) AU,
(subcontractor: State
Library) and Developing
tools for audio and visual
media AU,
http://www.netlab.dk/
Theme 3: Interaction and
Design Studies, AAU and
SDU
http://www.worldmapmaker.com/countries/d
enmark/map

7. DIGHUMLAB partners
• Original mission:
DIGHUMLAB will serve as the single virtual access point to all relevant digitised
resources of relevance to the research areas of the humanities and social sciences
in both Danish and European research infrastructures.
• ..the Danish node in, respectively, CLARIN (Common Language Resources and
Technology Infrastructure) & DARIAH (Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts
& Humanities) as well as TELEARC.
• Researchers who were part of LARM may also be associated with DIGHUMLAB in
the near future.

8. DARIAH-EU Map
Zagreb/Croatia
Copenhagen/
Denmark (VCC2)
Ljubljana/Slovenia
Vienna
Goettingen
Den Haag/
Netherlands
(VCC3)
Dublin
Paris
Athens
Germany
(VCC1/
VCC4/DCO)
France
(VCC3/DCO)
Austria
(VCC1)
Ireland
(VCC2)
London
UK
Vilnius
Lithuania
Swit-
zerland
Bern
Italy
Norway
Oslo
Tirana/
Albania
Belgrade
Austrian Academy of Sciences (AAS)
Institute for Corpus Linguistics
and Text Technology
Institute of Contemporary History (ICH)
Ruđer Bošković Institute (RBI)
Centre for Information and Computer Science
Serbia
Center for Digital Humanities (CDH)
Ministry of Tourism Culture
Youth and Sports
Academy of Athens (AA)
Research Centre for the Study
of Modern Greek History
Digital Curation Unit (DCU)
Institute for the Management
of Information Systems
Digital Renaissance Foundation (FRD)
Florence
Swiss Academy of Humanities
and Social Sciences (SAGW)
National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS)
TGE ADONIS
University of Goettingen
Goettingen State and University Library (SUB)
Irish Research Council for the
Humanities and Social Sciences
(IRCHSS)
King's College London
Centre for e-Research (CeRcH)
Data Archiving and
Networked Services (DANS)
University of Oslo
Museum of Cultural History (KHM)
Vilnius University (VU)
Hosted at Aarhus University
Member
Observer
Cooperating Partner
Non-EU (Cooperating Partner)

9. 4 unis 2 libraries? and..
• Our government has asked that we
include as many as possible, a noble goal, but in
practice we have hit a major roadblock.
• How does one create a national focus while allowing
academics and other researchers to pursue their own
specific goals?
• What are the boundaries of the Digital Humanities
pertinent to our researchers, beyond which we
should not tread?
• How can we focus on key research areas important
to our country in particular, without becoming cut off
from international networks?

10. Durability

11. My first questions were
– What about the social sciences?
– What is a research infrastructure?
– What do we mean by a laboratory – is there only one?
– What kind of databases do we have?
– What about funding?
– Who is the audience?
– What should we deliver and when?
– What are the goals for success after the 5 year period
and how do we measure it?

12. Preparing for the tomorrows
• How can one develop an infrastructure five
years ahead, based on catering for technology
that we are not yet using?
• How can a distributed network allow for
unified identity and individual planning?
• Which resources are best managed centrally,
and which are best distributed?

13. A Survey of Digital Humanities Centers
in the United States
Definition: where new media and technologies are used for humanities-based research, teaching, and intellectual
engagement and experimentation. The goals of the center are to further humanities scholarship, create new forms of
knowledge, and explore technology’s impact on humanities based disciplines. To accomplish these goals, a digital
humanities center undertakes some or all of the following activities (abridged):
• builds digital collections as scholarly or teaching resources;
• creates tools for
– authoring (i.e., creating multimedia products and applications with minimal technical knowledge or training)
– building digital collections
– analyzing humanities collections, data, or research processes
– managing the research process;
• uses digital collections and analytical tools to generate new intellectual products;
• offers digital humanities training (in the form of workshops, courses, academic degree programs, postgraduate
and faculty training, fellowships, and internships)…conducts research in humanities and humanities computing
(digital scholarship);
• offers lectures, programs, conferences, or seminars on digital humanities topics for general or academic
audiences;
• has its own academic appointments and staffing (i.e., staff does not rely solely on faculty located in another
academic department);
• creates a zone of experimentation and innovation for humanists;
• serves as an information portal for a particular humanities discipline;
• serves as a repository for humanities-based digital collections (e.g., Web sites, electronic text projects, QuickTime
movie clips);
• provides technology solutions to humanities departments (e.g., serves an information technology (IT) role for
humanities departments).
http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub143/pub143.pdf
by Diane M. Zorich
November 2008

14. Typical DH centres
• Resource focused. Centers are organized around a
primary resource, located in a virtual space, that serves
a specific group of members. All programs and
products flow from the resource, and individual and
organizational members help sustain the resource by
providing content, and, in some instances, volunteer
labor.
• Center focused. Centers are organized around a
physical location, with many diverse projects,
programs, and activities that are undertaken by faculty,
researchers, and students, and that offer many
different resources to diverse audiences. Most of the
centers surveyed operate under this model.

15. Science Models for Consideration
• A Shared Instrument Collaboratory provides remote access to large, expensive scientific instruments.
• A Community Data Systems Collaboratory is a semipublic (i.e., open to the profession) information resource
created, maintained, or enhanced by a geographically distributed community. In the humanities, the Pleiades
Project may be the closest manifestation of this model, although it shares some aspects of the Open Community
Contribution System model (below) as well.
• An Open Community Contribution System aggregates the efforts of many geographically dispersed individuals
toward a common research problem. A project that parallels this model in broad strokes is the Library of Congress
(LC)/Flickr Commons collaboration, in which the collective knowledge of the public is used to enhance cataloging
and metadata of LC images via social-networking mechanisms.
• A Virtual Community of Practice is a community of individuals who share a research interest and communicate
about it online. The community does not undertake joint projects, but it does share professional information,
advice, techniques, and contacts. The humanities have many examples of collaborations of this sort, one of the
most prominent being H-NET.
• A Virtual Learning Community is a community brought together to increase the knowledge of its participants
through formal learning programs (not through original research). These communities are often affiliated with
degree-granting programs, but they may also be organized around professional development opportunities. For
example, a national or regional training center that focused on digital technologies for humanities research would
constitute a virtual learning community collaboratory.
• A Distributed Research Center is a virtual version of a university research center. This type of collaboratory joins
the expertise,resources, and efforts of many individuals interested in a topical area, and conducts joint projects in
that area.
• A Community Infrastructure Project focuses on developing infrastructure (i.e., tools, protocols, access methods)
to further work in a particular domain. The Internet Archive models this type of collaboratory by bringing together
efforts of individuals, information science professionals, technologists, and cultural heritage institutions to create
an infrastructure for archiving Web and multimedia resources for research.

16. Not like typical DH in USA-Canada
• http://blog.humlab.umu.se/ (Swedish, but a Nordic inspiration)
• http://humanexperience.stanford.edu/digital_humanities
• http://www.cdh.ucla.edu/
• http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/~aditi/dh/
• http://www.iath.virginia.edu/ IATH Institute for Advanced Technology
• http://www2.lib.virginia.edu/scholarslab/ The Scholars´ Lab
• http://www.iath.virginia.edu/hcs/MDST.MA.html Masters in Digital
Humanities
• http://chnm.gmu.edu/ Center for History and New Media (CHNM)
• CANADA
http://www.philosophi.ca/pmwiki.php/Main/TheAcademicCapacityOfThe
DigitalHumanitiesInCanada Research Chairs etc

17. Not like typical DH in the UK
• UCL Centre for Digital Humanities “at the intersection of
digital technologies and humanities.” http://www.ucl.ac.uk/dh
• Oxford http://digital.humanities.ox.ac.uk/
• Digital Humanities Centre
• http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/humanities/digital/index.aspx
• Open Uni (network) http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/digital-
humanities/index.shtml
• Cambridge http://www.digitalhumanities.cam.ac.uk/
• Sheffield http://www.shef.ac.uk/hri/index
• See also http://www.arts-humanities.net/noc

18. Distributed DIGITAL
HUMANITIES CENTRES?
•Gottingen?
•Southampton?
•Oxford?
•Interactive Institute?
•HuNI Australia?

19. Not problems just projects
1. Financing
2. Attract researchers, explain
what we can do for you
3. Articulating the problems to
achieve solutions can be
difficult
4. Tent, umbrella or force field-
should be exclusivist or
inclusivist?
5. Generalist or Specialist digital
humanists?
6. Distributed or centralized
1. Micro financing esp reusable..
2. Provide case studies and
walkthroughs
3. Share and review across
fields, thatcamps, mini
workshops
4. Expose process, spread the
knowledge, corrupt coders
5. Bottom up teaching, create
clearings, hackspaces, train
trainers at same time
6. Circulate ideas *like Vectors
Fellowship
*The University of Southern California's Institute for Multimedia Literacy and the electronic
journal Vectors http://vectorsjournal.org/journal/blog/category/announcements/

20. DIGHUMLAB problems projects
ISSUES
1. 1.5 staff, issues of data security
maintenance
2. Quality Control? Where is
theory, AR, GIS, 3D, InfoVis
3. Fair distribution across partners,
research community, and
synergy of resources, contract
DH research manager or
director required.
4. Keeping to the budget and
when next budget is due.
SUGGESTIONS
1. Centralize Data with libraries,
collate user req.
2. Develop guidelines, KPI, ROIs for
new themes
3. Create 4 specialist nodes, each
with technical staff, with
postdocs, guest international
scholars, RM ensures research
communication and collation.
Eg Vectors fellowship model.
4. Change to competitive funding,
use in 4.5 years, bring in new
grants, discuss.

21. Another problem, project

22. Studio in Multimedia Authoring in
Archaeology: Investigating the past
through New Media technologiesHome »
In this course we will be following Eric Champion's idea that New Media comprises
the act of reshaping the user experience of exploring realms or worlds through the
innovative use of digital media.
In this course students will explore and put into practice New Media technologies
that have been used to investigate, share, and represent people, places, events, and
things of the past. Our review and exploration of these technologies will focus on a
critical evaluation of their theoretical implications and their practice in archaeology,
history, cultural heritage management, and museum studies, as well as popular
culture representations of the past. The class will review the broad array of New
Media technologies including documentation (video, photography, laser scanning,
geo-locating), database construction, archiving, information networking, visual
analysis (GIS), 3D visualization (3D reconstructions, virtual worlds and gaming),
communication and publishing (social networking, WWW1, WWW2), and narrative
creation (video, hypermedia, database narratives, recombinant histories). The goal
of the class is to understand that many of these technologies are not beyond the
capabilities of the general public, and that they need to be used with a critical
awareness of their implications…
http://anthropology.berkeley.edu/content/studio-multimedia-authoring-archaeology-
investigating-past-through-new-media-technologies

23. Digital Humanities Congress 2012
Simon Tanner Axismaps

24. The users..the beneficiaries
National Museum of Science
Bergamo
Ethnographic Collection by user, National
Museum of Science , Bergamo
Fostering inspiration and creativity
Digital humanities an electronic hearth: a clearing and gathering place for digitalists and
humanists..

25. Denmark has a burgeoning industry in serious games
and 3D technology..
Tribal trouble (left) is a Viking resource management and civilization
building game from Denmark
Serious Games Interactive is Danish and creator of “Playing With History”
Unity is a world famous interactive 2D and 3D creation tool with
educational discounts
http://www.mofunzone.com/download_games/tribal_trouble.shtml

26. EXAMPLES
http://jibemix.com/ and http://unity3d.com See ”What is Jibe?” youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hr66LwSgpb8
with Second Life http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkJef8B1WCQ
OR (above) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysD1c88K6_4&feature=related

27. Integrate library resources with 3D visualization
NTNU Uni. Library MUBIL project@Trondheim
Create dynamic linkages between the public and its collections and
spread knowledge.
Gather data on how people interact with 3D technology and virtual
objects in a library environment.

28. Center for Digital Ethnography, Florida Natalie Underberg
..computer game mod designed to teach about Depression-era Ybor City, Florida history and
culture titled the Turkey Maiden Educational Computer Game (Underberg, 2008). The area is
known for its historic cigar industry and Latin immigrant population. The game itself is based
on a Spanish folktale collected from Ybor City, Florida and was adapted into a video game
mod using the popular Role Playing Game (RPG) Neverwinter Nights.

29. http://vimeo.com/25901467http://publicvr.org/

30. unity
http://vimeo.com/10837812
http://paulbourke.net/miscellaneous/do
memirror/iDome/

31. http://www.fhw.gr/choros/miletus/360vr/en/

32. http://orbis.stanford.edu/#
http://mashable.com/2012/04/26/anthropocene-video/

33. http://search.theeuropeanlibrary.org/portal/en/index.html

34. Videoconference with
Second Life characters via
mixed reality
Thanks to special glasses and magic
trackers virtual characters can appear
in real worlds or vice versa. This is not
expensive or difficult to do. These
characters can also use free text to
speech engines and free seemingly
intelligent AI to engage people in
conversations or events.
http://virtual.vtt.fi/virtual/proj2/multi
media/projects/mrconference.html
http://ael.gatech.edu/lab/research/ars
econdlife/using-the-ar-second-life-
client/

35. Work with or train via heritage partners
V-MusT Virtual Museum Transnational Network:an EU FP7-funded
network of excellence that aims to provide the heritage sector with the
tools and support to develop virtual museums that are educational,
enjoyable, long-lasting and easy to maintain.Offers internships, courses
and seminars.

36. Sagas in voice & camera
tracked games
Skyrim game can host
virtual recreations (of
Nordic stories or any
other), the player can
control the avatar, and
issue voice commands
recognised by the game).
Inhabitants can be easily
reprogrammed to share
stories. Trading, praying,
conversing healing etc are
possible, not just violence.
(Bottom picture c/o Eric
Fassbender)

37. Integrating communities /
media
• URBANMEDIASPACE
AARHUS
CLARIN + survey
CAVI +Aalborg VR
Digital ethnography (Odense)> courses
Net Lab and info visualization
LARM tools,+VR+NediMAH
personography
MEDIA SPACE 2016
http://vimeo.com/41688140
31 July 2013 37http://vimeo.com/41688140

38. MY PAST WORK
2001-4 Palenque in
Adobe Atmosphere

39. Integrating culture in the
2nd language curriculum
thru a 3D VRE
Sachiyo Sekiguchi
Faculty of Environmental Information
Keio University
Paul Gruba, Abdul Rahman Al-Asmari
School of Languages and Linguistics
The University of Melbourne
Networked computer technologies have
a strong potential for enhancing second
language (L2) learning in the modern
classroom. Three-Dimensional Virtual
Reality Environments (3D VREs), in
particular, provide features to support
student motivation, socialization and
interaction. These include, for example,
the ability for L2 learners to present as
avatars, build virtual structures and
interact with others in conversational
modes. In this preliminary qualitative
case study, we examine the perception
of culture through online exchanges
between both Japanese and English
learners within the Virtual Babel project.
Critical reflections and an agenda for
further research conclude our paper.
Keywords: culture and technology,
teaching and learning strategies,
learning communities
http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/sydne
y06/proceeding/html_abstracts/56.html

40. 2005 Maltese Rituals UT+Video

41. Mayan City and Xibalba
2006 Unreal Game Engine

42. Surround Projection

43. • University of Queensland, 2006.
• This Interaction Design Honours Course project attempted to create a physical
model that allowed people to select town functions via the movable phicons,
insert them into street intersections in the model, and the display would then
show and rotate the street intersection AND where the function is in the
panoramic photo. The round table could also rotate, and the rotation
controlled the displayed panorama. Presented at CAADRIA 2007.
Lazy Susan hybrid Panorama table

44. EXAMPLES OF CREATIVE DH
Biofeedback cinematic shaders, 2006, 2009, 2011.

45. Biofeedback
emotiv neurosky
45

46. Calligraphy, painting, music and cultural games can be
playfully instructive
Shown at Vsmm2012 conference
Chinese Taoism Touch Screen by Neil Wang and Erik Champion

47. Journey to the West

48. daoism
48
– Daoism (Taoism) is an ancient Chinese combination
of religion, philosophy, and folk beliefs, including
ritual healing. Its different strands of belief date far
back in history. Daoism is deeply entwined with
Chinese culture and history.
– (J. Roberts, Chinese Mythology A to Z. New York: Chelsea House, 2009.)
http://chinablog.cc/2009/10/siyi-four-arts-of-the-chinese-scholar/

49. Touch Screen Taoism

50. Hybrid user input VR
System
•Prototype system
allowing input via
camera tracked
movement of
participant to left,
connected split screen
virtual worlds can be
edited and re-designed
in real-time via smart
tablet by participants at
desk.
•This system shows
short-throw rear
projection.

51. DIGHUMLAB launch
• Rector Lauritz B. Holm-Nielsen
• Danish Minister for Science, Innovation and Higher Education, Morten Østergaard
• Dean of Arts, Aarhus University and Head of DHL Steering Group Mette Thunø
• DIGHUMLAB 1: Professor Bente Maegaard: Language Tools and CLARIN
• DIGHUMLAB 2: Professors Niels Ole Finnemann & Niels Brügger: NetLab
• DIGHUMLAB 3: Professor Johannes Wagner: Interaction and Design Studies
• Sally Chambers, Secretary General, DARIAH-EU Coordination Office
• Steven Krauwer, Executive Director, CLARIN ERIC
• Professor Patrik Svensson, HUMlab, Umeå University
• Professor Lorna Hughes, University of Wales
• Associate Professor Palmyre Pierroux, InterMedia, University of Oslo
• Professor Lily Díaz-Kommonen, Media Lab, Aalto University
• Erik Champion echa@adm.au.dk
51
http://dighumlab.dk