Two types of digital humanities projects seem to have been identified during discussion sessions at today’s THATCamp CAA 2013. In the session “The Digital Art History Portal” there was a call for a way to standardize, catalog and create a sustainable environment for digital art history projects to be peer reviewed and publicized. However, in an earlier session focused more on how students can make use of digital tools, the discussion focused on the flexibility and experimental nature of these types of projects.
Therefore, is there a need for support for these two types of uses simultaneously? Projects which are more collaborative and provide opportunities for testing and experimentation – providing alternatives to how we currently think of lectures and papers presented at conferences, and those which allow students and more established scholars to create “publishable” products. Both need a place to “live” and a community to ensure their future.
Nevertheless, projects which are considered more final, in line with how we now think of dissertations and books, do require more work in order to create a standard procedure for peer review that could give additional weight to students, recent Ph.D.s, or established scholars’ credentials.
Should we be thinking about distinct forums for these two modes of digital projects or do we need to find a way to put them both under the same umbrella?
Sara Ickow, Graduate student, Institute of Fine Arts
