Humanists and Linked Data (Steffen Hennicke – Humboldt Universität) at Enabling humanities research in the Linked Open Web – DM2E final event (11 December 2014, Navacchio, Italy)

1. Humanists and Linked Data
DM2E – Final Event
Pisa, 11. December 2014
Steffen Hennicke, Kristin Dill, Gerold Tschumpel, Klaus Thoden,
Christian Morbidoni, Alois Pichler
co-funded by the European Union 1

2. Experiments - Engaging Humanists with Pundit
• Investigate how genuine research interests of humanists can be
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operationalized in the particular context of Linked Data and
Pundit.
• Interpretative approaches and Linked Data through annotations
and visualization
12.12.2014 DM2E – Final Event (Pisa)

3. 3
Experiments – Editorial and Archival Sciences
• 15 students (BA) from the
Fachhochschule Potsdam (FHP)
• topic: diplomatic correspondence in
the forefront of the Crisis of July
1914
• data: pre-selected sample of digitized
original correspondences from the
Political Archive of the German
Foreign Ministry
• task: devise and apply editorial
guidelines
11.12.2014 DM2E – Final Event (Pisa)

4. 4
Experiments – Educational History
• 1 trained historian from the Georg-
Eckert-Institute (GEI)
• topic: representations of the nation
and the globalized world in school
books
• data: selected digitized school
books from GEI available through
DM2E
• task: identify topoi and their
connotation in different types of
school books
11.12.2014 DM2E – Final Event (Pisa)

5. 5
Experiments – Visual History / Didactics of History
• 15 BA/MA history students from
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
(UBER)
• topic: learning critical analysis of
digitized historical photographs
• data: students search and selected
their own photographs from the
Web
• task: conduct an analysis of
photographs based on a prepared
vocabulary
11.12.2014 DM2E – Final Event (Pisa)

6. 6
Experiments – Process
• Preparatory Phase
− sequence of several meetings
− conceptual: specifying the topic and approach, devising a
vocabulary for annotation etc.
− technical: in cooperation with Net7, e.g. accessibility of sources
(HTML pages or scraper), bug-fixing of Pundit 2, implementing
the vocabulary, preparing visualization options
• Working Phase
− with two full-day workshops for each use case and work at home
in-between
− introducing Linked Data and Pundit, discussions, annotating,
questionnaire etc.
• Follow-up Meetings
11.12.2014 DM2E – Final Event (Pisa)

7. Experiments – Annotations in Pundit
11.12.2014 DM2E - ALL-WP-6 (Pisa) 7

8. Experiments – Annotations in Ask
11.12.2014 DM2E – Final Event (Pisa) 8

9. Experiments – Some Tentative Results
• Experiments underline the usefulness of the principal approach
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of Pundit and of Linked Data for humanities.
− evidence for applicability in the context of interpretative
approaches in the humanities
• Simple Linked Data annotation vocabularies
− proved to be relatively accessible to humanists
− results can be obtained with relatively low prerequisites
− participants created, understood and applied vocabularies
within a few hours
− support different kinds of research interest
11.12.2014 DM2E – Final Event (Pisa)

10. 1100
Experiments – Some Tentative Results
• The vocabulary as an epistemological tool
− Students (are forced to) reflect on their own work
process because of the explicitness of the vocabulary.
− Teachers have a pedagogical tool for communicating
theoretical and practical representations of methods.
− The vocabulary provides a common basis for
discussion about the method and interpretation
process.
11.12.2014 DM2E – Final Event (Pisa)

11. 1111
Experiments
• Scholarly Activities are determined by the Social Context
− authority, trust, legal issues
• Can I annotate this text or image? Who owns the triple?
Can I download my annotations?
− provenance and citation of triples and resources
• authorship and reputation: Who created the triple? Who
checks the quality of annotations?
• selective sharing of “factual” statements vs.
“interpretative” statements (the intellectual work /
outcome): Sharing what with whom?
• “composite triples”: Who’s work is it?
11.12.2014 DM2E – Final Event (Pisa)