Rethinking scholarly and editorial practices for born-digital data

Details

This project explores innovative editorial and publishing approaches and best practices related to born-digital materials. Born-digital materials, such as such as social media content, electronic literature, virtual worlds, sound and video recordings etc., pose a new set of challenges as opposed to more traditional analogue sources, due to their often large scale, multimodality, interconnectivity, and due to intrinsic issues of durability and authenticity. Traditional methods and standards used to create digital editions and archives of analogue cultural sources are inadequate to fully grasp the complexity of born-digital cultural data, necessitating new data standards and frameworks. This research therefore aims to investigate, experiment and ultimately propose, through theoretical reflections and practical case studies, appropriate, feasible and replicable methodologies to edit and publish born-digital materials. 

Successful candidates will have interests and background in born-digital data, digital editing and publishing, or will be able to show how their experience and expertise aligns with the project.

About the supervisor

Isabella is a Lecturer in Digital Humanities in the Digital Humanities Institute (DHI), with a particular research focus on the intersection between digital philology and digital editing, text and data analysis, cultural analytics, digital archives, mediaeval and early modern studies, mercantile and transcultural mediaeval cultures. To find out more about Isabella's research interests and publications, please visit her University staff profile. 

We would advise that you get in touch with Isabella directly (via i.magni@sheffield.ac.uk) to outline your proposed research proposal. This will allow us to ensure that your application is relevant to the DHI, and also that we have suitable expertise to supervise your project. This is the first step in the application process. 

About the Digital Humanities Institute (DHI)

Established in 1994, the DHI’s mission is to support the innovative use of technology and computation within arts, humanities and heritage research as both a method of inquiry and a means of dissemination. Digital culture is everywhere, and it is driven by cultural data.

We collaborate with a wide range of academic and research colleagues, as well as professionals in the heritage, culture and information industries, across the UK and internationally on funded projects with a computational component or digital output. Since the DHI was established, we have delivered over 120 externally funded research projects, collaborated with more than 125 external partners, and received grants from 39 funders.

Our expertise include database development, computational ontologies, natural language processing, computational linguistics, data visualisation and 3D, user-centred design and mobile apps.

In addition to the digital expertise within our institute, you will have access to our diverse range of research expertise across the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, allowing you to explore your research interests in depth, collaborate with a wide range of researchers and gain insight from different perspectives. 

To find out more about the DHI’s research, please visit our DHI research website. 

As a student you will also be part of our supportive research community in the School of History, Philosophy and Digital Humanities. You can find out more about our School and research culture on our School website.