Any DH project has three major components: materials, processing, and presentation.
- Materials have to be put into digital* formats so that they are computationally** controllable. This requires the digitalisation of (or creation of born-digital) materials and will have implications for intellectual property, access, sustainability, and use. In Drucker's words, they way in which materials become digital matters.
- Processing in DH are the computational methods and tools used to process the materials.
- Presentation often makes use of online platforms like blogs, websites on tools like Wordpress, or on Omeka S. Design decisions like graphic styling affect how research is received and require work and skill.
Digital methods can be learned gradually and build in complexity. Our training calendar or custom training opportunities can provide assistance. Also see our guidance on creating a digital collection/exhibition on Omeka S.
Then there are the activities fundamental to the design and implementation of DH research. These activities make it possible for automated algorithmic processes to work with humanistic artefacts in digital format.
- Mediation/remediation involves making analog materials, e.g., maps or manuscripts, available in digital format or creating born-digital materials. This creates information in a file format that a computer can process. DH projects often make use of both analog and born-digital materials.
- Datafication/modeling is the process of turning material into quantifiable and/or discrete data. This depends on modeling: what are the assumptions that are built into deciding what can be extracted from the materials, e.g., text or an artefact? What terms can be used to represent or describe a research object? Data modeling plays an important role in the intersection of values and biases and the interpretative work central to the humanities in dialogue with technological methods.
- Processing/analytics involves the automation of counting, sorting, or analysing through computational processing.
- Presentation/display of results are often found in digital format, sometimes online as visualisations, maps, diagrams, stories, articles, or exhibits, and sometimes in analog or hybrid formats. Interface design embodies decisions about what is important in the results and what is not.
- Sustainability/preservation must be taken into account during the planning and design stages of the research project, e.g., the amount of resources and expertise needed, or the intellectual property involved, as well as privacy and other regulations in sharing and preserving research results. Digital projects are usually costly to produce and maintain. Read more about digital preservation.
DH projects can be as simple as a set of files stored in a database of file structure where it can be accessed by a user interface like a browser. It can be more complex and involved a network of repositories of materials that can be analysed with algorithms and AI engines that index terms, code and data. Creating a DH research project starts much like any other research project. Here is a quick checklist:
- Define your research question.
- List the materials to which you have access and describe their current format.
- Assess the intellectual property, privacy, and ethical issues for these materials.
- Determine which aspects of your research will lend themselves to quantitative and which to qualitative processes.
- Decide what digital formats will aid your research, e.g., scanning or imaging.
- Develop a workflow.
- Figure out what skills and tasks you can do yourself and where you will need training or assistance.
- Develop a work plan and budget with a realistic timeline.
*Digital refers to information in binary form.
** Computational refers to processes performed by algorithms.
