Digital Humanities Conference

This is a scratchpad for ideas about a potential conference to take place in 2016 or later. None of the details have been fixed yet. Optimistically, this could be done in 2016, but it might take longer to come about.

We are already organising a conference about Wikimedia projects and science but there is just as much benefit to Wikimedia in working with Humanities academics.

Rationale

Who is this for?

People who feed text into a computer to learn things from it.

What are the intended outcomes?

• Greater awareness of, and use of, Wikimedia platforms - such as Wikisource, Wiktionary, Wikipedia, the Wikimedia Research Portal - among researchers. This relates to both the process of research (e.g. checking and coding text) and to engagement and impact (getting the most value out of research already published).
• Greater use of open-access humanities materials on the Wikimedia projects.
• Sharing, creation, or improvement of tools that do interesting things with text.
• Discussion of open access and free knowledge, and the benefits they offer to the humanities.

Potential venues/ partner organisations

Like the science conference, this can only realistically happen with the support of a partner organisation.

• British Library (has a long-standing working relationship with Wikimedia UK; has previously hosted GLAM-WIKI conference)
• Bodleian Libraries (have a Wikimedian In Residence; have a lecture theatre and a couple of meeting rooms)
• Humanities Research Institute, University of Sheffield (has a small but very nice conference facility which has hosted a Wikimedia workshop)

Potential contributors

Note: these people have not necessarily been approach or confirmed. This is more like a "fantasy football" team of speakers.

• Marc Bogonovich, Openwords
• British Library Labs (Mahendra Mahey and Ben O'Steen) - also connected to a community of academics and research groups
• Martin Paul Eve, Birkbeck and Open Library of Humanities (previous speaker at Wiki Conference UK)
• Kathryn Eccles, Oxford University's Digital Humanities Champion (Martin will meet)
• Jisc Collections (past contacts due to Martin P's stint as Jisc Wikimedia Ambassador)
• Cambridge Digital Humanities Network (have hosted Wikipedian editathons in past)
• Alannah Fitzgerald, Durham University (open access/ open education academic who has previous spoken at EduWiki and has done textual research using Wikipedia as corpus)
• Brian Hole, UCL and Ubiquity Press (took part in a Jisc panel on Open Access publishing)
• Rupert Gatti, Cambridge University and Open Book Publishers (took part in a Jisc panel on Open Access publishing)
• Humphrey Southall, University of Portsmouth on geography and geodata/ making use of old census documents
• Wellcome Library for medical humanities connection?
• Ally Crockford for medical humanities & Wikipedia