Digital history projects can act as boundary objects that coordinate different incentives and allow participation across disciplines. They bring together researchers with different goals, like tool developers focused on technology, historians interested in research, and others focused on building the tool. While the official goal is to build a new tool for historical research, in reality the tool may not be stable enough for research in the project timeframe. This leads the different communities of practice within a project to shape it individually according to their own needs and incentives. Digital history projects require coordination to manage risks and expectations when incentives do not directly align with the overall goals of the project.

1. Digital History Projects
as Boundary Objects
@MaxKemman
www.maxkemman.nl
University of Luxembourg
DHBenelux, 3-5 July 2017, Utrecht, The Netherlands

2. Incentives for digital history projects
Official incentive: to build a new tool using new
technologies to be used for historical research (in
a new way)
Interviewing participants for individual incentives
(Weedman 1998):
• Reasons for joining the project
• Goals
• Expected effects of participation
2 case studies (10 participants)
3 more projects for comparison (6 participants)

3. The structure of a project
PI/Prof
Computational
researcher
Coordinator
Project team
EngineersPhDs

4. The structure of a project
Methodological interdisciplinarity: Incorporating
methods, concepts, tools from other disciplines
to improve historical research (Klein 2014)
PI/Prof
Computational
researcher
Coordinator
Project team
Historians Computer experts
EngineersPhDs

5. Reasons for joining
PI/Prof
Computational
researcher
Coordinator
Historians
EngineersPhDs
Data providers

6. Goals
PI/Prof
Computational
researcher
Coordinator EngineersPhDs

7. Expected effects of participation
PI/Prof
Computational
researcher
Coordinator
Historians
EngineersPhDs

8. The structure of a project
Communities of Practice (Wenger 1998) beyond
disciplines
PI/Prof
Computational
researcher
Coordinator
Project team
Historians Computer experts
EngineersPhDs

9. Incentives per CoP
Research CoP
“if [the project] fails, it cannot be the case that my thesis
also fails. You can to some extent see it independent of
one another, as I do, so there is a secret clause, if [the
project] fails I just graduate with a historical thesis”
“what he must do is to write a thesis of 5 chapters that are
of [theoretical] value… And there he must just write
conventional stories, narratives. And at the same time he
uses digital means in his research”
PI/Prof
Computational
researcher
Coordinator EngineersPhDs

10. Incentives per CoP
Technology CoP
“the project is basically building an interface where
all this information is presented in a … user-friendly
way, in a good way. That would be the success of
the project. What I'm doing might provide
additional information to this interface from the
original text sources that are not yet structured,
that would be good, but it's not … paramount for
the success of the project”
PI/Prof
Computational
researcher
Coordinator EngineersPhDs

11. Incentives per CoP
Tool CoP
“the investment, the knowledge-building, the
technological know-how, that we’ve developed”
“the idea of the project has always been a proof-
of-concept … and … bring attention to our system
that we can try with them to get continued
funding”
PI/Prof
Computational
researcher
Coordinator EngineersPhDs

12. Incentives for digital history projects
Official incentive: to build a new tool using new
technologies to be used for historical research (in
a new way)
• Tool CoP: tool probably not finished and stable
in time for historical research
• Technology CoP: technology probably not stable
in time for tool
• Research CoP: research does not require the
tool

13. Digital history project as boundary object
“you have a research idea, and you fit that to the call
you’re applying to, and then you get funding … And if
you then hire researchers, yes they too have their own
idea of course, and their own line of research they’re
working on, and they try to fit that in the research
project”
Boundary objects: an object that maintains a
common identity among the different participants,
yet is shaped individually according to disciplinary
needs (Star and Griesemer 1989, Star 2010)

14. Why boundary objects?
Coordination of incentives
“we're supposed to be advising the team developing
the tool. And trying to then carry out research on a
specific case study. And so originally it was like wow
we're going to be able to use the tool, but very quickly
it became clear ok actually probably we're not going to
be able to use the tool”
Beyond disciplines

15. Questions for digital history projects
• Can historians already do big data analysis if all
of the methods are still under development?
• Timing of funding: should PhDs start together
with tool development?
• Risk management: how much risk do we want
to take in digital history projects? Can a project
fail?
• Technology management: can/should digital
history tool development be reduced to smaller
steps?

16. Future research
• Revisiting case studies
• Analysing output of historians in such projects

17. Thank you for
listening
www.maxkemman.nl
@MaxKemman
max.kemman@uni.lu