SSHOC Kick-Off Meeting. Utrecht, The Netherlands, 11-12 March 2019 SSHOC: Where Researchers (and their Research Infrastructures) Meet - Jennifer Edmond - DARIAH-EU

1. SSHOC: Where Researchers (and their
Research Infrastructures) Meet
Jennifer Edmond
President, Board of Directors
DARIAH-EU

2. Source:https://www.ddialliance.org/training/why-use-ddi
Research Processes as Complex Human Processes

3. A Scientific Use Case
- Example: Did people lie about loans in 17th C Ireland
after the records of them were lost? (400 yrs. of fake
news?)
- Digital records (of different types) and analogue ones (in
different places) required
- Challenges of language (handwriting, orthographic
variations) and culture (place of an oath)
- Layers of earlier interpretation (errors) to be parsed,
from translation to registration to interpretation
- Research methods based on corroboration rather than
proof, reduction rather than resolution of uncertainty

4. Current Challenges
- Shared ownership of cultural data with archives,
libraries, publishers and people
- Research landscape is inherently hybrid
- Small number of corpora truly able to support fully
data driven approaches
- Social risk inherent in not addressing this
- Research material can be very complex, embodying
earlier (flawed) interpretations and always requiring rich
context to be usable
- Lack of recognition among researchers of the breadth
of what can be included and should be shared as ‘data’

5. EOSC Requirements (for ‘H’)
- Need to ensure the publishers and memory institutions are a
central part of the EOSC
- Rich context and full provenance information must be
maintained
- Focus on ‘comparative legibility,’ not just interoperability
- Place for community validation, importance of the peer-to-peer
level for verification
- References out to the standards used and skills needed to
reuse
- Ability to reflect what is digital, what is digitally registered (ie. in
finding aids), and what is analogue (how to expose what is
hidden?)

6. From Specific
to Generic?

7. Cluster Opportunities (for SSH
and Beyond)
- Ensure we build upon the similarities
between disciplines and domains to
protect the diversity of approaches
- Realise Commissioner Moedas’ vision
of a ‘New Republic of Letters.’