The document summarizes the activities of the NeDiMAH Space and Time (STWG) working group. The STWG examines digital methods for analyzing space and time in the humanities. It has held three workshops focusing on topics like modeling networks over space and time. The workshops involved presentations and discussions around challenges of working with spatial and temporal data as well as how digital tools can help address issues around dynamics, change, and complexity in humanities research.

1. The NeDiMAH workgroup on
Space and Time
Daniel Alves, IHC-FCSH, New University of Lisbon
DHLU Symposium 2013 in Luxembourg, 5-6 December 2013

2. NeDiMAH
• Objectives and structure:
• Examine the practice of digital methods in the arts and
humanities across Europe.
• Networking and interdisciplinary exchange of expertise.
• Network organized in a series of thematic Working Groups.
• Connections to national and international infrastructure
initiatives such as DARIAH
• Expected outputs:
• A map of ICT methodological commons; ICT Methods
Ontology; a collaborative forum for the European Digital
Humanities
DHLU Symposium 2013 in Luxembourg, 5-6 December 2013

3. NeDiMAH
• Coordination:
• Lorna Hughes (Chair)
• Susan Schreibman (Co-chair)
• Fotis Jannidis (Co-chair)
• Lloyd Roderick (Scientific Co-ordinator)
• Andrew Cusworth (Scientific Co-ordinator)
• Steering Committee:
• One representative from each national funding
agency + chairs of each working group
DHLU Symposium 2013 in Luxembourg, 5-6 December 2013

4. NeDiMAH
• 16 ESF Member Countries support the
NeDiMAH programme:
• Bulgaria, Republic of Croatia, Denmark,
Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland,
Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal,
Romania, Sweden, Switzerland, and United
Kingdom
DHLU Symposium 2013 in Luxembourg, 5-6 December 2013

5. NeDiMAH
• 6 Working Groups:
• Space & Time
• Information Visualisation
• Linked Data & Ontological Methods
• Building & Developing Collections of Digital Data for
Research
• Using Large-Scale Text Collections for Research
• Scholarly Digital Editions
• 2 Cross-team Groups:
• Development of the ICT Methods Taxonomy
• Impact of ICT Research Methods on Scholarly Publishing
DHLU Symposium 2013 in Luxembourg, 5-6 December 2013

6. NeDiMAH
• The working groups are responsible for:
• Investigating the use of the methods and
gathering information about specific projects
that use those methods around Europe
• Analysis of current practice
• Modelling ways in which the methods can be
applied across the disciplines in scholarly
practice
DHLU Symposium 2013 in Luxembourg, 5-6 December 2013

7. “Space & Time” workgroup
• Questions:
• Space and Time as cross-cutting concepts
• Geospatial technologies and methods for temporal analysis
• Several digital approaches to these concepts and methods
• Several available tools
• Activities:
• Workshops
– Current trends in the field
– Methods and tools
– Gaps and problems
– Collaboration and interdisciplinary
DHLU Symposium 2013 in Luxembourg, 5-6 December 2013

8. “Space & Time” workgroup
• People:
• Daniel Alves, New University of Lisbon, Portugal
• Jens Andresen, University of Aarhus, Denmark
• Shawn Day, University College Cork, Ireland
• Øyvind Eide, University of Oslo, Norway
• Eero Hyvönen, Aalto University, Finland
• Leif Isaksen, University of Southampton, United
Kingdom (Chair)
• Eetu Mäkelä, Aalto University, Finland
DHLU Symposium 2013 in Luxembourg, 5-6 December 2013

9. STWG first workshop
• “Place, Period, Event: Entity-based
approaches to Space and Time”
• London, 30 November 2011
• 9 presentations
• 48 participants
• 3 sessions (place, period, event)
• Discussion sessions
DHLU Symposium 2013 in Luxembourg, 5-6 December 2013

10. STWG first workshop
• Results:
• Methods and technologies now firmly established
as ‘best practice’
• Gazeetters, thesauri and ontologies
• Discussions about gaps and future needs
• Adoption of methods and tools remain sparse
• Need for further consolidation and definition
• Need for better connection with mainstream
technologies
DHLU Symposium 2013 in Luxembourg, 5-6 December 2013

11. STWG second workshop
• “Here and There, Then and Now – Modelling
Space and Time in the Humanities”
• Pre-Conference workshop at the Digital
Humanities Conference in Hamburg, 17 July 2012
• 8 presentations
• 65 participants
• 2 sessions (theory and tools)
• 4 discussion sessions (theory, methods, tools and
infrastructures)
DHLU Symposium 2013 in Luxembourg, 5-6 December 2013

12. STWG second workshop
• Results:
• Uses of tools designed for non‐humanities research
• Literacy about tools / Critical use of tools
• Methods as a bridge between different experts and humanists
• Relevance of APIs (Application programming interface)
• Need for more explorations of space and time represented in
texts, audio, and video
• Stimulate the adoption of standards
• Need for greater Open Access within our domain
• Better ways of representing uncertainty and ambiguity
DHLU Symposium 2013 in Luxembourg, 5-6 December 2013

13. STWG third workshop
• “Networks over space and time: modelling,
analyzing, and representing complex data in
the digital humanities”
• Lisbon, 8 November 2013
• 8 presentations
• 68 participants
• 4 sessions (transports, social, models, theory)
• Discussions between sessions
DHLU Symposium 2013 in Luxembourg, 5-6 December 2013

14. STWG third workshop
• Transports and social networks:
• Questions about concepts: predictability, speed,
accessibility, cost, and timing
• Questions about different methods: raster vs.
Vector approaches
• Questions about data: not always available in
large scale and the need to use generalizations
• Social distances vs. Spatial distances
• Issues about visualizations and the “black box”
effect
DHLU Symposium 2013 in Luxembourg, 5-6 December 2013

15. STWG third workshop
• Network models and theory:
• Again the discussion about alternative ways of measuring
distances
• Need for the evaluation of different models, before starting
the analysis
• Discussions on concepts of complexity, emergence and self-organization
• Micro and macro levels in networks
• Networks visualizations as ways to deal with data issues
and to raise new research questions
• Challenges in network visualization: network size; variation
over time; spatial analysis; dynamic networks and problems
with visualizations
DHLU Symposium 2013 in Luxembourg, 5-6 December 2013

16. STWG third workshop
• Results:
• Dynamics and change were important subjects in several
presentations and in the discussions
• Need for proper dynamics to capture and analyze the
temporal data
• Discussions about the role and limitations of GIS for this type
of analysis
• Importance of Open Data and the challenges it represents
• Better connection between visualisations and the source data
• Need for more network modelling
• Need to test robustness of data
DHLU Symposium 2013 in Luxembourg, 5-6 December 2013

17. Thank you!
• Email: alves.r.daniel@gmail.com
• Twitter: @DanielAlvesFCSH