“Making Publics 2.0: Humanities Data Linked Through a Topical Repository”
Eun Park, Qing Zou, Matthew Milner, McGill University
Three researchers from McGill talked about their work converting a concluded digital humanities project into a topical repository using a linked data approach. Their goal is to create a viable model for sharable humanities data much like one sees in the sciences. Highlights:
- Use RDF and linked data concepts to described humanities data in a subject > verb > object format, providing links to other concepts where appropriate
- Tracked agents, places, and artifacts over time using a “Networked Event Model” that focuses on events as the basic unit of social interaction
- Matthew Milnew suggested that creating humanities datasets and collaborating with LIS provides an opportunity for humanities scholars to think about the types of research artifacts they can produce. Is prose the only way forward for humanities research, or could datasets also become a product of research?