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e-Research in the Arts and Humanities: the A&H e-Science Programme

Stuart Dunn

Centre for e-Research, King’s College London

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What is e-Science?

• "e-Science is about global collaboration in key areas of science and the next generation of

infrastructure that will enable it." - Sir John Taylor, Former Director General of Research Councils, 2000

• “the development and deployment of a networked infrastructure and culture through which resources – (…) – can be shared in a secure environment, and in which new forms of collaboration can emerge, and new and advanced methodologies explored.” (http://www.ahessc.ac.uk/scoping-survey)

- Sheila Anderson, Director, Centre for e-Research, King’s College London, 2007

“[n]ot only [to] provide unprecedented access to a variety of cultural artifacts but also [to] make it possible to see these artifacts in completely new ways … digital technology [that] can offer us new ways of seeing art, new ways of bearing witness to history, new ways of hearing and remembering human languages, new ways of reading texts, ancient and modern.’

- ‘Our Cultural Commonwealth, ACLS, 2006

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1. What is e-Science?

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Arts and Humanities e-Science in the UK

2005: AHRC-JISC e-Science Initiative begins

2006: - AHeSSC begins, hosted by Arts and Humanities Data Service

- EPSRC joins initiative

- 3 small scale demonstrator projects funded by EPSRC

- 6 research workshops funded by AHRC

2007: 7 research projects and 4 PhD studentships announced

- AHDS funding discontinued, KCL’s Centre for e-Research formed

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Arts and Humanities e-Science in the UK - 2006

Workshop projects (AHRC)

• User Requirements Gathering for the Humanities (Professor Alan Bowman, University of Oxford) • Geographical Information System e-Science: developing a roadmap (Dr Paul Ell, Queen’s University Belfast) • Performativity/Place/Space: Locating Grid Technologies (Dr Angela Piccini, University of Bristol )• The Access Grid in Collaborative Arts and Humanities Research (Professor David Shepherd, University of Sheffield) • Building the Wireframe: E-Science for the Arts Infrastructure (Dr Gregory Sporton, University of Central England)• ReACH: Researching e-Science Analysis of Census Holdings (Dr Melissa Terras, University College London)

Demonstrator Projects (EPSRC)

• Virtual Vellum: Online Viewing Environment for the Grid and Live Audiences (Professor PF Ainsworth, University of Sheffield)• A Virtual Workspace for the Study of Ancient Documents (Dr CV Crowther, University of Oxford) • Motion Capture Data Services for Multiple User Categories (Dr SJ Norman, University of Newcastle)

http://www.ahessc.ac.uk/projects

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Arts and Humanities e-Science in the UK - 2007

•Helen Bailey: Relocating Choreographic Process: The impact of Grid technologies and collaborative memory on the documentation of practice-led research in dance

•Alan Bowman: Image, Text, Interpretation: e-Science, Technology and Documents

•Tim Crawford: Purcell Plus: Exploring an eScience Methodology for Musicologists

•Vincent Gaffney: Medieval Warfare on the Grid: The Case of Manzikert

•Sally MacDonald, E-Curator: 3D colour scans for remote object identification and assessment

•Julian Richards, Archaeotools: Data mining, facetted classification and E-archaeology

•monica schraefel, musicSpace: Using and Evaluating e-Science Design Methods and Technologies to Improve Access to Heterogeneous Music Resources for Musicology

http://www.ahessc.ac.uk/research-projects

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E-Dance

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Collaborative real-time performance (University of Central England)

Performativity, Place, Space (Univeristy of Bristol)

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‘e-Curator’ (UCL)

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Research in music and e-science methods (Goldsmiths, Southampton)

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Mapping Doggerland (Birmingham)

> Massive visualization of ‘lost’ landscape

> Employs large-scale High Perfoance Computing infrastructure

> Facilitates effective (re)use of ‘’redundant’ data

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QuickTime™ and aTIFF (LZW) decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

QuickTime™ and aTIFF (LZW) decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

MWGrid: Medieval Warfare on the Grid

(Birmingham)

> Application of Agent-based Modelling (ABM)

> Computationally recreates how individuals (agents) behaved under certain parameters

> But data is patchy … only a ‘best reconstruction’ within error limits

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- Questioning assumptions inherent in ‘traditional research’

E-Research in the A&H

- Enabling A&H scholars to ask new research questions

- Driving technological research agendas with those questions

- Linking A&H with technology enables new kinds of collaboration within and across disciplines

- The digital sphere gives us new ways of linking data

- Making possible new international collaborations

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stuart.dunn@kcl.ac.uk

…and many thanks to Elpiniki!

www.ahessc.ac.ukhttp://www.arts-humanities.net

http://ahds.ac.uk/ictguides