DIGITAL HUMANITIES
1. INTRODUCTION AND DIGITAL HUMANITIES OVERVIEW
WHAT IS DIGITAL HUMANITIES?
- Intersection of computational methods and humanities materials
- Research materials can be analog or born digital
- What you can do in humanities disciplines with digital techniques!
- Tries to answer the question: how to live with computers/AI in the humanities disciplines?
What elds are there in Humanities ?
- History
- Philosophy
- Literature
- Language
- Linguistics
- Anthropology
- Art history
Digital humanities is a challenging eld because of its interdisciplinarity, and you work with
humans.
Humanities disciplines have certain questions/
inquiry’s. Digital realm has the tools to give an answer!
We live in an age where all disciplines use digital
techniques
Digital humanities is a relatively new eld!
Started with languages and texts (understanding literature)
There is a misconception that digital humanities are mainly about
tools and computational methods related to texts
—> THIS IS NOT TRUE
Digital humanities is about texts but is not just about texts!
MAIN COMPONENTS OF DIGITAL HUMANITIES
materials + processing + presentation
- Materials = this includes a variety of digital resources (texts, maps,…) wich are central to the
research project
- Processing= the materials undergo computational processing (data mining, statistical
analysis,…)
- Presentation= processed data is then organised into a presentation format, tailored to the
needs and goals of the project.
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,2. METADATA AND MARKUP
INTRODUCTION
Metadata = describes data/content and is a type of data
There is a blurry line between data and metadata!
Metadata can reveal signi cant information:
- Who created or accessed the data
- When and where it was created and modi ed
- Relationship between pieces of data
GDPR = General Data Protection Regulation = data protection law!
Metadata is considered personal data so GDPR is very serious about the protection of this data.
WHAT IS METADATA?
Think of it as the information about a resource or digital
asset
The text in the textbook is data
The size of the le , the format,… is metadata
Without metadata, information would be like books
without covers, title pages, labels,…
Data = the content
Metadata = description/labels
In excel the metadata would be the eldnames and
data would be the content in the tables
If the line between metadata and data is so blurry, why even care?
—> because we have the power to create our own metadata, and that way we can create
additional information about something!
Metadata is not always digital!
—> think of labels in library’s! (Library labels on the shelves)
Analog metadata = annotations / marginalia
Annotations are notes o additions to a text that provide more information context or clari cation
MARKUP
What is markup?
—> consists of sets of codes, like texts embedded in the content,
and is used to structure and de ne the content within documents
(eg: texts, images, videos,…)
—> these tags facilitate the processing, de nition and
presentation of documents making it possible for machines to
understand the documents structure and semantics.
—> markup codes are written in markup languages like XML or
HTML
fi fi fi fi fi fi fi
, - Markup refers to embedded metadata within digital content
- Annotation refers to additional descriptive metadata that is often added externally, such as
comments.
- Tag is a common term in daily language often used in social media to refer to metadata labels.
DIGITAL METADATA MATTERS
We often use it to make digital resources: FAIR
Findable
Accesible
= FAIR
Interoperable
Reusable
We sometimes call metadata MARKUP (if embedded in content)
We sometimes call metadata ANNOTATION (in daily language, “tag”)
Why does metadata matter?
- Trough digital metadata we can aggregate digital content hosted in di erent digital and physical
places.
- Digital metadata helps make digital content ndable
- It can also make us CAREful about digital content
- We can train AI models with it and make those models more intelligent about certain domain)
CARE PRINCIPLES
= recognising the right of local and indigenous
people
You have to take ethics in account
Its about the politics of digitisation
WHAT CONSTITUTES GOOD METADATA
—> Good metadata describes the data it is supposed to describe well, good descriptions are
often long and comprehensive
—> Good metadata like all good data is FAIR, making data FAIR often means structuring and
making it short!
=> tension to describe because it has to be a good descriptions, but also needs to be FAIR!
Why is there tension here and why is it di cult to create good metadata?
Good descriptions are often long and comprehensive. (Eg: a book about your life with all details is
a good description, but to long. To make things FAIR en quickly accessible, metadata needs to be
a certain size).
ffi fi ff
1. INTRODUCTION AND DIGITAL HUMANITIES OVERVIEW
WHAT IS DIGITAL HUMANITIES?
- Intersection of computational methods and humanities materials
- Research materials can be analog or born digital
- What you can do in humanities disciplines with digital techniques!
- Tries to answer the question: how to live with computers/AI in the humanities disciplines?
What elds are there in Humanities ?
- History
- Philosophy
- Literature
- Language
- Linguistics
- Anthropology
- Art history
Digital humanities is a challenging eld because of its interdisciplinarity, and you work with
humans.
Humanities disciplines have certain questions/
inquiry’s. Digital realm has the tools to give an answer!
We live in an age where all disciplines use digital
techniques
Digital humanities is a relatively new eld!
Started with languages and texts (understanding literature)
There is a misconception that digital humanities are mainly about
tools and computational methods related to texts
—> THIS IS NOT TRUE
Digital humanities is about texts but is not just about texts!
MAIN COMPONENTS OF DIGITAL HUMANITIES
materials + processing + presentation
- Materials = this includes a variety of digital resources (texts, maps,…) wich are central to the
research project
- Processing= the materials undergo computational processing (data mining, statistical
analysis,…)
- Presentation= processed data is then organised into a presentation format, tailored to the
needs and goals of the project.
fi fi fi
,2. METADATA AND MARKUP
INTRODUCTION
Metadata = describes data/content and is a type of data
There is a blurry line between data and metadata!
Metadata can reveal signi cant information:
- Who created or accessed the data
- When and where it was created and modi ed
- Relationship between pieces of data
GDPR = General Data Protection Regulation = data protection law!
Metadata is considered personal data so GDPR is very serious about the protection of this data.
WHAT IS METADATA?
Think of it as the information about a resource or digital
asset
The text in the textbook is data
The size of the le , the format,… is metadata
Without metadata, information would be like books
without covers, title pages, labels,…
Data = the content
Metadata = description/labels
In excel the metadata would be the eldnames and
data would be the content in the tables
If the line between metadata and data is so blurry, why even care?
—> because we have the power to create our own metadata, and that way we can create
additional information about something!
Metadata is not always digital!
—> think of labels in library’s! (Library labels on the shelves)
Analog metadata = annotations / marginalia
Annotations are notes o additions to a text that provide more information context or clari cation
MARKUP
What is markup?
—> consists of sets of codes, like texts embedded in the content,
and is used to structure and de ne the content within documents
(eg: texts, images, videos,…)
—> these tags facilitate the processing, de nition and
presentation of documents making it possible for machines to
understand the documents structure and semantics.
—> markup codes are written in markup languages like XML or
HTML
fi fi fi fi fi fi fi
, - Markup refers to embedded metadata within digital content
- Annotation refers to additional descriptive metadata that is often added externally, such as
comments.
- Tag is a common term in daily language often used in social media to refer to metadata labels.
DIGITAL METADATA MATTERS
We often use it to make digital resources: FAIR
Findable
Accesible
= FAIR
Interoperable
Reusable
We sometimes call metadata MARKUP (if embedded in content)
We sometimes call metadata ANNOTATION (in daily language, “tag”)
Why does metadata matter?
- Trough digital metadata we can aggregate digital content hosted in di erent digital and physical
places.
- Digital metadata helps make digital content ndable
- It can also make us CAREful about digital content
- We can train AI models with it and make those models more intelligent about certain domain)
CARE PRINCIPLES
= recognising the right of local and indigenous
people
You have to take ethics in account
Its about the politics of digitisation
WHAT CONSTITUTES GOOD METADATA
—> Good metadata describes the data it is supposed to describe well, good descriptions are
often long and comprehensive
—> Good metadata like all good data is FAIR, making data FAIR often means structuring and
making it short!
=> tension to describe because it has to be a good descriptions, but also needs to be FAIR!
Why is there tension here and why is it di cult to create good metadata?
Good descriptions are often long and comprehensive. (Eg: a book about your life with all details is
a good description, but to long. To make things FAIR en quickly accessible, metadata needs to be
a certain size).
ffi fi ff
