Interdisciplinary
Research
and Informatics
Scholarship Center
The IRIS Center and a Digital
Humanities & Social Sciences Minor
SIUE Faculty
Development Committee
Symposium
August 18, 2011
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What is Informatics Scholarship
in the Humanities and Social
Sciences?
• An innovative methodology for analyzing and presenting
research
• Peer-reviewed scholarship for the web or other digital
media/outputs
• Involves the creation of dynamic scholarly archives or the
development of new digital tools for analyzing languages,
literature, images, spaces, and/or periods
• Projects are on-going and evolve as editors add additional
primary source materials or new tools
• Far beyond just a ‘web-page’, Informatics Scholarship reinvents the humanities & social sciences through digital media
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Archival Projects
3
Data Visualization
4
Data Preservation & Archive
5
Extensive Collaborations
6
The Necessity of Collaborative Effort
in Digital Production
7
Why Do Instructors and Students
Need Informatics?
• A need for scholarly, open-source resources
• Entrance into conversations about web sustainability
and the world’s library
• The crisis in academic publishing
• The rise of interdisciplinary collaboration
8
Digital Research and
the Institution
• Digital research centers are now a mainstay at most
Research I institutions, offering technical support,
interdisciplinary networking, and grant guidance to faculty
• Programs at the University of Illinois, the University of
Maryland, and the University of Nebraska grant postgraduate certificates and/or Ph.D.s in digital research
• However, comparatively little has been done to foster
undergraduate participation in these projects and outputs,
which according to Jerome McGann is a necessary step
for ensuring their future sustainability
9
The IRIS Center at SIUE
• Our new facility is located in Peck 0226
• We offer small group conferencing and
research assistant work-space
• We also offer state-of-the-art & regularly
evolving computing facilities
• We have the capabilities to host specialized
software and hardware needs
• We also can procure and host equipment for
born-digital video, audio and imaging needs
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IRIS Center Services
• We offer programming & equipment maintenance
& training expertise
• We also offer customizable faculty & student
training opportunities
• We will provide grant application & management
support (particularly for projects with digital
applications/approaches)
• We also will provide opportunities for faculty
networking & collaboration on grant applications
& management in digital dimensions
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Current Student-Faculty Collaborative
Projects at SIUE
• Jessica DeSpain (English Language & Literature)
• Kristine Hildebrandt & Larry LaFond (ELL: Linguistics)
• Cory Willmott (Anthropology)
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An Interdisciplinary Minor in
Humanities & Social Sciences
at SIUE
One well-promoted characteristic of SIUE is its quality
education offered to undergraduates
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Undergraduate Education
in the 21st Century
• Most students we currently encounter at SIUE are
working towards a degree to apply in non-academic
professional contexts
• According to Cathy Davidson (head of HASTAC, Duke
University), it is increasingly important for such students
to have opportunities to take generalist concepts & apply
them in collaborative, technologically-assisted
environments that let them move from idea to
implementation
• However, nobody can actually ‘teach’ this; it is applied, it
is student-centered
14
A Strange Irony
• Collaboration is strongly promoted in early childhood
education, but in higher education, particularly in the
Humanities & Social Sciences (HSS), methods
emphasizing the individual are overwhelmingly the
focus of instruction and assessment
• At the same time, a new education model is now
emerging: The Apprenticeship Model
• This model is inherently applied, and at its very
foundation involves active student engagement in
project conceptualization, design, publication/release
and evaluation
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Ideally
A well-rounded undergraduate education involves an interactive &
reciprocal relationship across disciplines
traditional
“humanities”
historical analysis
close text readings
traditional
“social sciences”
ethnographic
methods
quantitative analysis
traditional
“bio-sciences”
analytical skills
elemental interactions
lab management
• Additionally, it grounds these interdisciplinary skills in
contemporary digital advancements
• As such, application, active engagement, and innovation are part
of the degree programs themselves
• We see this minor as embracing these goals and practices
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IRIS and an Interdisciplinary
Minor at SIUE
• Created to foster the meaningful involvement
of faculty & undergraduate students in:
• Digital-research project management & design
• Collaborative project conceptualization, work
& discovery
• Collaborative output evaluation
• Collective objectives which also allow for
individual achievement
• Reciprocal skills training
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A Working Model:
The Humanities Digital Workshop
This collaborative faculty-student relationship is already proving to
be successful at Washington University in St. Louis
A key characteristic: many projects are staffed by students
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What Roles Can Students Play at
IRIS and in This Minor?
• Researcher Roles
– the senior assignment, particularly in cross-disciplinary
applications
• Staffing Roles
– research assistants, software research & development, fresh
thinking in pre- and mid-granting phases
• Data Management
– TEI, relational databasing, audio-visual manipulation,
transformation & archiving
• Software Development
– project-born software, existing software applications in new
dimensions
• Peer Apprenticeship Roles
– student-student training opportunities
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What Can Students Learn
Through Such a Minor?
• TEI & metadata techniques for archiving & web programming
• Image digitization for different formats & outputs
• A-V capture, editing & digitization for different formats &
outputs
• Cross-disciplinary applications (through collaboration with
LASA & IUS, for example)
• Web 2.0 incorporation into degree specializations (facebook,
twitter, texting, etc.)
• Critical thinking about the theoretical & philosophical
implications of technology
• Best practices for web research and presentation
• Writing for the web
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What Might Such a Minor Look
Like at SIUE?
• We are in the initial phase of interacting with
individual programs & their chairs to assess existing
course relevance to IRIS initiatives
• e.g. GEOG 402 Cultural Landscapes (Professor G.
Acheson)
• We are also working with faculty across disciplines to
create new courses that embed IRIS methods &
initiatives into degree-specific topics and objectives
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What Might Such a Minor Look
Like at SIUE?
• We will create new IS and NFS courses in Applied
Informatics (planned launch date of 2013) to attract
newer undergraduate populations to the minor, or to
consider these applications in their planned majors
• We will create a culminating (‘mini-capstone
experience’) internship for minors, where they may
partner SIUE-internally or with an approved
community or corporate resource (e.g. Watershed
Nature Center in Edwardsville, local public libraries,
Missouri Historical Museum, etc.) towards digital
innovations
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How Do Faculty Benefit From
Such A Model and this Minor?
• IRIS is a ‘third space’ where digital projects can be planned &
developed via collaborative faculty-student interaction
• This promotes the teaching of degree specializations using
innovative approaches & materials--they are procured, housed,
supported & maintained by knowledgeable staff
• Students move from being passive ‘end users’ of innovative
technology towards becoming active, informed agents in their
creation & evolution
• IRIS is a solution to the ‘(digital) silo’ problem found in many
mid-sized state funded universities
• IRIS is also an ideal space for the conceptualization &
implementation of innovative and exciting senior projects
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Current Issues and Plans
• Convincing faculty of the benefits of “the undergraduate
student as R.A.”
• Our ongoing staffing need in IRIS (and creative solutions
to this)
• Development of an interdisciplinary senior assignment
program in conjunction with CAS departments
• The development of a post-bachelors certificate in Applied
Informatics
• General outreach to faculty and departments--IRIS is a
valuable resource searching for users!
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