A LITTLE BIT ABOUT ME
• Part time EdD (Doctorate in Education) online student
at the Open University
• Historian by training (but from Political Science)
• Teaching online “Online Research Methodologies” to
Undergraduate students at the University of Turin
• Mum
Historia: so that the actions of people will not
fade with time.
Herodotus, Histories (ca 430 BC)
HISTORIAN OF THE FUTURE
Historians study the past through sources (books, documents,
artefacts, monuments), write down what they find in discursive
form, narrate it to the public.
The Web provides increased access to sources, better
opportunities for collaboration in research and publication of
outcomes, diversified strategies and tools for teaching
What are digital historians doing and what are they thinking?
In a certain sense all men are historians.
Thomas Carlyle, Essays: On History
My research
1.
2.
3.
4.
Interviews with digital historians
Grounded Theory methodology
Initial findings
Open issues
1. INTERVIEWS WITH DIGITAL HISTORIANS
• 8 digital scholars/digital humanists in Italy
• 4 digital scholars/digital humanists in the UK
• Comparative perspective
• Interviews are conducted online or (in rare cases) in
person
• Data are anonymous (they are connected with what
they do online) – concepts, not testimony
• Interviews are conducted in the mother tongue of the
interviewee – what is lost in translation?
2. (CLASSICAL) GROUNDED THEORY
• Qualitative social science methodology, very popular in health and
education research, practitioner research
• No grand theories of great men but my own – Empowerment
Fundamentals
Theoretical sampling
All is data
Constant comparison
Emergence - saturation
Literature review is secondary
As far as I know no historian uses CGT
3. INITIAL FINDINGS - ITALY
• Passion – desire to make stuff - fun
• Non conventional scholars (Political science, librarians, amateursappassionati, independent researchers) - Pioneers
• Non supportive environment – no career rewards
• No critical mass
• Skipped the middle phase
but also
• Dialogue with non historians
• Different view of the role of the historian in society
History is also a social science – role of theory
3. INITIAL FINDINGS - UK
• Long history (this is why we need to tell it!) – Association for history
computing – support network
• Mainstream – mature stage – publish work ON DH
• Pressure from above and below
• Rewards not embedded
• Historians are much more publicly engaged to start with
• Digital History and Digital Humanities
3. INITIAL FINDINGS – general/common concepts
• Not all digital tools imply a shift in paradigm (e.g. online
sources)
• Raw vs cooked Digital History
• The discipline is very conservative (why?)
• Training the future generations of historians is linked to
their employability
• Showing impact should be easy, or is it?
• Do we care about impact, are we responsible for that?
• Publication: historical writing and dissemination is open
to non academic (even amateur) historians.
4. OPEN ISSUES
• Relationship between Digital History and Digital
Humanities
• What is real innovation in Digital History
• How do we breach the gap
• How do we train the future generations of historians
• Disciplinary-specific advantages: Public History, Oral
History, Contemporary History