I spent most of the time at the workshop I went to thinking about how marvelous the collaboration that was happening was. The research people are doing is amazing, as are the interdisciplinary collaborations that are happening. All it takes is one quick conversation of phrase for people to realize that they can collaborate and make the research projects they are working on richer. Despite this desire for collaboration, it seems the thought of moving some of this collaboration to the digital realm is a no no. The overall feeling was that, even as things are being compiled, categorized and archived, they need to stay institutionalized. In fact, talk of making things open, even if they were to stay primarily in the institution fell on deaf ears. It was almost like I heard crickets. This humored me because, many people also discussed consulting digital databases in their research.
There is so much more to digitizing the academy than distance learning courses online. I am actually somewhat against those. I feel that the experience of being in a seminar of people, where there is face to face communication and group interaction is an essential experience, especially when learning. It helps people gain public speaking skills, learn to collaborate, and think quickly and on their feet and then voice their thoughts. Being in an environment with minimal distractions where the goal is simply to absorb knowledge and think critically is not something that can successfully be duplicated through a computer screen. However, distance learning can be a great supplement to face to face classes. I have heard so much talk about how students have become harder and harder to teach and seem to have difficulty learning difficult concepts compared to students of the past. I think a large part of this might be because they don’t have access to things that would help them gain their critical thinking skills. Having more advance discourses available online could be a tool to help spark the curiosity of some of those students. After all, you never know where a Google search might lead you.
An example of this, one of the talks that I really enjoyed was on slavery in the French Antilles. While I was able to speak with the speaker etc, I found myself desiring to learn more as this was something that I never went over in depth in my education. A simple google books search brings up over 90 results for slavery in French, all written in the 1800s. This is a great resource, however, I would love to be able to find more recent writing and possibly older archives on the same subject just as easily. Right now the only things available are from the archives of some US Universities it seems. From a general Google search I find the Digital Archaeological Archive on Comparative Slavery . Another site I am familiar with on this subject is Voyages: The Transatlantic Slave Trade Database. However, that was not in my first page of results when I searched for ‘digital slavery’. Further, it would be great to be able to easily find the names of those academics and institutes that are working on this across disciplines.
An Aside: I would like to quickly be able to find who is working on this and if they are open to being contacted and collaborating with other working on the same subject. It would make sense to have a white pages online of academics by subject and/or topic of interest that is searchable so people can find and contact those with similar interests across disciplines. I don’t think something like this needs to be as robust as facebook . I also don’t think it necessarily needs to be completely open to the public. However, having at least the information about who is doing what would be helpful for people who want to go to school for specific topics.
So, what do I think departments in the Humanities and Social Sciences should be doing? George Mason University’s Center for History and New Media is an exception rather than a rule in the humanities and social sciences. However, their goals are what all departments should be striving for in the new Open Source and searchable world we live in: On teaching & learning:
Providing free access to primary sources, building high-quality online teaching modules, and offering instruction on critical thinking skills.
On research & tools:
Developing publications and applications to define digital humanities for a new generation of scholars, librarians and museum professionals.
On collecting and exhibiting:
Bringing history to audiences worldwide by collecting digital records, archiving documents of the past, and presenting historical exhibits.
This is what I want to see more departments moving towards. Students coming in are used to being able to find what they are looking for easily and quickly. I love the library. I love researching. But, to not move towards a model like CHNM is doing is like trying to do advanced math without a calculator. Things are now more open and accessible, and while it is a great experience to travel to a library and search and discover in a basement for rare documents etc, that should no longer be necessary to find information, nor should people need to be face to face to collaborate (though again, I think this is amazingly important).
While it is the nature of the academy and those involved to be elitist and specialized, it seems that their reluctance to move in to the digital realm is more of a hindrance than they realize. Academics and researches tend to be extremely passionate about the work they are doing. However if the way they are doing the work does not evolve to accommodate new modes of communication and learning, their work will lose its relevance much sooner than they realize. For the academy, the source of information is extremely important, and for modernity, it is important that that source be open. I hope that over the next few years we will see more and more departments moving towards and interdisciplinary, digital and open approach.