Digital Research Summer Institute

Digital Research Summer Institute
Designing, Composing, and Evaluating Digital Scholarship
Simpson Center for the Humanities, University of Washington
Fridays, 9am-4 pm, June 24 to July 22, 2011
Application Deadline: Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Call for Participants

Intended for UW faculty, staff, and graduate students, the 2011 Digital Research Summer Institute is an intensive effort to foster sustainable digital scholarship and interoperable communities of digital practice at the University of Washington. The Institute focuses on the production of networked, multimodal scholarship that re-imagines the very forms and functions of research, peer review, and scholarly communication in the humanities. Framed this way, digital scholarship may entail anything from a web-based exhibit or visualization to a digital dissertation, hybrid monograph, or electronic journal article.

Through workshops, critiques, presentations, demos, and seminar meetings, participants will have an opportunity to gain competencies in:

* Reviewing digital scholarship, platforms, and tools,
* Authoring accessible online content,
* Determining deposit plans for storing digital projects,
* Designing and testing scholarship with affordances distinct from print,
* Articulating interfaces with research methodologies, and
* Blending technical practices with critical theory.

The Institute will run June 24-July 22, with five weekly meetings (Fridays, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.), composed of workshops and seminar-style discussions. On their own schedules, participants will communicate across projects and work together in between meetings. Participants are asked to commit to the Institute as a whole, attending all five sessions.

Applicants should currently be involved in the development of a digital project: those projects at nascent or intermediate stages will benefit most. Previous experience in designing or composing digital scholarship will not be assumed. Possible lines of inquiry include, but are certainly not limited to:


* Using locative media approaches to political economy, empire, globalization, or geopolitics,

* Composing video, audio, and other dynamic media to critique or expand print, Visualizing patterns in humanities datasets,

* Mapping systemic issues related to race, gender, sexuality, or class,

* Developing community-based or participatory digital collections,

* Constructing non-sequential histories of new media and material culture, and

* Integrating technologies into humanities pedagogy or the scholarship of teaching.

Collaborative projects involving interdisciplinary teams (not to exceed five applicants per team) are especially welcome. Projects augmenting existing humanities platforms and tools (e.g., by using them in novel ways or contributing plugins) are also welcome.

Applications (from individuals or teams) should consist of a:

* Project description (not to exceed 500 words), including methodology and interventions in relevant field(s),
* Statement (not to exceed 250 words) on why the project is-or needs to be-digital, including platforms or tools involved,
* CV (2-5 pages) for each applicant, and
* OPTIONAL: Any URLs, media, or data related to the project.

Submit all materials no later than Wednesday, March 30, 2011, as follows:


1) BUNDLE all application materials and SAVE them as a single PDF file.
2) NAME that document as "[Your last name]_application.pdf" or "[Your project name]_application.pdf".
3) UPLOAD your PDF file to the Catalyst Collect It dropbox at: https://catalyst.uw.edu/collectit/dropbox/schadmin/13106
4) COMPLETE the online application form at: https://catalyst.uw.edu/webq/survey/schadmin/119433


If the size of your media or data exceeds twenty-five megabytes (MB), then by the March 30 deadline please either: (1) submit them on a labeled CD or DVD to the Simpson Center (206 Communications) or (2) upload them to a file hosting service (or web server) and include the URL in your application.

Award: All participants will be named Institute fellows: graduate student participants will receive $500 stipends for their participation. Notifications will be sent by Friday, April 22.

Institute Director: Jentery Sayers (PhD Candidate, English), whose experiences in digital scholarship include publishing in the electronic journal Kairos (for which is he also a member of the editorial board), contributing essays to two forthcoming collections from Computers and Composition Digital Press (Utah State University Press), serving on the steering committee for HASTAC, and developing a hybrid dissertation (i.e., part print, part digital) with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the electronic journal Vectors. Contact: jentery@uw.edu

Anticipated workshop and seminar facilitators:


* Ann Lally, UW Libraries
* Lisa Fusco, iSchool
* John Vallier, UW Libraries
* Stacy Waters, DXArts
* Sasha Welland, Anthropology and Women Studies
* Mark Zachry, Human Centered Design & Engineering


Miriam Bartha
Associate Director
Simpson Center for the Humanities
Box 353710
University of Washington
Seattle, WA 98195-3710
Ph: 206.543.3920
Email: mbartha@uw.edu
www.simpsoncenter.org