Centres of Expertise
Centres of Expertise
There is a broad international community of scholars using ICT in arts and humanities research who are represented by some of the key conferences and professional associations in this field.
The Methods Network works in consultation with associated bodies such the Arts and Humanities Data Service and its constituent organizations; the JISC Arts and Humanities e-Science Support Centre (AHESSC); Intute: Arts and Humanities; and, more recently 3DVisA. It also has many active partnerships via the Association for Computing in the Humanities (ACH) , the Association for Literary and Linguistic Computing (ALLC), the Computers and History of Art group (CHArt), and Digital Resources in the Humanities and Arts (DRHA). Each of these bodies hosts annual conferences which are major fora for dissemination in the use of advanced ICT methods. Other conferences and associations which have a focus on ICT in the arts and humanities include theInternational Conference on Music Information Retrieval and Related Activities (ISMIR), and the Association of History and Computing (ACH).
Activities funded by the Methods Network both confirm and expand this dynamic network of associated bodies and individuals.
For detailed information about Methods Network activities and outputs see the Expert Seminar pages and Distributed Activities pages.
Literature, Languages and Linguistics Activities
AHDS Literature, Languages and Linguistics, hosted by the Oxford Text Archive at the University of Oxford. An established centre of excellence on all aspects of digital text, including digitization, markup and text analysis (‘Corpus Approaches to the Language of Literature’, organized by Martin Wynne, May 2006).
Activities in the field of linguistics such as ‘Historical Text Mining’, a workshop organized by Paul Rayson, Lancaster University and Dawn Archer, University of Central Lancashire (20-21 July 2006) have featured as have other text-focused workshops and seminars and the recent workshop ‘Open Source Critical Editions’, organized by Juan Garces at CCH, London (22 September 2006). Other activities rooted in the study of texts include a workshop on advanced text encoding, run by Lou Burnard, European Editor of the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) (‘Development of Skills in Advanced Text Encoding with TEI P5’, 18-20 September 2006) and the forthcoming workshop: ‘Approaches to the Forensic Investigation of Primary Textual Materials’, organized by Andrew Prescott, Humanities Research Institute, University of Sheffield (Summer 2007).
Visual Arts, Music and Performance Activities
The Methods Network is particularly keen to demonstrate its support for the arts community. Anna Bentkowska-Kafel of the Courtauld Institute of Art and CCH, King’s College, and Tim Benton of the Open University, focusing on the application of advanced ICT methodologies in art historical research, organized the seminar 'Technical Innovation in Art Historical Research: Opportunities and Problems' (20 September 2006).
The Methods Network has also supported events organized by researchers working on major electronically-based research projects. Julia Craig-McFeely of the Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music (DIAMM) was funded to run a workshop on the digital restoration of damaged documents, for which a detailed workbook – freely available on this website – was created. The programme of activities has also encompassed the research of musicology experts from Goldsmiths College (‘Technology in Music Research and Practice’, organized by David Meredith, 8 September 2006) and De Montfort University, Leicester (‘New Protocols for Electroacoustic Music Analysis’ organized by Leigh Landy, 12 June 2007).
There is strong representation from the field of Performance Studies and also Film Studies. Alan Blackwell organised the workshop ‘Advanced Technologies for Collaborative Performance’ at the University of Cambridge to develop a model for practice-based research workshops applying technology in the performing arts (20 - 21 December 2006). At Royal Holloway, Adam Ganz brought together practioners from filmmaking, information design and computing for the workshop ‘Film, Visualization, Narrative’ (17 November 2006).
3D Visualization Seminars and Workshops
The Methods Network's interests extend into the increasingly important arena of 3D visualization, supporting proposals such as a workshop on : ‘Visualization and Remote Sensing for the Arts and Humanities: an Access Grid Support Network’ submitted by Vince Gaffney of the University of Birmingham (October 2006 - October 2007); ‘Theoretical Approaches to Virtual Representations of Past Environments’ submitted by Kate Devlin, Goldsmiths College, University of London (7 March 2007). The ‘Making 3D Visual Research Outcomes Transparent’ symposium was co-sponsored by the Methods Network, King's Visualization Lab, and PIN, Prato, Italy/EPOCH and took place at King's College London (23-25 February 2006).
Other Supported Activities
Along more general lines, the Methods Network has also co-sponsored activities such as that organized by the LAIRAH project at University College, London (‘Digital Visibility’, 26 April 2006) which looked at neglected digital resources. The Methods Network co-sponsored a workshop on large-scale manuscript digitization run by Peter Robinson, Institute of Textual Scholarship and Electronic Editing, Birmingham University and Marilyn Deegan, CCH, King's College London (‘Large-Scale Manuscript Digitization’, 5 June 2006). The recent workshop 'Service-Oriented Computing in the Humanities' (18-19 December 2006) was being jointly organized by gthe Methods Network and the EPSRC Service-Oriented Software Research Network (SOSoRNet).