The recent panel discussion \u201cResearch without Borders: Negotiating Constraints and Open Scholarship\u201d is part of an ongoing series presented by the Scholarly Communication Program at Columbia University. Using examples from their own scholarly activities, the panelists introduced models for open scholarship that subvert traditional methods of knowledge production, valuation, and dissemination.<\/p>\n
Leith Mullings, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, CUNY Graduate Center and former President of the American Anthropological Association<\/b><\/p>\n
In her presentation, Leith Mullings discussed her work as a cultural anthropologist. She has long championed community-based collaborative work, for example, in her Harlem Birth Right Project that studied the impact of race on women\u2019s health and in her research with Michael Blakey on the African Burial Ground rediscovered in New York City in 1991.\u00a0 Although her research does not directly relate to the \u201cdigital\u201d in digital humanities, it serves as an important reflection point as DH explores more inclusive research methodologies to diversify the participant base in knowledge production. If, as Isabel Galina (2013) said when speaking at the DH2013 Conference, \u201copenness and a desire to work with others is fundamental to way we think of ourselves\u201d in DH (para. 5), then there needs to be a recognition of existing economic, linguistic, and technological disparities. Mullings emphasized the need to consider these inequalities as researchers, especially as part of an ethics of research study. In Mullings\u2019 Harlem project, community meetings were held for women to discuss their experiences. Following the study, members of the community were recognized as active collaborators in the research and not just as subjects. Results were communicated to members of the neighborhood through means that did not privilege language or access to technology by disseminating print brochures in multiple languages on the streets and in community centers. Follow-up meetings in Harlem provided opportunities for discussion between community members, researchers, and officials on how to effectively move forward with policy based on the research findings.<\/p>\n
Additionally, Mullings described her experiences as president of the American Anthropological Association while the Association was undergoing a shift in their publishing distribution model from print journals to online publishing due to rising costs and changing reader habits. In moving to online publishing, AAA struggles to find a balance between maintaining the diverse portfolio they consider integral to their philosophy as anthropologists (they currently have over 20 journals) and offering a pay model that accommodates differences in financial ability. Many find open access attractive, but it clearly raises cost issues in maintaining their high standards for scholarly journals.<\/p>\n
Dennis Tenen, Assistant Professor of Digital Humanities and New Media Studies, Columbia University<\/b><\/p>\n
Panelist Dennis Tenen originally planned to speak on the subject \u201cpiracy as peer preservation\u201d but opted instead to discuss civic scholarship by introducing [Skeptics] (http:\/\/skeptics.stackexchange.com\/<\/a>), a question-and-answer board on the Stack Exchange Network where visitors collaborate to debunk myths and pseudo-science. [Skeptics] operates in a similar fashion to the Exchange\u2019s most popular website Stack Overflow which allows people to post computer programming questions to the Overflow community for answers. Questions and answers can be voted up or down, which over time creates an internal credentialing system that ranks members based on the popularity of their individual posts. Activity and valued posts earn authors badges over time. These badges appear next to usernames, allowing others to immediately glean a person\u2019s reputation as a contributor on the board and thereby, the possible merit of the person\u2019s posts. In addition, points accumulated through votes translate into new privileges for a user, such as editing, moderating, and flagging other posts.<\/p>\n In her essay \u201cHumanities 2.0: Promise, Perils, Predictions\u201d, Cathy Davidson (2008) reminds us that the peer review process remains an important step in scholarly publishing. Without the approval of peers, there is no means to assess the merit of a scholarly text. But as digital humanities recognizes the need to decentralize and de-institutionalize knowledge production, the peer review process–in its adherence to institutionalized methods of defining authority–presents a problem. Does one sacrifice the implementation of checks in favor of promoting participation? Davidson defines the problem: \u201cHow does one put value on a source when the refereeing is performed by someone who has not been authorized and credentialed to judge? Who are one\u2019s peers when the validity of the sources is determined by community standards enforced by various users, not by professionals who have been certified as authorities of the community?\u201d (p. 711). By evoking the methods employed on [Skeptics], Tenen presented to the audience the possibility of creating a parallel online credentialing system for the peer review of scholarly works. In his proposal, authors would post an article to the community site for immediate review by \u201cpeers\u201d. Peer expertise, however, would not be determined by traditional means, such as by affiliation with an institution. Instead, a reviewer\u2019s merit would be determined by the community, based on level of participation and the up-voting of a user\u2019s posts over time. Using a rewards system similar to Stack Exchange sites, members of this alternative peer review community could also earn privileges through \u201cvirtuous\u201d participation\u201d, for example, earn editorial privileges for administration of the site or trade accumulated reward points to push one\u2019s own post to the top of the queue for review. Tenen\u2019s proposal offers the possibility of a dynamic open review process fostering social participation, without sacrificing the need to qualify a reviewer\u2019s credentials. And unlike established methods for peer review, it is a transparent process that provides authors with immediate, more diverse feedback from an open community.<\/p>\n Lela Prashad, Co-founder and\u00a0Chief Data Scientist at\u00a0NiJeL<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n Lela Prashad introduced her work as a research data specialist which she characterized as data visualization and mapping for social and environmental change. In the context of open scholarship, she focused on an ethics of research data from two perspectives: 1) How can data and research conducted at the academic level benefit people in the community? and 2) How can institutions work to recognize and help preserve data from citizen science and DIY projects? For Prashad, the value of community-participatory research is a given, and in her work, she removes the traditional tension between scholarly fieldwork and community experience by working with communities to crowdsource data. Prashad mentioned that crowdsourcing science is not new. One of the oldest scientific crowdsourced projects is the Audubon Society\u2019s century-old annual backyard bird-counting activities to help chart changes in bird populations across the U.S. Prashad\u2019s projects, however, place emphasis on scholar-citizen partnerships where the research translates into improving conditions for the participating citizens. From text-messaged sexual harassment locations by female victims in Egypt (http:\/\/harassmap.org\/en\/<\/a>) to citizen-reported slum areas and slum conditions in India (http:\/\/www.sdinet.org<\/a>), the community-generated data collected through Prashad\u2019s collaborative projects can highlight problems within a community, as experienced by the people of that community. The resulting portraits provide actionable data for administrators to pinpoint problems and improve conditions. Anne Burdick, et al. (2012) remind us that recent history provides many examples where social networking has proved its ability to give accurate accounts of local events. Although Prashad recognized in her presentation that, for example, the Egypt sexual harassment project privileges women with access to certain technologies, it still remains the only dataset to date that chronicles sexual harassment in that area.<\/p>\n In closing, Prashad emphasized the value of data provided by citizens and that data experts and repositories need to consider such citizen-produced datasets when building systems for the preservation and sharing of academic knowledge.<\/p>\n Technology provides the unprecedented possibility for scholars to expand the academy into the public sphere, what Burdick et. al. (2012) see as an opportunity for digital humanities to \u201cforeground\u201d the values of humanism. But without critical reflection, the use of technology in digital humanities may only serve to further inscribe existing social inequalities and power relationships rather than transform them. Cultural theorist Tanner Higgin (2010) describes the threat of a digital humanities dystopia on his website: \u201cMy concern is that when everyone in DH finally builds his\/her One Collaborative Widget to Rule Them All, the dust will settle around Mordor and it\u2019ll still be mostly a bunch of white academics at relatively wealthy universities talking about open access and probably around a rather nice table with a few unlocked iPads on it\u201d (para. 5). In sharing their past, current, and speculative work, these three panelists at Columbia University allowed us to see what truly transformative open scholarship looks like.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n References<\/b><\/p>\n <\/b>Burdick, A. (2012).\u00a0Digital humanities. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.<\/p>\n Davidson, C. N. (January 01, 2008). Humanities 2.0: Promise, Perils, Predictions.\u00a0Pmla, 123<\/i>,\u00a03, 707-717.<\/p>\n Galina, I. (2013). \u201cIs There Anybody Out There? Building a Global Digital Humanities Community.\u201d Lecture delivered at DH2013 Conference, University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Retrieved from http:\/\/humanidadesdigitales.net\/blog\/2013\/07\/19\/is-there-anybody-out-there-building-a-global-digital-humanities-community\/<\/a><\/p>\n Higgin, T. (25 May 2010). \u201cCultural Politics, Critique and Digital Humanities\u201d in\u00a0Gaming the System. Retrieved from\u00a0http:\/\/www.tannerhiggin.com\/cultural-politics-critique-and-the-digital-humanities\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The recent panel discussion \u201cResearch without Borders: Negotiating Constraints and Open Scholarship\u201d is part of an ongoing series presented by the Scholarly Communication Program at Columbia University. Using examples from their own scholarly activities, the panelists introduced models for open scholarship that subvert traditional methods of knowledge production, valuation, and dissemination. Leith Mullings, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, CUNY Graduate Center…<\/p>\n