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Hacking as Scholarship
FatherBusa writes "I am a professor of English who specializes in what is usually called "humanities computing"--a discipline concerned with creating and theorizing about the use of computers in humanities research (the homepage for the Association for Computers in the Humanities has some info). I was recently asked to join a working group charged with the task of establishing a peer review process for scholarly software projects in the humanities and stumbled across the Guidelines for Evaluating Work with Digital Media in the Modern Languages put out by the Modern Language Association (the main professional organization for language and literature studies in North America). Hackers working in humanities departments may want to give it a read. It's an interesting statement that speaks to the (sometimes difficult) process of getting "tools" and other sorts of digital work evaluated as academic scholarship in promotion and tenure processes."
University of Michigan requires 16 credits in Humanities for C.Eng. and C.Sci. students.
Actually, the more I think about it, I guess I do see the relevance. Problem is, while it might be useful to get your hacking and other "tools" (as they are called") evaluated towards credits, is it a worthwhile battle? I, for one, tried to get Acadamia to accept my digital work accepted for project work, and didn't have much luck. I am, however, in Landscape Architecture, which is an oldskool field -- perhaps a bit behind the technology of today. Maybe the case is different in other fields (such as humanities, for example) where such digital media might be more acceptable as a form of research?
If you're in the tech things/scientific and don't know who Strauss was, you are automatically banned in the limb of the mind numbed tech freak, while if you studied history of arts and you don't know what a square root is, that's simply normal.
I remember time spent fixing pc for other students that had to finish their thesis about don't know the role of granary in the middle of dark ages and that trated the "machine" as the root of evil, the stuff that was wasting their precious time.
They were of course thankful but at their eyes you were just a cleric of the satanic cult of technology that behave in a very gentle manner, and fixing the pc was a sort of dark ritual.
So if someone in the Humanities starts looking at the technology in another way maybe is the begining of a better world.
Many readers apparently found this to be boring and irrelavant reading. I think they may be missing the point.
In the "old school", professors would get recognized (and tenure) for their contributions thorugh publications (appearing in critical journals, for example).
Now though, you can make MAJOR contributions by writing "software" (not just programs, but anything published in a digital medium). Using the old rules, you wouldn't be recognized.
The article referenced implies that such digital contributions are equally relevant for recognition, PROVIDED that they follow the same sort of review process - peer review, unique contribution, etc.
This seems to be a good approach and good news for "hackers" - our value is being recognized in fields beyond software development.
The conventional evaluation method is for a professional society in a subject to think the creation is worth saving in perpetuity. Then they provide archival and serving of this material. The official stamp of approval is the "citation reference", which could be electronic. This is normally done with peer-reviewed papers in journals. However some of these journals are now entirely electronic.
As a social scientist (somewhat removed from humanities, but close enough), I've come to really value the role that computing can play in non-traditional fields. While some institutions have come to respect it as a component of any research, it's nice to see articles actively promoting computation, and in particular, elite and elegant computation, in soft research. Despite the stereotype that the only tool required for humanities students are books, the volume of information available now has reached a point where computer-based data mining and high-level analysis algorithms are necessary in order to provide anything resembling a thorough presentation.
Up to this point, that sort of work, no matter how exceptionally coded, has been seen as just another research tool. I'm very supportive of any effort to arrange for scholarly recognition of code written in support of research. Just as in the sciences, a tool, once written, can be used again and again to further study. Furthermore, a well-crafted program or script can be of more value to the field than the initial data it returns, if only because it makes one more avenue of investigation available to future researchers.
In summary, I'm glad to see that some of the fields that have traditionally relegated computation to the sidelines are beginning to recognize that there is academic and scholarly value in more than just the data that comes from computers. The development of research tools in the soft sciences may in time come to be almost as important as it is to the hard sciences.
~Cloudmark
"Be proud to be a fighter" - Martial Arts Adage
Repeat in chorus with me: We are not worthy...
Many /.'ers thumb their noses at the academy. Who needs a degree if you have the skills? Why pay money for a piece of paper when one can get right to coding? But the acceptance digital media within the ivy-covered walls can help the acceptance of digital media as more than "playing" video games, surfing pr0n, and "stealing" copyrighted content (not that any of these are not worthy endeavors in themselves ;) ). One of the best ways to ensure the evaluation and production of digital media is to have them studied in an academic context, and only a tenured professoriat can make that happen in ways that matter academically.
At present, digital media are often marginalized as low-brow. Video-games are often blamed for encouraging mindless violence, the web is blamed for shortening attention spans, and security-checking is vilified as terrorism, email is the font of spam, and reverse-engineering is called breaking copyright. This is the public understanding of digital media.
Specialized software and digital research being done at the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanites is at present abstract and does little to affect the thinking of the unwashed masses of undergraduates, let alone the public at large. But this kind of work is important because it influences the scholars who drive the field, and their work goes largely unnoticed by the established disciplines that might most benefit from them. On the other hand publicly-accessible texts are in many ways the "content" the web has been looking for (as demonstrated by usage), but recognition of such projects is still limited to circles of elite users. This must change, and a cohort of professors teaching students can help bring about that change.
Creating an established body of scholars able to use computers in ways that help normal people understand how Art and Architecture, Modern Languages and Film shape the world in which we live--this will further the widescale acceptance of digital media as worthile and noble ones.
It is important that people see digital media as more than video-games and surfing the web. Devising a body of standards by which digital media can be evaluated in the context of tenure review (limited though that context might be) will help.
The need for a set of standards to review and assign value to the digital work of humanities scholars is crucial to the culture of computing.
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