OUDH Seminar, 31 May 2012

Posted on May 22, 2012 by Francesca Benatti

The Digital Humanities Thematic Research Network is pleased to announce the following event in its Digital Humanities in Practice seminar series:

Transforming Scholarly Communications: Open Access Journals in the Humanities

Date: 31 May 2012

Time: 12.00pm – 1.30pm

Venue: MR 1, 2, 3, Wilson A Ground Floor, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes

Open Access publishing is an area of growing interest in the academic community. This seminar brings together scholars, librarians and publishers to discuss how Open Access publishing, especially in the area of journals, can contribute to the transformation of scholarly communications in the Humanities.

Speakers:

Nicola Dowson and Chris Biggs, OU Library ORO Team, ‘Open access: The OU Library perspective’

Trevor Fear and Jessica Hughes, Classical Studies Department, Open University, ‘Editors’ perspectives: New Voices in Classical Reception Studies and Practitioners’ Voices in Classical Reception Studies’

Paul Harwood, JISC Collections, ‘Still Open for business?’ Scholarly publishers and OA in the humanities’

Roundtable discussion including Louise Dutnell, Oxford University Press.

Lunch and refreshments will be provided, to book a place please email Heather Scott h.scott@open.ac.uk by 29 May 2012. For more information please go to the Digital Humanities website http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/digital-humanities/index.shtml

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Digital or Human? Judging the Loebner Prize

Posted on May 17, 2012 by Francesca Benatti

Loebner Prize 2012 poster

[This is a guest post by Phil Perkins, Professor of Archaeology at The Open University and chair of the OU Digital Humanities Network]

On the 15th May I was one of four judges for the Loebner Prize . This is a version of the ‘Turing Test’ that hopes to identify intelligence in computers. In 1950 computer pioneer Alan Turing asked the question ‘Can machines think?’ and the test hopes to answer his question. It works by the judges having a simultaneous ‘blind’ conversation (using a keyboard) with a computer and a human and then judging which is the human and which is the computer. If the judge can’t tell the difference it suggests that the computer has intelligence – what that might say about the human I’ll leave to your imagination!

Four computer programmes and four humans were put to the test. Continue reading →

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Studying Arts and Humanities in a Digital World

Posted on May 3, 2012 by Francesca Benatti

When we think of research in the Humanities, we probably imagine scholars busy reading and writing in dusty libraries or quiet museums. Increasingly, though, humanists are combining pen and paper with computers and digital tools to explore and understand our past. This area of research is called “Digital Humanities.”

So what can scholars (and students!) do when they study Humanities texts, data and artefacts through digital means? Here are some examples:

[Note: this post is written for the readers of the OU Arts and Humanities Induction blog. Welcome to Digital Humanities!]

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DH Resource: Digital Humanities Questions & Answers

Posted on April 23, 2012 by Francesca Benatti

Digital Humanities Questions & Answers.

The Association for Computers in the Humanities (ACH) and the Chronicle of Higher Education’s ProfHacker blog are building a community-based Q&A board for digital humanities questions.

Beginners searching for advice on any area of digital humanities are especially welcome. This post explains how best to participate in the DHAnswers forum.

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DH Events: Digital Humanities in Practice Seminar, 26 April

Posted on April 19, 2012 by Francesca Benatti

The Digital Humanities Thematic Research Network is pleased to announce the following event in its Digital Humanities in Practice seminar series:

Digital Humanities Projects at the Open University

Date: 26 April 2012

Time: 12.00pm – 1.30pm

Venue: Wilson A, first floor, meeting room 1, 2, 3, Walton Hall, The Open University

Speakers:

Shafquat Towheed and Edmund King: The Reading Experience Database

Florian Stadtler: Beyond the Frame: Indian British Connections

Sandip Hazareesingh: The Commodities of Empire Project

Leon Wainwright: The Open Arts Journal

Join us to discover the range of projects being developed in the Faculty of Arts, and to reflect on how the Digital Humanities are enabling new modes of research in the humanities.

To book a place please email Heather Scott h.scott@open.ac.uk

For more information on Digital Humanities at the Open University, please go to the Digital Humanities website http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/digital-humanities/index.shtml

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