Guidelines from the University of Saskatchewan

Department of English

University of Saskatchewan

Academic Standards

(excerpts on evaluating digital humanities work)

June, 2011

4. Research, Scholarly and Artistic Work

4.1 – Disciplinary values.

These standards are based on the understanding that disciplinary values in English studies are considerably different from those outside the humanities, and in some cases subtly different even from other disciplines in the humanities. In assessing the research we publish in the Department of English we value both the style and craft of writing and the quality of scholarship. To publish in our field, scholars must generate original research and write well.

4.2 – Peer-reviewed vs. non-peer-reviewed publication. Peer review forms the primary basis of our evaluation of research, artistic, and scholarly work, but we recognize also the importance of various forms of publication and dissemination that are not peer reviewed.

4.3 – Digital Humanities Work

4.3.1 – Research results published in electronic form may bypass traditional peer-review processes.

Digital projects require and involve two areas of expertise: a traditional humanities discipline, and the development of digital tools and methods. The work of scholars in the development of these tools and methods is essential if the resources are to be of use and benefit in academic research, and assessment of this work (for which there is no equivalent in the print world) should also form part of the candidate’s case.

4.3.2 – Digital projects will be assessed under the rubric for publications in section V on the basis of equivalency. It will be up to the candidate to make a case for generic equivalency for his or her publication.

4.3.3 – If the digital project is published by a third party, peer-reviewed venue, the work will be assessed as any other peer-reviewed work, but the candidate may supplement the case with additional evidence provided for in 4.4 below. In cases where publication is in electronic form but the research and publication venue otherwise follow the traditional patterns described above, the publication will be assessed under the appropriate generic rubric. For cases where the digital work is an integral aspect of the research itself and/or publication does not follow these standard peer-review processes, the candidate can make a case for post-publication peer review.

4.4 – Post-publication Peer Review.

For publications that do not follow the traditional models of print publications, in lieu of formal pre-publication vetting and peer review, the candidate may make a case based on an accumulation of peer review mechanisms that will include letters of assessment, and some combination of such indicators as: award of a competitive grant for the project, appropriate consultation with experts, institutional sponsorship or association, an invited board of directors to advise on the project’s development and implementation, results of usability studies, published papers about the project, presentation at conferences, published reviews, invitations resulting from the attention the project has received, on-line citations, linkages, endorsements, usage statistics, and inclusion in scholarly WWW gateways or portals.

4.5 – Description of Genres of Peer-Reviewed Publication in our Discipline

from 4.5.5 – Scholarly Edition

A digital or electronic edition has all of the qualities and features of a print edition with some additions. Whereas the preparation of a print manuscript is handled by the publisher, the editor of an electronic edition usually oversees and in some cases does some of the encoding or tagging that enables it to be rendered for publication in an electronic environment. Typically the editor also tags the text to enable and enhance retrieval and analysis of the textual data. The selection and development of an appropriate tag set typically involves scholarly analysis and interpretation of the text and decisions about how that information will be used and accessed by the user. In these cases, the computational work is similar to that of researching and writing the commentary and annotations for the edition. A digital edition may include, besides the text and editorial apparatus that would appear in a scholarly print edition, features specific to the digital medium: facsimile or other images, navigation tools, analysis tools, links to internet resources, databases, etc. A digital edition may be published on CD-ROM or similar storage medium, or made available on the Web, freely or by subscription.

from 4.5.7 – Reference Work or Scholarly Resource

• i) The scholarly database is the reference tool of the electronic age. A database (sometimes referred to as knowledge base) is a computerized collection of organized units of information, in some ways resembling an encyclopedia, but typically providing more robust metadata for retrieval and analysis. A database can include a wide variety of primary materials (literary texts, historical documents, images, sound and video files, etc.) that are collected, processed, annotated, and commented upon in a scholarly manner. The database’s interface is designed to enable sophisticated scholarly search and analysis.

• ii) . . .

• iii) A digital archive is in some ways like a scholarly edition except that all the primary materials are presented in full and typically with some diversity of form including, for example, plain text transcriptions, tagged documents, and facsimiles. A digital archive is typically rich in metadata and often includes annotation and other secondary material (such as commentary, bibliography, scholarly articles), and linkages between these materials.