Week 12
As a starting point for critiquing digital history projects, it would be helpful if creators of projects defined upfront the type of project that they were pursuing. The types would not necessarily need to be broken down to the level of granularity found in the list compiled by the Organization of American Historians; however, it would be a valuable piece of information for a reviewer if the creators made a distinction between, say, compiling an archive of data and producing something like what the OAH calls a “digital narrative.” Reviewers need to know if they are evaluating a compilation of data offered without interpretation versus a project that seeks to advance an argument. The data compilation could be evaluated just in terms of completeness or usefulness while the evaluation of the digital narrative should also address the soundness of the argument.
Once the reviewers know what type of project they are looking at, a fundamental criterion they should consider is whether the digital method or methods used are essential to the project. In other words, do they achieve for the project something that could not be achieved through traditional methods? If digital methods are to gain increased acceptance in the eyes of a skeptical scholarly community, they need to prove the value that they bring. Reviews could highlight this value.
An element of projects that could further establish the validity of digital methods while also giving reviewers a criterion for their critiques is how well the creators set their project in the larger discourse of the humanities. I recommend that digital history projects include something like a literature review to give context for the work as well as the methods used. Also helpful would be a methodology section like the social sciences use. The methodology section would help introduce the digital method to scholars unfamiliar with it and could be critiqued on the clarity of the explanation.
I have suggested previously that digital historians do not need to be expert graphic designers, but there is still room in critiques for consideration of how the design of a project helps or hinders its accessibility and the presentation of its results. Reviewers could also call out projects where design style is emphasized more than scholarly substance.
Given that collaboration is one of the calling cards of the digital humanities, digital history projects can be critiqued on how well credit is given to contributors. The projects can also be evaluated in terms of how well their data is shared and can be used and reused.
Changes in how credit is given for digital history projects have implications for the peer review process. The traditional peer review model needs to change to reflect the fact that activities such as data coding and OCR correction have scholarly value in the digital history realm.
Fair peer review also requires that those reviewing digital history projects have knowledge of and experience with digital methods to go along with their knowledge of history. Given how young some of the methods are, it is not surprising that it could be difficult to find reviewers with the requisite experience. Potential difficulty, however, does not remove the need to make the effort to find the right reviewers. Additionally, the literature review and methodology sections that I suggest above would help to educate reviewers to fill in the gaps.