Recent years have brought useful initiatives in the development of digital research infrastructure and digital skills training in the humanities. However, researchers taking advantage of these opportunities and undertaking digital research also need to be supported in their career progression and professional recognition. Digital scholarship needs to be assessed alongside more traditional measures of research performance. But how?
In 2015, the American Historical Association developed a set of Guidelines for the Professional Evaluation of Digital Scholarship by Historians. Other organisations including the Modern Language Association, the Association for Computers and the Humanities, and the American Academy of Religion have created similar guidelines, as have a number of US universities. While these are largely focused on the assessment of digital scholarship for tenure, they provide useful approaches and definitions that could be translated into an Australian setting.
At the same time, it is being recognised that the uptake of digital technologies is creating career opportunities for humanities researchers outside of traditional academic departments. For example, the King's Digital Lab in King's College London has sought to define the types of roles involved in the creation, support, and maintenance of digital research in the humanities. These roles often combine domain specific knowledge and technical expertise. Acknowledging that these sorts of positions can be part of, and not a divergence from, a research career in the humanities will open up opportunities for researchers and facilitate the transfer of technical skills between academic settings.
Finally, even researchers who do not regard themselves as undertaking digital scholarship are increasingly being encouraged to adopt best practices in the management of research data, to explore options for online open access publishing, and to disseminate their research through online forums. However, the labour involved in sharing research online and of preserving and maintaining digital research outputs is rarely recognised.
To address these needs, the Australian Historical Association is working towards developing its own set of guidelines for the evaluation of digital scholarship. These would be designed to assist in institutional processes such as developing position descriptions; assessing applications for jobs, awards, and promotions; monitoring performance standards; and mentoring staff. But they would also help young researchers in understanding the value of digital skills, and the range of career options available.
As a first step, I'm examining the guidelines created by organisations overseas to assess how relevant these are to the history community in Australia. I'd also be very interested to hear about any Australian examples drawn from other disciplines or developed by individual institutions. I've created a public Zotero group to collect examples – feel free to join the group and add links to relevant documents.
Tim Sherratt (@wragge) tim@discontents.com.au