DHOXSS 2013: Capturing Resources, Tools, and Themes

Over the last week I had an excellent time meeting new friends and colleagues at Digital Humanities Oxford Summer School (DHOXSS). So inspiring to meet people at different stages of their work, operating in different institutional and national contexts, trying to see how digital humanities can enhance their research, the research of their peers, and the manner in which those outside of the academy can engage with research outputs.

As is so often the case with the valuable conversations that take place at events like these, much of the detail underlying conversations tends toward the ephemeral. Given packed schedules and attempts to take in new technical and methodological frameworks some of the best insights and mentions to new resources and tools can get lost.

Toward the beginning of DHOXSS one attendee suggested using Storify to track the twtterstream at the conference. I havent seen that happen yet, so I thought I would add three attempts at documentation.

The first attempt (onetwothree), took about 10 minutes. I like the various views you get out of this one, but depending on Google Docs and a changing Twitter API for any sort of permanency will likely be an issue down the line.

The second attempt, took about 15 minutes:

  1. Used Scraperwiki to capture most of the tweets that used the #dhoxss hashtag.
  2. Downloaded results as CSV.
  3. Removed irrelevant data like lat/long given that most DHOXSS attendees didnt use that feature.
  4. Uploaded CSV to Viewshare, a free platform maintained by the Library of Congress for visualizing digital collections.
  5. Characterized the attributes of the data and created views.

The third attempt is an ongoing effort. Twitter is a nice record of conversation and themes, but I think a Zotero collection is a more robust resource that we can draw upon in the course of our research. So far just 7 people from the DHOXSS group have joined, and just a few have added resources. I would encourage more participation!

In closing many thanks to the DHOXSS organizers. This was an invaluable opportunity to learn new skills and make connections with colleagues. Looking forward to seeing you all down the line.