Evaluation of digital humanities

1. Evaluation of digital humanities:
an interdisciplinary approach
Anna Maria Tammaro
University of Parma
IRCDL, Rome
February, 1st, 2013

3. Research question

Can we evaluate digital products and publications with
current quality indicators and the same procedures of
printed publications?

Do we need alternatives to the peer review?

4. What?

Publications with an editorial process (PDF)

Hybrid only with documentation

NOT publications which are marked, hypertextual, dynamic,
multimedia and INTERDISCIPLINARY:
− LOM, OER
− Blog Website
− WIKI
− Text analysis
− Digital asset

5. WHY?

Institutional evaluation
− Accountability
− Financement
− Ranking

Individual evaluation
− Tenure
− Career
− Rewarding

6. WHO?

Publishers
− Reviewers

Experts
− GEV, Quality Agency

Collaborative assessment
− Zotero, Citulike, Connotea, Refworks,
Mendeley, 2collab, Mekentosj

7. WHERE?

Catalogues, Bibliographies, Registries

Institutional repositories

Open Access Journals

Personal or Department Website

8. WHEN?

Ex ante

Ex post

9. HOW?

Peer review
− QI based upon affiliation and disciplinar
consensu
− Cultural barriers, bias

Bibliometrics
− QI Citations, quantitative measurements
− Impact Factors, H-index, Eigenfactor
− Examples: Scimago, Latindex, Publish or
Perish, Google Scholar

Combination of the two
− Examples: Mesur, Merlot, Open Edit

10. Collaborative Assessment Tool: KOS

Construction of an ontology which evidences the
junctions / hubs and relationships existing between
digital publications in the Digital Humanities in Italy

Construction of a Knowledge Organisation System, as
a supporting tool for the choices of quality evaluation.

Included in Linking Open Data Project Cloud (LOD),
which is at the moment the most important concrete
development of the Semantic Web.

11. Conclusions

Some solutions can be found to the evaluation of digital
products and publications by taking advantage of
information and communication technology

There is the need to analyze and propose solutions to
theoretical, organizational, educational and legislative issues
to ensure a virtuous cycle of publications evaluation.

12. Thank you for your attention!
Contact:
Annamaria.tammaro@unipr.it