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  • Call for Papers: Data-Driven History of Ideas

    The new field of data-driven history of ideas combines qualitative, quantitative and computational methods for the study of the origins, development and spread of ideas from any time and place. It also comes with two challenging demands that are distinctive in the landscape of computational humanities. The first is the demand for the adequate representation and detection of concepts, rather than words; the second is the need for high-quality, virtually 100% accurate large corpora in many languages across centuries by both known and virtually unknown authors seen as carriers of ideas. These two main demands generate in turn further needs on resources that must be, typically, newly created or substantially adapted for the field: datasets such as expertly curated sets of bibliographic metadata, annotation sets and historical gazetteers, ontologies, and network data; infrastructural facilities for collaborative environments, and workflows that suit and support the field; ground truths for the evaluation of models from language technology, and techniques integrating language models with approaches and tools from data science, visual analytics, and knowledge representation.

    Results produced in the field can be published in the same way as traditional articles in in-domain journals and books. The resources that make data-driven enterprises in the history of ideas possible, however, still lack an apt venue, despite the fact that work on such resources is key to the field and can be extremely time-consuming. It is with the intention of creating a home for openly shareable corpora, datasets and other resources, as well as to support the work of the next generation of researchers, that we invite submissions to a special collection of the Journal of Open Humanities Data on Data-Driven History of Ideas.

    Submissions for this special collection are welcome that focus on, facilitate or support the study of philosophical and scientific thought of any epoch and geographical area, geared in particular towards the origin, development and spread of ideas.

    Submission topics include, but are not limited to

    --------------------------------------------------

    •  Textual data: high-quality, virtually 100% accurate corpora from any epoch and language
    • Ground truths and annotation datasets
    • Curated collections of bibliographical metadata and full bibliographies
    • Ontologies
    • Lexica
    • Historical gazetteers
    • Collections of (historical):
      • Geographic-political data eg political affiliation of cities through the centuries
      • Timeline data of authors, printers, countries
      • Complete publishing histories of books
      • Unique identifiers
      • Network data
      • Academic conference data
    • Computational tools focused on DDHI:
      • Multilingual and multi-layout OCR postcorrection
      • Transkribus models
      • Applied concept-focused work in computational linguistics, data science, visual analytics, and knowledge representation (concept-detection, concept-change)
      • Networks and graphs
      • Data visualisations for DDHI

    Manuscripts will be peer reviewed after editorial consideration, and accepted papers will be published online on a rolling basis. Please note that there are Publication Fees for accepted papers. Follow the submission guidelines to submit your manuscript. 

    The Journal of Open Humanities Data (JOHD) is a growing open-access peer-reviewed academic journal specifically dedicated to publications describing humanities research objects, software, and methods with high potential for reuse. These might include curated resources like (annotated) linguistic corpora, ontologies, and lexicons, as well as databases, maps, atlases, linked data objects, and other data sets created with qualitative, quantitative, or computational methods.

    JOHD publishes two types of papers:

    • Short data papers contain a concise description of a humanities research object with high reuse potential from research related to the ancient world. These are short (1000 words) highly structured narratives and must conform to the data paper template. A data paper does not replace a traditional research article, but rather complements it. 
    • Full length research papers discuss and illustrate methods, challenges, and limitations in the creation, collection, management, access, processing, or analysis of data in Humanities research related to the ancient world, including standards and formats. These are intended to be longer narratives (3000 - 5000 words), which give authors the ability to contribute to a broader discussion around the study and representation of the ancient world through data.

    JOHD provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. Authors remain the copyright holders and grant third parties the right to use, reproduce, and share the article according to the Creative Commons licence agreement. Authors are encouraged to publish their data in recommended repositories.  Please note that there are Publication Fees for accepted papers, but authors can ask for a waiver if they do not have funding for the fees.

    Submission deadline:

    1 June 2024 (abstracts due)

    1 December 2024 (full papers due, upon abstract acceptance)

    Submissions:

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    If you are interested in submitting an article, please submit an abstract of max. 300 words using this form:

    https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfpHO3RYHTNJRtmJRZ4QHkorN5buq8KnwKzpu1iDO1puGm5oQ/viewform?usp=sf_link

    You will be asked to paste the text of the abstract in the form.

    Special collection guest editors: Arianna Betti (lead guest editor), Hein van den Berg

    About the Guest Editors:

    Arianna Betti is Professor and Chair of Philosophy of Language at the University of Amsterdam, and leader of the Concepts in Motion group at the Institute for Logic, Language and Computation.  After studying historical and systematic aspects of ideas such as axiom, truth, and fact (Against Facts, MIT Press, 2015), they now specialise in data-driven research aimed at tracing the development of ideas such as these in a strongly interdisciplinary setting. They have been member of the Young Academy of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), of the Scientific Council of the Italian Research Council (CNR), of the Global Young Academy (GYA), and recipient of two ERC grants (2008–2013, 2014–2015) as well as of several major Dutch NWO grants, including a VICI  (2017–2024).

    Hein van den Berg obtained his PhD at the VU Amsterdam in history and philosophy of science in 2011, with a prize-winning dissertation on Kant’s conception of proper science and Kant’s philosophy of biology. After obtaining a postdoctoral grant from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) for conducting research on the history of biology at the Technical University Dortmund, he became assistant professor at the Institute for Logic, Language, and Computation of the University of Amsterdam in 2016. He does research on the history and philosophy of logic, biology, and psychiatry. As a member of the Concepts in Motion group since 2011, he has been involved in a large number of computational and data-driven history of ideas projects.

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  • JOHD accepted into Web of Science

    We are pleased to announce that the Journal of Open Humanities Data has been accepted into Web of Science. In making this decision, Web of Science recognised that the journal consistently includes articles that are of high academic quality and relevant to an international audience, and addresses a subject area not properly covered by an existing journal.

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  • Call for Papers for 2024

    The Journal of Open Humanities Data (JOHD) features peer-reviewed publications describing humanities research objects with high potential for reuse. These might include curated resources like (annotated) linguistic corpora, ontologies, and lexicons, as well as databases, maps, atlases, linked data objects, and other data sets created with qualitative, quantitative, or computational methods, including large language model prompts and prompt engineering strategies.

    We are currently inviting submissions of two varieties:

    1. Short data papers contain a concise description of a humanities research object with high reuse potential. These are short (1,000 words) highly structured narratives. A data paper does not replace a traditional research article, but rather complements it.
    2. Full length research papers discuss and illustrate methods, challenges, and limitations in humanities research data creation, collection, management, access, processing, or analysis. These are intended to be longer narratives (3,000 - 5,000 words), which give authors the ability to contribute to a broader discussion regarding the creation of research objects or methods.

    Humanities subjects of interest to the JOHD include, but are not limited to Art History, Classics, History, Library Science, Linguistics, Literature, Media Studies, Modern Languages, Music and musicology, Philosophy, Religious Studies, etc. Research that crosses one or more of these traditional disciplinary boundaries is highly encouraged. Authors are encouraged to publish their data in recommended repositories. More information about the submission process, editorial policies and archiving is available on the journal’s web pages.

    We accept online submissions via our journal website. See Author Guidelines for further information. Alternatively, please contact the editor if you are unsure as to whether your research is suitable for submission to the journal.

    Authors remain the copyright holders and grant third parties the right to use, reproduce, and share the article according to the Creative Commons licence agreement.

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  • Call for Papers - Representing the Ancient World through Data

    The study of the ancient world strongly benefits from the existence of datasets: from textual corpora and field reports, to collections of inscriptions and museum catalogues, scholars rely on the availability and distribution of well-curated data. In a world of technological connections, it has become crucial to ensure not just that research is of the highest standard, but also that the underlying data is shared to enable reuse and reproducibility to the widest extent. Nevertheless, venues that prioritise the publication of ancient world data are still scarce, thus leading to a widespread lack of recognition for work such as corpus design or data curation. This creates a  problem for the field and beyond, especially because the specific characteristics of ancient world data (their fragmentary and often incomplete nature, the lack of interpretative frameworks accompanying the data themselves, and so on) create a unique set of challenges.

    To address this gap, we are inviting submissions to a special collection of the Journal of Open Humanities Data entitled: Representing the Ancient World through data. 

    Please note that for this special collection we define the ancient world in its broadest sense: we encourage submissions that promote a view of the ancient world expansive in its geographic, chronological, linguistic, and cultural reach.

    Submissions can include but are not limited to the following topics:

    • Different types of datasets/databases, such as
      • Textual and literary corpora
      • Linguistically annotated corpora
      • Digital editions 
      • Historical gazetteers
      • Epigraphic collections
      • Archaeological collections
      • Papyrological collections
      • Numismatic collections
      • Collections of historical artefacts
      • Collections of political-economical records in the ancient world
      • Collections of religious or mythological records in the ancient world
      • Collections of socio-anthropological records in the ancient world
    • Computational tools focused on the study of the ancient world:
      • Newly developed tools 
      • New applications of pre-existing tools 
    • Computational resources for ancient world studies
    • Networks and graphs applied to the ancient world
    • Data visualisation
    • Ontologies

    Manuscripts will be peer reviewed after editorial consideration, and accepted papers will be published online on a rolling basis. Please note that there are Publication Fees for accepted papers. Follow the submission guidelines to submit your manuscript. 

    The Journal of Open Humanities Data (JOHD) is a growing open-access peer-reviewed academic journal specifically dedicated to publications describing humanities research objects, software, and methods with high potential for reuse. These might include curated resources like (annotated) linguistic corpora, ontologies, and lexicons, as well as databases, maps, atlases, linked data objects, and other data sets created with qualitative, quantitative, or computational methods.

    JOHD publishes two types of papers:

    1. Short data papers contain a concise description of a humanities research object with high reuse potential from research related to the ancient world. These are short (1000 words) highly structured narratives and must conform to the data paper template. A data paper does not replace a traditional research article, but rather complements it. 
    2. Full length research papers discuss and illustrate methods, challenges, and limitations in the creation, collection, management, access, processing, or analysis of data in Humanities research related to the ancient world, including standards and formats. These are intended to be longer narratives (3000 - 5000 words), which give authors the ability to contribute to a broader discussion around the study and representation of the ancient world through data.

    For this special collection we mainly invite submissions of short data papers. However, if you wish to submit longer narratives that could fit into the full length research paper category, please get in touch.

    While this special issue focuses on data-driven work on the ancient world, we encourage submissions that highlight the deep interdisciplinarity that characterises the field by bringing it into contact with humanities subjects of general interest to JOHD, including but not limited to Art History, History, Linguistics, Literature, Modern Languages, Music and Musicology, Philosophy, Religious Studies, among others.

    JOHD provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. Authors remain the copyright holders and grant third parties the right to use, reproduce, and share the article according to the Creative Commons licence agreement. Authors are encouraged to publish their data in recommended repositories.  Please note that there are Publication Fees for accepted papers, but authors can ask for a waiver if they do not have funding for the fees.

    Submission deadline: 1 September 2023

    If you are interested in submitting an article, please express your interest to: Patrick J. Burns (pjb311@nyu.edu), Andrea Farina (andrea.farina@kcl.ac.uk), Paola Marongiu (paola.marongiu@unine.ch), Martina Astrid Rodda (martinaastrid.rodda@classics.ox.ac.uk).

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  • First 2023 newsletter (January 2023)!

    Read our first newsletter for 2023 here! 

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  • Call for Papers for 2023

    The Journal of Open Humanities Data (JOHD) features peer-reviewed publications describing humanities research objects with high potential for reuse. These might include curated resources like (annotated) linguistic corpora, ontologies, and lexicons, as well as databases, maps, atlases, linked data objects, and other data sets created with qualitative, quantitative, or computational methods, including large language model prompts and prompt engineering strategies.

    We are currently inviting submissions of two varieties:

    1. Short data papers contain a concise description of a humanities research object with high reuse potential. These are short (1,000 words) highly structured narratives. A data paper does not replace a traditional research article, but rather complements it.
    2. Full length research papers discuss and illustrate methods, challenges, and limitations in humanities research data creation, collection, management, access, processing, or analysis. These are intended to be longer narratives (3,000 - 5,000 words), which give authors the ability to contribute to a broader discussion regarding the creation of research objects or methods.

    Humanities subjects of interest to the JOHD include, but are not limited to Art History, Classics, History, Library Science, Linguistics, Literature, Media Studies, Modern Languages, Music and musicology, Philosophy, Religious Studies, etc. Research that crosses one or more of these traditional disciplinary boundaries is highly encouraged. Authors are encouraged to publish their data in recommended repositories. More information about the submission process, editorial policies and archiving is available on the journal’s web pages.

    Submissions are still open for our special collection, Humanities Data in the Time of COVID-19. This collection includes data papers that span various areas of enquiry about the COVID-19 pandemic through the lens of the Humanities. Data from this period have far-reaching and impactful reuse potential, so we encourage you to share your data by submitting to this growing collection. JOHD provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

    We accept online submissions via our journal website. See Author Guidelines for further information. Alternatively, please contact the editor if you are unsure as to whether your research is suitable for submission to the journal.

    Authors remain the copyright holders and grant third parties the right to use, reproduce, and share the article according to the Creative Commons licence agreement.

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  • Second 2022 newsletter

    Read our second newsletter for 2022 here.
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  • Call for Short Data Papers

    The Journal of Open Humanities Data (JOHD) features peer-reviewed publications describing humanities research objects with high potential for reuse. These might include curated resources like (annotated) linguistic corpora, ontologies, and lexicons, as well as databases, maps, atlases, linked data objects, and other data sets created with qualitative, quantitative, or computational methods.

    While we publish continuously, this call for papers has a submission deadline on 1st September 2022. Final publication is expected by the end of the year or (in exceptional cases) early 2023.

    This particular call for papers is focussed on short data papers. Short data papers contain a concise description of a humanities research object with high reuse potential. They are short (1000 words) highly structured narratives and must conform to the data paper template.

    Humanities subjects of interest to the JOHD include, but are not limited to Art History, Classics, History, Linguistics, Literature, Modern Languages, Music and musicology, Philosophy, Religious Studies, etc. Research that crosses one or more of these traditional disciplinary boundaries is highly encouraged. Authors are encouraged to publish their data in recommended repositories. More information about editorial policies and archiving is available on the journal’s web pages. JOHD provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

    We accept online submissions via our journal website. See Author Guidelines for further information. Alternatively, please contact the editors if you are unsure as to whether your research is suitable for submission to the journal. Authors remain the copyright holders and grant third parties the right to use, reproduce, and share the article according to the Creative Commons licence agreement.

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  • First 2022 newsletter

    Read our first newsletter for 2022 here .
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  • Second call for papers - Humanities data in the time of COVID-19

    Given the growing interest, continued relevance, and changing landscape of the pandemic with the start of a global vaccination roll out, as well as the diverse range of data papers we have received for the special collection, Humanities data in the time of COVID-19, the Journal of Open Humanities Data is opening up a second call for papers!

    The current collection engages in critical analyses and describes open-access datasets covering various areas of enquiry around the pandemic, which draw on sources from diary contributions, oral and written narratives, photographs and maps, survey data, and social media and video accounts. These papers highlight the social and cultural impact of the virus, as well as subsequent government lockdown measures. The papers have diverse and impactful reuse potential and are of interest for a range of humanities and social science scholars.

    We invite you to submit a data paper by 31 October 2021 that captures the human experience and global impact of COVID-19 through the perspective of the humanities.

    Click here to find out more about the special collection and second call for papers.

    If you have any questions or comments, please get in touch with the special collection editors, Mandy Wigdorowitz (mw738@cam.ac.uk) and Sahba Besharati (sahba.besharati@wits.ac.za).

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  • Language Documentation Collections: Assessment and Recognition

    In reaction to the rapid decline in linguistic diversity around the world, there has been a broad call for the increased allocation of resources and efforts to support the documentation of endangered languages and linguistic practices, and furthermore the active participation of speech communities in the documentation process (Himmelmann, 1998; Rice, 2011). This is reflected in the emergence of journals, conferences and workshops, as well as funding agencies and programs dedicated to supporting the discipline of language documentation.

    Despite these encouraging developments, the lack of “guidelines and metrics for evaluating data creation, curation, sharing, and re-use” (Berez-Kroeker et al., 2018) poses a significant challenge for practitioners of language documentation, who often struggle to earn recognition from the academic community for the documentary records that they produce (Riesberg, 2018), reflecting a discipline-specific manifestation of broader lack of recognition of the merit of open scholarship for review and hiring (Alperin et al. 2019). There is an expressed need specifically for peer-review of documentary outputs, but no established standards for doing so (Thieberger et al., 2016; LSA Executive Committee, 2018; Woodbury, 2014; Haspelmath and Michaelis, 2014).

    The aim of this Special Collection of the Journal of Open Humanities Data (JOHD) is to develop a detailed outline of what an effective peer-review process for documentary materials might look like, and how such a system would foster better recognition for these materials in academic evaluation systems such as in hiring, promotion, and tenure. We welcome contributions that explore assessment criteria and procedures, as well as peer-authored reviews and curator-authored case studies of documentary materials.

    Submissions on the following topics and related areas are encouraged:

    • Articles discussing models of assessment for:
      • Applications of levels of access (e.g. Open Access, restricted access, sensitive materials, community access) and associated intellectual property information and reusability
      • Data organization, quality of collection description, and artifact metadata
      • Quantity, quality, and modality of the artifacts included in the collection
      • File formats and software dependencies
      • Comprehensiveness of the documentary record (e.g. diversity of speakers, speech genres, and speaker interactivity)
      • Provenance of the collection, lifecycle and evolution of the data, version control and history, long-term preservation.
      • Capacity for reuse of language documentation data for cross-disciplinary endeavors 
    • Articles discussing assessment procedures and recognition, such as:
      • Contextual assessment which takes social, technological, and linguistic factors into account
      • The roles of individual reviewers and/or authoritative bodies in conducting assessment and promoting recognition and reuse of materials
      • Assessment by community members and other non-academic peers
      • Internal assessment procedures in use by language archives
      • Assessment at multiple developmental stages of the documentary record
      • Labor issues and reward systems for performing assessments
      • The role of assessment in improving recognition of documentary materials or contributing to the further development of the materials (i.e. users as curators)
      • Variation in regional or national assessment standards 
    • Peer-authored reviews or curator-authored case studies of documentary materials that illustrate or engage with one or more of the above points.

    Submission Instructions

    All submissions should be 3,000-6,000 words in length (references not included), and will be considered full length research papers in the JOHD submission system. The deadline for submissions to this special collection is July 1st, 2021. Manuscripts will be sent for single-blind peer review after editorial consideration, and accepted papers will be published online in the journal’s special collection. Please follow the submission guidelines to submit your manuscript and please indicate that you are submitting to the special collection on Language Documentation in your cover letter.

    Please note that there are Publication Fees for accepted papers. If you have any questions about fees, contact Anastasia Sakellariadi at a.sakellariadi@ubiquitypress.com. If you have any questions about the special collection, feel free to contact the editors at johd.language.documentation@gmail.com.

    About the Journal

    The Journal of Open Humanities Data (JOHD) is an academic journal specifically dedicated to publications describing humanities research objects, software, and methods with high potential for reuse. JOHD provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. Potential authors are encouraged to review JOHD’s policies regarding author-retained copyright, Creative Commons licenses, data publication, and ethics. Authors retain copyright and grant third parties the right to use, reproduce, and share the article according to the Creative Commons-Attribution license agreement. Authors are encouraged to publish their data in recommended repositories.

    About the Guest Editors

    Richard Griscom is a researcher at Leiden University Centre for Linguistics. His research focuses on the documentation and description of endangered languages, with an emphasis on the languages of East Africa, and the development of digital data collection and processing methods for researchers working in resource-constrained environments.

    Lauren B. Collister is a faculty librarian and the Director of the Office of Scholarly Communication and Publishing for the University of Pittsburgh Library System. Her research background in sociolinguistics focuses on language change, identity, and online communication. Her current work focuses on reproducibility, open scholarship, data management, and intellectual property in linguistics research.

    Hugh J. Paterson III is an unaffiliated collaborative researcher with a background in language documentation in Nigeria and Mexico. He has worked in accessions and digitization at a language archive, and as a user interaction designer for digital experiences. He is interested in leveraging language technology for the benefit of language communities and in the ways they desire to see their language used.

    Berez-Kroeker, Andrea L., Lauren Gawne, Susan Smythe Kung, Barbara F. Kelly, Tyler Heston, Gary Holton, Peter Pulsifer, et al. 2018. Reproducible research in linguistics: A position statement on data citation and attribution in our field. Linguistics 56(1). 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1515/ling-2017-0032.

    Haspelmath, Martin & Susana Maria Michaelis. 2014. Annotated corpora of small languages as refereed publications: A vision. Diversity Linguistics Comment. https://dlc.hypotheses.org/691.

    Himmelmann, Nikolaus P. 1998. Documentary and descriptive linguistics. Linguistics 36. 161–195.

    LSA Executive Committee. 2018. Statement on Evaluation of Language Documentation for Hiring, Tenure, and Promotion. https://www.linguisticsociety.org/sites/default/files/Evaluation_Lg_Documentation.pdf (29 November, 2020).

    Mazzitelli, Lidia Federica. 2020. Documentation of Lakurumau: Making the case for one more language in Papua New Guinea. Language Documentation & Conservation 14. 215–237.

    Rice, Keren. 2011. Documentary Linguistics and Community Relations. Language Documentation & Conservation 5. 187–207.

    Riesberg, Sonja. 2018. Reflections on descriptive and documentary adequacy. In McDonnell, Bradley, Andrea L. Berez-Kroeker, and Gary Holton. (Eds.) Reflections on Language Documentation 20 Years after Himmelmann 1998. Language Documentation & Conservation Special Publication no. 15. [PP 151-156] Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press. https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/handle/10125/24816

    Salffner, Sophie. 2015. A guide to the Ikaan language and culture documentation. Language Documentation & Conservation 9. 237–267.

    Sullivant, Ryan. 2020. Archival description for language documentation collections. Language Documentation & Conservation 14. 520–578.

    Thieberger, Nick, Anna Margetts, Stephen Morey & Simon Musgrave. 2016. Assessing Annotated Corpora as Research Output. Australian Journal of Linguistics 36(1). 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/07268602.2016.1109428.

    Woodbury, Anthony C. 2014. Archives and audiences: Toward making endangered language documentations people can read, use, understand, and admire. Language Documentation and Description 12(Special Issue on Language Documentation and Archiving). 19–36.

     

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  • Call for papers - Computational Humanities Research

    Research in computational and quantitative approaches to humanities data is a fast growing interdisciplinary area. The first Computational Humanities Research workshop (CHR2020) took place online from 18 to 20 November 2020, organized by the DHLab of the KNAW Humanities Cluster in Amsterdam and The Alan Turing Institute. Although most research presented had a strong data-driven component, the focus of the workshop was primarily on methods, techniques, and computational analyses in humanities research. Thus, the challenges of the underlying humanities data for computational research remained relatively underexposed, but are at least as important. This special collection aims to highlight the challenges of humanities data for computational research. This special collection of the Journal of Open Humanities Data is open to both authors who presented at the CHR2020 workshop and intend to submit a paper highlighting the aspect of humanities data and to new authors.

    For this special collection we invite submissions of two varieties:

    1. Short data papers contain a concise description of a computational humanities research object with high reuse potential. These are short (1000 words) highly structured narratives that conform to the data paper template. A data paper does not replace a traditional research article, but rather complements it.
       CHR2020 authors: If you have already published a paper in the CHR2020 proceedings and your research includes the creation of a dataset with potential for reuse, you are welcome to submit a short data paper that complements your CHR2020 proceedings paper.
       New authors: If you are a new author and have created a dataset relevant to computational humanities research, you are invited to submit a paper in this category.
    2. Full-length research papers discuss and illustrate methods, challenges, and limitations in the creation, collection, management, access, processing, or analysis of data in computational humanities research. These are intended to be longer narratives (between 3000 and 6000 words + references), which give authors the ability to contribute to a broader discussion.
       CHR2020 authors: If you have already published a paper in the CHR2020 proceedings, you are welcome to submit a paper in this category focussing on the specific features and challenges of the humanities datasets used in your research.
       New authors: If you are a new author you are welcome to submit a paper in this category focussing on the specific features and challenges of the humanities datasets.

    Topics of focus are the features and challenges of humanities data for computational research, including scale and size, sampling and representativeness, data complexity, multidimensionality, multimodality, diachrony, as well as the challenges of preparing data for computational humanities inquiries.

    Humanities subjects of interest to JOHD include, but are not limited to Art History, Classics, History, Linguistics, Literature, Modern Languages, Music and musicology, Philosophy, Religious Studies, etc. Research that crosses one or more of these traditional disciplinary boundaries is highly encouraged.

    The deadline for submissions to this special issue is 1 March 2021. Manuscripts will be sent for double-blind peer review after editorial consideration, and accepted papers will be published online in the journal’s special collection. Please follow the submission guidelines to submit your manuscript.

    Note: there are Publication Fees for accepted papers. Publication Fees are scheduled to increase from 2nd March 2021. 

    If you have any questions, feel free to contact the editors at info@computational-humanities-research.org

    About the journal

    The Journal of Open Humanities Data (JOHD) is a growing open-access peer-reviewed academic journal specifically dedicated to publications describing humanities research objects, software, and methods with high potential for reuse. These might include curated resources like (annotated) linguistic corpora, ontologies, and lexicons, as well as databases, maps, atlases, linked data objects, and other data sets created with qualitative, quantitative, or computational methods.

    JOHD provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. Authors remain the copyright holders and grant third parties the right to use, reproduce, and share the article according to the Creative Commons license agreement. Authors are encouraged to publish their data in recommended repositories.

    About the Guest Editors

    Folgert Karsdorp is a researcher at the Meertens Institute of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in Amsterdam. His research focuses on quantitative approaches to cultural transmission and cultural evolution. He recently published a textbook on quantitative data analysis in the humanities, called Humanities Data Analysis: Case Studies with Python (Princeton University Press, 2021).

    Melvin Wevers is an Assistant Professor in Urban History and Digital Methods at the University of Amsterdam. His research interests include the philosophy of history, historical methods, and the study of cultural-historical phenomena using computational means. He has a specific research interest in the evolution of ideas, values, and practices in advertising discourse.

    Adina Nerghes is a Postdoctoral Researcher at Wageningen University & Research. Her research focuses on language use in various social contexts and emerging social structures. She has investigated the refugee crisis debates in social media, strategies of health consumers and their interactions in the social media space, and discourses of newspapers, central banks, and the European Parliament.

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  • Special Collection Call for Papers - Humanities Data in the time of COVID-19

    The rapid spread of ‘Coronavirus Disease 2019’ (COVID-19) on a global scale has resulted in an international pandemic making this a defining global health crisis of our time. The impact of the pandemic extends beyond health outcomes to include widespread social, economic, political, cultural and environmental effects to the individual, community and society. In the first time in our recent history the far reaching impact of this pandemic serves as a stark reminder of our global interdependence and the interconnectedness of disciplines.

    This global impact opens a unique opportunity for researchers to explore these widespread effects through the lens of the Humanities. Moreover, the availability of open data is critical to allow for the needed investigation of the pandemic, and to help us understand and contextualise it.

    We are planning the publication of a special collection of the Journal of Open Humanities Data entitled: “Humanities Data in the time of COVID-19”.

    Submissions can include but are not limited to the following topics:

    • Social impact of COVID-19 across various domains of life (health, work, school, relationships) over the lifespan 
    • Impact of COVID-19 using cross-cultural comparisons 
    • Historical comparison(s) of pandemics or diseases 
    • Implications of migration, movement, and/or restriction/free-will 
    • Evaluation or shift of identity or self-image (including uptake of face coverings, social distancing and limited person-to-person contact) 
    • Impact, use, and access to social media and the internet 
    • Politicisation of health, movement, messaging, and gatherings 
    • Use and/or change of language across time, including translation and analysis of information for multilingual populations 
    • Data representation, presentation, and access to information 
    • Artistic responses to COVID-19 (art, music, theatre, expression) 
    • Interconnectedness of society at local, national, and/or global levels 
    • Community and country response to inequality, food insecurity, mobilisation of resources 
    • Religion or moral identity and its effect on well-being and connectedness 
    • Attitudes and behaviours related to COVID-19 including risk perception, social belonging, national identification, political ideology, and conspiracy theories 

    The deadline for submissions to this special collection is 30 September 2020. Manuscripts will be peer reviewed after editorial consideration, and accepted papers will be published online on a rolling basis. Accepted publications are subject to a publishing fee of £100 +VAT (if applicable) for short papers and £300 + VAT (if applicable) for long papers; a discount or waiver can be applied for and all applications are considered. Follow the submission guidelines to submit your manuscript.

    The Journal of Open Humanities Data (JOHD) is a growing open-access peer-reviewed academic journal specifically dedicated to publications describing humanities research objects, software, and methods with high potential for reuse. These might include curated resources like (annoptated) linguistic corpora, ontologies, and lexicons, as well as databases, maps, atlases, linked data objects, and other data sets created with qualitative, quantitative, or computational methods. For this special collection we invite submissions of two varieties:

    1. Short data papers contain a concise description of a humanities research object with high reuse potential from research related to the COVID-19 pandemic. These are short (1000 words) highly structured narratives and must conform to the data paper template. A data paper does not replace a traditional research article, but rather complements it.

    2. Full length research papers discuss and illustrate methods, challenges, and limitations in the creation, collection, management, access, processing, or analysis of data in Humanities research related to the COVID-19 pandemic, including standards and formats. These are intended to be longer narratives (3000 - 5000 words), which give authors the ability to contribute to a broader discussion around the impact of the pandemic.

    Humanities subjects of interest to JOHD include, but are not limited to Art History, Classics, History, Linguistics, Literature, Modern Languages, Music and musicology, Philosophy, Religious Studies etc. Research that crosses one or more of these traditional disciplinary boundaries is highly encouraged. JOHD provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. Authors remain the copyright holders and grant third parties the right to use, reproduce, and share the article according to the Creative Commons license agreement. Authors are encouraged to publish their data in recommended repositories.

    If you are interested in submitting an article, please express your interest to: Sahba Besharati (sahba.besharati@wits.ac.za) and Mandy Wigdorowitz (mw738@cam.ac.uk)

    Sahba Besharati and Mandy Wigdorowitz (special collection guest editors) Barbara McGillivray (editor-in-chief of the Journal of Open Humanities Data)

    About the Guest Editors:

    Sahba Besharati is a neuropsychologist and senior lecturer in cognitive neuroscience at the Department of Psychology at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits). She completed a collaborative PhD in neuropsychology from King’s College London and the University of Cape Town (UCT), having previously trained in psychological research and clinical neuropsychology at UCT. Dr Besharati’s research specialises in the area of human social-affective neuroscience. Her research integrates neuroimaging, neuropsychological and experimental methods to investigate self-consciousness and social cognition. She is the co-founder of a new cross-disciplinary neuroscience group, Wits NeuRL, which aims to advance the research and practice of the neurosciences in the South African context.

    Mandy Wigdorowitz is a PhD candidate in Theoretical and Applied Linguistics at the University of Cambridge. She is researching the psycholinguistic and cognitive effects of language experience in multilinguals with a focus on language, education, and interaction from linguistic, social, cognitive and psychological perspectives. In addition to her doctoral research, she is a registered Research Psychologist with the Health Professions Council of South Africa and an Executive Member of the Division for Research and Methodology of the Psychological Society of South Africa.

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