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About this event

What counts as data in the Humanities? What are the advantages of data sharing? How can the creators of data receive credit through academic publications? This Open Humanities Data Forum explores the broader view of data sharing and publishing in Humanities research. It is an opportunity to learn about open data and encourage its adoption. If you have created a resource, a dataset, a corpus and you want to get academic credit for it, or you simply want to see what is happening in this space, come and participate!

The Journal of Open Humanities Data is publishing a special collection of data-focused papers exploring the widespread effects of COVID-19 through the lens of the Humanities. The collection is entitled “Humanities Data in the time of COVID-19” and is led by guest editors Sahba Besharati and Mandy Wigdorowitz. The event will offer an opportunity to hear more about this special collection and ask any questions you may have.

For the details of this event and information on how to register, click here.

The deadline submission for the special collection “Humanities Data in the time of COVID-19” (Editors: Sahba Besharati and Mandy Wigdorowitz) has been extended to 30 November 2020.

For more information about the special collection, please visit: https://openhumanitiesdata.metajnl.com/

The Journal of Open Humanities Data (JOHD) is working to develop a strong social media strategy to maximise the impact of its published content and build a thriving community around the journal. We aim to foster debate and share news, becoming a central online space for information-sharing within the area of open data in Humanities research.

The role of Social Media Editor will involve working with the Editor-in-Chief of JOHD, Dr Barbara McGillivray, and with the publisher, Ubiquity Press to create and implement an online social media strategy for the journal. The aims of the role are to increase interest in publications within the journal, post journal news, provide general information around the subject area, and increase the followers of the social media accounts.

Applicants will be considered from all career stages, however, this may be particularly suited to an early career researcher.

Applicants must show a strong interest in the topic of open data and open research and have a good working knowledge of Twitter, Facebook. Knowledge of other social media platforms may also be an advantage.

It is expected that the role should take up to approximately 1 hour per week, either through daily social media interaction or weekly scheduling of posts. The successful applicant will be fully recognized as a member of the editorial team, will provide creative input into the journal development, and will benefit from increased interaction with their subject area and colleagues. Like other editorial roles and the editor in chief positions, there is no salary attached to the role.

Application

Applications should be submitted no later than 15th December 2020. 

To apply, please send in a CV and short cover letter detailing your experience using social media and how it may be relevant for this role to openhumanitiesdata@ubiquitypress.com.

Feel free to contact us should you wish to discuss the role prior to completing the application.

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.