UNIVERSITY OF COLOGNE

Subject-relevant digital applications and working techniques:

• Fundamentals and requirements of research data management
• File formats, metadata vocabularies and standard data for long-term archiving and networking of research data
• Subject-relevant software for transcription, text analysis, visualization and statistical evaluation

Objectives:

• Knowledge of the basics and requirements of digital research data management,
• Ability to use, network and exchange research data sustainably
• Knowledge and ability to use subject-relevant software to analyze digital sources
• Acquisition of the Digital Certificate of the Institute of History for Masters, Part 2

Research data management is a rapidly growing field in research, libraries and cultural heritage institutions. A new field of work and a new job profile is emerging for which information scientists, digital humanists and students of information processing can qualify. Research data management encompasses the methods and procedures for storing, indexing and securing the long-term usability of data generated in the course of scientific projects. The University of Cologne has had a research data center for the humanities (DCH) since 2013 and a central competence center (^C3RDM) since 2018. The exercise introduces the basic concepts, guidelines and standards and shows the perspective of research practice as well as data curation and data management on an equal footing. Special attention is paid to the variety of methods and the specific requirements of research data management in the humanities. Practical application tasks are set for various topics.

Course program:

• Introduction to research data management: General aspects of research data management
• Research data in the humanities: Conceptual and functional description and delimitation of data
• Data, metadata and paradata: Comprehensive discussion of the functionality and logic of metadata (formats)
• Workflows, versioning and traceability: reproducibility, documentation and strategies for handling research data
• Legal issues, data security: discussion of copyright and data protection aspects when handling research data
• Ethical issues: discussion of ethical challenges in research data management
• Repositories: characteristics and modes of operation
• Archiving, publication and re-use: discussion of publication and re-use strategies
• Data curation: Central aspects of data curation in the humanities
• Standard data: properties and functions of standard data
• Data management plans: Comprehensive introduction to how data management plans work
• Project management: backup strategies and basic functions of versioning, sensible data and folder organization

Objectives:

• Learning the basics of research data management in the humanities

For doctoral students at the a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School for the Humanities Cologne, the DCH has been offering the two-day workshop "Research Data Management in the Humanities" since the summer semester 2018. The workshop is part of the compulsory elective section of the a.r.t.e.s. practical program.

The aim of the workshop is to familiarize doctoral students with RDM basics and to learn selected RDM concepts on their own dissertation project. The core areas of the teaching concept are the research data life cycle, the curation of research data, in particular the use of metadata and repositories, open access, the FAIR principles as well as personal rights and copyright issues. In addition, a special focus will be placed on hardware and software services offered at the University of Cologne.

The courses end with the writing of a data management plan for your own dissertation project.

The preservation of our cultural heritage largely takes place in digital collections and all digital collections contain digital objects. However, neither the collections nor the digital objects can be considered homogeneous. The content of the seminar is an insight into the diversity of 2D and 3D digitization of objects and the retrospective digitization of images and text present on standard or fragile material as well as their indexing, preservation and publication in a collection context. The importance and components of research data management in general and currently used formats, metadata, interfaces and other standards in particular are considered. Basic knowledge of data modeling (UML) and software architectures (MVC) complete the program.

Practical parts of the seminar are integrated into the installation, configuration and administration of current CMS and repository software. Students will install Wordpress and Drupal on local servers and discuss the basic principles of content management systems (CMS) in comparison to Typo3.

In addition, digital collections are created using the DSpace software as an example and evaluated with regard to the requirements of sensible research data management. Different characteristics of various repository types will be discussed in this context.

Presentations by external experts from the fields of computational linguistics, archaeoinformatics and research data management at the Data Center for the Humanities (DCH) will enrich the seminar, as will the expertise and experience of the staff of the Cologne Center for eHumanities (CCeH) and the digitization department of the University Library, which will be visited as part of the seminar.

Specifically, the following questions will be discussed:

• What are the differences between digital libraries, archives and museums?
• What does comprehensive digitization involve?
• Can any type of collection be digitized in a meaningful way?
• What do different 3D scanning processes achieve and what role does VR play in this?
• What makes text digitization and capture difficult and under what circumstances can it be automated?
• What can AI be useful for in a digital collection and why does it always run the risk of supporting any kind of bias?
• Why are metadata, interfaces and standards somehow boring but essential and how can the discoverability of digital objects be improved?
• Why can the use of standards such as Iconclass raise ethical and moral issues?

Objectives:

• Content: Basic knowledge of retrospective digitization and the development of collections, critical handling of material that is to be transferred to digital collections. Form of examination: ePortfolio of the seminar content.
• Formal: Successful participation is certified with a certificate of attendance (with grade) and is part of the IT certificate of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, which consists of a total of 4 modules.

For all enrolled Bachelor's and Master's students of the University of Cologne, the seminar can be credited as part of the SI and EA, the seminar content is specifically designed for students of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities. The seminar is a curricular component of the Master's program Cultural and Intellectual History Between East and West in SM1a (Essential Philological Skills).

Enrolled doctoral students in the field of Digital Humanities (DH) are also welcome.