Presentation on Centre for e-Research, KCL: Tobias Blanke, Mark Hedges

Centre for e-Research, Kings' College. Presentation given at VERSI (Victorian E-Research Strategic Initiative), 2008-10-06

CeRCH were formed out of the Arts & Humanities Data Service; once it was discontinued, KCL set up the centre to keep work going. (The current obligation for data is presentation in the UK is now to hand data over to an institution committed to maintain it for "at least 3 years").

Size of collections had been skyrocketting, because of introduction of video resources (45 TB at the time of axing AHDS). The resources got split up: KCL do performing arts, history went to the Social Sciences data service, archaeology remained independent, language and literature (starting with the Oxford Text Archives) to the Oxford Research Archive.

CeRch has been going for a year, and is designated to support the entire research lifecycle at KCL, including planning and proposals. They will be teaching a Masters on Digital Asset Management from next year, in collaboration with the Centre for Computing in the Humanities. They research e-research.

Grids & Innovation Lab: build on Access Grid as creative space for teaching, strong link to Theatre department. Setting up Campus Grid: KCL still not on board with national grid. Currently piloting with early adopters.

ICTGuides: database of projects, methods and tools in Arts & Humanities. www.Arts-humanities.net: a collaborative environment for e-Humanities. DARIAH. CLARIN. Are starting to move beyond arts to medicine; seeking to work with industry & business as well, as a business service (starting with museums and libraries).


Arts & Humanities e-Science Support Centre

UK infrastructure has been built about national centres.

Push to get more users using services, to recoup costs in e-research; arts & humanities have a lot of users. Plus, network effect because users are more familiar with what is available. Humanities are more about creating sustainable artefacts than science is.

User interface design is more important, because end users are difficult to train up.

Linking Structured Humanities data (LaQuAT). Diverse/non-standard and isolated data resources: allow integration and useful resources. OGSA-DAI as linking infrastructure, allows researchers to retain local ownership. Ref. www.ahessc.ac.uk for projects.