20.093 a workshop: User Requirements Gathering for the Humanities

                Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 20, No. 93.
       Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
  www.kcl.ac.uk/schools/humanities/cch/research/publications/humanist.html
                        www.princeton.edu/humanist/
                     Submit to: humanist_at_princeton.edu

         Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2006 15:25:01 +0100
         From: Michael Fraser <mike.fraser_at_computing-services.oxford.ac.uk>
         Subject: User Requirements Gathering for the Humanities -
Workshop, 20 July

Apologies for the multiple postings but the following workshop may be
of interest to list members (please feel free to forward to
colleagues). Please note that the deadline for registration is 10
July 2006 (by email to ruth.kirkham_at_humanities.ox.ac.uk).

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User Requirements Gathering for the Humanities - Workshop
Following a successful application to the AHRC, the 'Building a Virtual
Research Environment for the Humanities' (http://bvreh.humanities.ox.ac.uk)
project is holding a series of workshops to highlight the necessity of user
requirements gathering for the humanities community.
Thursday 20th July, 10.30 a.m. to 4 p.m., The Classics Centre, The Old Boys
School, George Street, Oxford, OX1 2RL.
(http://www.classics.ox.ac.uk/faculty/index.html)
The JISC funded 'Building a Virtual Research Environment for the Humanities'
(BVREH) project has recently been carrying out an extensive user
requirements survey of humanities researchers at Oxford University. This is
one of a number of ICT projects based in the humanities which have begun to
focus on user requirements gathering prior to developing technology. The
project feels that this is an important time to bring together these
initiatives and work towards building a requirements capturing community for
the humanities sector.
The workshops will be of particular importance in identifying the needs of
humanities researchers in a broad range of subject areas and disciplines.
Building on the existing expertise in e-Science they will attempt to
identify ways in which humanities research can develop equivalent and
inter-disciplinary structures and methodologies which will serve the needs
of the research community and link it more firmly to ICT research structures
on a national scale.
The three workshops are designed to build a community in which the
methodologies for humanities requirements gathering will continue to grow
and evolve. The programme is structured to provide an understanding of where
the current issues and gaps in humanities user requirements are, what
methodologies and practices currently exist, including which would be useful
to adopt and which might be created. Finally the programme will define how
the community will use the knowledge gained to develop coherent
methodologies for future projects.
Workshop One - User Requirements in ICT Projects in Humanities
The focus of the first workshop will be to define and discuss the methods
that projects are currently utilising in gathering requirements, to initiate
discussion around current issues and concerns and to encourage participants
to think collectively about improving and advancing these methodologies.
Case studies of the BVREH project and other AHRC and JISC funded projects
with a considerable user requirements focus will be presented to help
initiate group discussion. The workshop will then split into groups to
develop the themes identified and feed back outcomes to the group at the end
of the session.
Speakers at the workshop will include:
-     Sheila Anderson, Arts and Humanities Data Service - 'The AHRC's
e-Science Scoping Survey'
-     Dr Melissa Terras, University College London - 'Log Analysis of
Internet Resources in the Arts and Humanities' (LARIAH)
-     Professor Michael Fulford, University of Reading - 'Silchester Roman
Town: A VRE for Archaeology'
-     Ruth Kirkham and John Pybus, Oxford University - 'Building a Virtual
Research Environment for the Humanities' (BVREH)
In order to gain a good sense of those wishing to attend, individuals are
asked to submit a paragraph describing their interest is the workshop,
together with a short summary of their background.
Please confirm if you would like to attend by emailing
ruth.kirkham_at_humanities.ox.ac.uk by Monday 10th July 2006. There are a
limited number of places available; notification of a place will be sent by
Wednesday 12th July.
Lunch and light refreshments will be served during the day.
Kind regards,
Ruth Kirkham