Contact details
- Name:
- Professor Jane Winters
- Position:
- Professor of Digital Humanities & Director of the Digital Humanities Research Hub
- Institute:
- Institute of Historical Research
- Location:
- Room 256, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU
- Phone:
- +44 (0)20 7862 8789
- Email address:
- jane.winters@sas.ac.uk
Research Summary and Profile
- Research interests:
- Communications, Contemporary History, Culture, Digital resources, Digitisation, History, Medieval History
- Summary of research interests and expertise:
-
Jane is responsible for developing digital humanities at the School of Advanced Study. She has led or co-directed a range of digital projects, including the UK-Ireland Digital Humanities Association: a Network for Research Capacity Enhancement; CLEOPATRA: Cross-Lingual Event-Centric Open Analytics Research Academy; WARCnet; Big UK Domain Data for the Arts and Humanities; Digging into Linked Parliamentary Metadata; and Traces through Time: Prosopography in Practice across Big Data.
Jane is Chair of the Digital Preservation Coalition, and a member of RESAW (Research Infrastructure for the Study of the Archived Web), the Advisory Board of the Living with Machines project, the Advisory Board of the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure, the Editorial Board of the History of Parliament, and the UK UNESCO Memory of the World Committee.
Jane's research interests include digital history, born-digital archives (particularly the archived web), digital cultural heritage, and open access publishing. She has published most recently on Non-Print Legal Deposit and web archives, born-digital archives and the problem of search, and the archiving and analysis of national web domains.
Bluesky: @jfwinters.bsky.social
- Publication Details
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Related publications/articles:
Publications available on SAS-space:
Date Details Oct-2006 Peer Review and Evaluation of Digital Resources for the Arts and Humanities Final Report NonPeerReviewed
This is the final report produced by the AHRC-funded 'Peer review of digital resources for the arts and humanities' ICT strategy project.
Sep-2006 Peer review project online survey report NonPeerReviewed
This report presents the results of the online survey conducted in November and December 2006 as part of the IHR's 'Peer review of digital resources for the arts and humanities' research project.
The British History Online digital library: a model for sustainability? NonPeerReviewed
This article discusses the evolution of British History Online, with particular attention to the ways in which this digital library has tried to achieve a financially self-sustaining status.
Oct-2010 Connected Histories: sources for building British history 1500-1900 NonPeerReviewed
Jan-2011 'Reviews in History' and peer review in the digital age NonPeerReviewed
This paper discusses the development of the IHR's open access reviews journal, Reviews in History, and goes on to consider some of the ways in which peer review, both pre- and post-publication, might evolve in the coming months and years. It was given at a conference held to mark the launch of a new open-access reviews platform, recensio.net.
Apr-2011 Approaches to digital editing NonPeerReviewed
This paper discusses approaches to digital editing, focusing on two projects, ReScript and Early English Laws (http://www.earlyenglishlaws.ac.uk). It also touches on some of the other tools available to editors, for example those offered as part of TextGrid. ReScript, a project of the Institute of Historical Research, aims to develop a prototype editing facility, which will support collaboration within established editorial teams as well as a crowdsourced approach to producing editions. It is currently being trialled with texts at a range of stages of production, from ‘completed’ 19th-century editions which will benefit from correction and annotation to completely new works. Early English Laws aims to publish online new editions and translations of all English legal codes, edicts and treatises produced up to and including Magna Carta in 1215. A bespoke editing facility has been developed by the Department of Digital Humanities at King’s College London which, like ReScript, will support collaborative editing, as well as export to print where appropriate. The latter project is particularly complex as it has to accommodate a variety of languages and editorial approaches (scholars working on early English texts, for example, have very different requirements from those working with Latin documents). The tools developed by both of these projects will be made available in due course for use and adaptation by and for other projects. The paper was given at the 'Envisioning REED in the digital age' workshop organised by the Records of Early English Drama project, University of Toronto, 4-5 April 2011.
Apr-2007 Open Access Publishing NonPeerReviewed
Paper given at Record Society Publishing
Apr-2007 Digital publication - the available options NonPeerReviewed
Paper given at Record Society Publishing
Jun-2016 Web archives for humanities research: some reflections PeerReviewed
Mar-2017 Breaking in to the mainstream: demonstrating the value of internet (and web) histories PeerReviewed
This short article explores the challenges involved in demonstrating the value of web archives, and the histories that they embody, beyond media and Internet studies. Given the difficulties of working with such complex archival material, how can researchers in the humanities and social sciences more generally be persuaded to integrate Internet histories into their research? How can institutions and organisations be sufficiently convinced of the worth of their own online histories to take steps to preserve them? And how can value be demonstrated to the wider general public? It touches on public attitudes to personal and institutional Internet histories, barriers to access to web archives - technical, legal and methodological - and the cultural factors within academia that have hindered the penetration of new ways of working with new kinds of primary source. Rather than providing answers, this article is intended to provoke discussion and dialogue between the communities for whom Internet histories can and should be of significance.
Aug-2018 Negotiating the archives of UK web space PeerReviewed
The archived Web is an enormously rich primary source for the study of the recent past, yet it remains unappreciated and underexploited even by contemporary historians. This chapter examines why this should be the case, and argues that it is now critical for historians to begin to engage with Web archives. It explores the changing relationship between archivists, librarians and historians, which is beginning to break down researchers’ reluctance to work with born-digital materials at scale. It concludes by proposing an exciting future for (digital) historical research, which employs a combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches to recover the lives and voices of ordinary people.
Mar-2018 Web archives and (digital) history: a troubled past and a promising future? PeerReviewed
Jun-2019 Negotiating the born digital: a problem of search? PeerReviewed
Giving with one click, taking with the other: e-legal deposit, web archives and researcher access NonPeerReviewed
Learned Societies, Humanities Publishing, and Scholarly Communication in the UK PeerReviewed
Oct-2022 The role of digital humanities in an interdisciplinary research project PeerReviewed
This discussion paper will reflect on the contribution of digital humanities (DH) to a complex interdisciplinary project like the Congruence Engine. It begins by considering how DH has developed within the larger history of interdisciplinarity in the humanities, crossing boundaries within and between disciplines and sectors, and facilitating collaboration and knowledge exchange. It discusses the growth of large-scale digital projects in the humanities, shaped by the nature and scope of the data increasingly available to humanities researchers, by the new kinds of research questions that can be asked, but also by changes in broader funding and policy landscapes. It considers three recent projects which exemplify the value of DH in interdisciplinary contexts, before reflecting on how DH methods and approaches have influenced the shape of the Congruence Engine. It situates the practices of the Congruence Engine in the wider context of knowledge exchange, focusing in particular on the concept of ‘trading zones’, and draws out the complementarity between the bridging or translational role of DH and the systemic action research framing of the project. Finally, it highlights the value of responsible openness not just in relation to published research outputs but to research practice and process.
- Research Projects & Supervisions
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Research projects:
Details The Congruence Engine': Digital Tools for New Collections-Based Industrial Histories Central Services of the School
Project period: 14-Nov-2021 - 13-Nov-2024Research interests: Cultural memory, Culture, History, Metropolitan history
Towards a National Collection: Heritage Connector Central Services of the School
Project period: 01-Feb-2020 - 30-Nov-2021Research interests: Digital resources
UK-EI Digital Humanities Association: a network for research capacity enhancement Central Services of the School
Project period: 01-Aug-2020 - 30-Nov-2021Research interests: Digital resources
WARCnet: Web ARChive studies network researching web domains and events Central Services of the School
Project period: 01-Jan-2020 - 31-Dec-2021Research interests: Digital resources
Big UK Domain Data for the Arts and Humanities Big UK Domain Data for the Arts and Humanities is a collaboration between the British Library, the Institute of Historical Research, University of London, the Oxford Internet Institute and Aarhus University. It is one of 21 big data projects funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council as part of its Digital Transformations in the Arts and Humanities theme.
Born Digital Big Data and Approaches for History and the Humanities CLEOPATRA: Cross-lingual Event-centric Open Analytics Research Academy A Marie Sklodowska-Curie Innovative Training Network - The main research objective of the Cleopatra ITN is to enable effective and efficient analytics of event-centric multilingual information spread across heterogeneous sources to deliver analytics results to users in a meaningful way, with a particular focus on journalists, digital humanities researchers and memory institutions.
Congruence Engine: Digital Tools for New Collections-Based Industrial Histories The Congruence Engine is a three-year research project starting in November 2021 that will use the latest digital techniques to connect industrial history collections held in different locations. It is one of five ‘Discovery Projects’ funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council under the ‘Towards a National Collection’ programme.
Digging into Linked Parliamentary Data (DILIPAD) Parliamentary proceedings reflect our history from centuries ago to the present day. They exist in a common format that has survived the test of time, and reflect any event of significance (through times of war and peace, of economic crisis and prosperity). With carefully curated proceedings becoming available in digital form in many countries, new research opportunities arise to analyse this data, on an unprecedented longitudinal scale, and across different nations, cultures and systems of political representation. Focusing on the UK, Canada and The Netherlands, this project will deliver a common format for encoding parliamentary proceedings (with an initial focus on 1800 to yesterday); a joint dataset covering all three jurisdictions; a workbench with a range of tools for the comparative, longitudinal study of parliamentary data; and substantive case studies focusing on migration, left/right ideological polarization and parliamentary language. Comparative analysis of this kind, and the tools to support it, will inform a new approach to the history of parliamentary communication and discourse, and address new research questions. The project is a collaboration between the University of Amsterdam, the History of Parliament Trust, the Institute of Historical Research, University of London, King’s College London, and the University of Toronto. It is funded as part of the Digging into Data Challenge 3.
Heritage Connector A Towards a National Collection Foundation project in partnership with the Science Museum Group.
Traces through Time: Prosopography in Practice across Big Data Traces through Time is a collaboration between The National Archives of the UK, the Institute of Historical Research, the University of Brighton and the University of Brighton. It is one of 21 big data projects funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council as part of its Digital Transformations in the Arts and Humanities theme.
UK-EI Digital Humanities Association: a network for research capacity enhancement Digital Humanities (DH) has emerged in the last decades as an exciting and challenging field of research, combining - in an international and interdisciplinary effort - theory, practices and methods from multiple fields in the Humanities and Computer and Data Sciences. This has resulted in innovative research, and the creation of promising new directions for the Humanities. While DH has developed successfully in the UK and Ireland, with the establishment of world-leading centres in both countries, there are major opportunities for further development and innovation in the field by bringing together their complementary strengths. Seeking to nurture the capacity for excellent research and teaching in DH, to establish and sustain more effective connections with non-HE sectors (notably Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums), and to create new pathways for collaboration, this project will undertake research and consultation vital to the implementation of a permanent Digital Humanities association within the UK and Ireland. Building on existing research conducted by the partner institutions, it will bring together different stakeholders to consider and interrogate critically the concepts of sustainability, inclusivity, training, advocacy and career progression, among other key questions. Institutions and individuals engaged with the network, across the UK and Ireland, will work to propose ways in which the UK and Ireland can build a collaborative vision for the field, and create new and sustainable long-term partnerships in alignment with the international community. At the end of a year of intensive discussion, deliberation and planning, the foundations for a self-sustaining DH association will have been laid, and it will be launched in the autumn of 2021.
WARCnet This research network, led by Professor Niels Brugger at Aarhus University, offers transnational interdisciplinary networking activities for researchers who study the archived web. It runs for two years from 1 January 2020 to 31 December 2021.
Current PhD topics supervised:
Dates Details From:
Until:Rhiannon Lewis: Digitised collections and the social museum: the (re)use of images of objects in the collections of the Science Museum Group Collaborative doctoral studentship with the Science Museum - co-supervisors John Stack and Jessica Bradford)
From:
Until:Daniela Major: National and transnational media coverage of European parliamentary elections, 2004-2019 Part of the CLEOPATRA Marie Sklodowska-Curie Innovative Training Network, grant no. 812997
From:
Until:Caio de Castro Mello: Nationalism, internationalism and sporting identity: the London and Rio Olympics Part of the CLEOPATRA Marie Sklodowska-Curie Innovative Training Network, grant no. 812997
From:
Until:Jessica BrodeFrank: Strengthening digital curation to provide intersectional narratives within museums using heavy-edit metadata: a case study at Chicago's Adler Planetarium and the applications beyond (co-supervised with Dr Richard Gartner, Warburg Institute)
From:
Until:Beatrice Cannelli: Archiving social media: a comparative study of the practices, obstacles, and opportunities related to the development of social media archives (co-supervised with Dr Naomi Wells, Institute of Modern Languages Research)
Past PhD topics supervised:
Dates Details From:
Until:Women in Court: The Property Rights of Brides, Heiresses and Widows in Thirteenth-Century England Sheng-Yen Lu
From:
Until:Francielle Carpenedo: Community Engagement via Social Media by the Brazilian Food Community in the UK Available for doctoral supervision: Yes
- Professional Affiliations
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Professional affiliations:
Name Activity Fellow and Vice-President (Publications) of the Royal Historical Society Collaborations:
- Relevant Events
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Related events:
Date Details 10-Dec-2018 Using the archives of the UK web for humanities and social science research Plenary lecture, ‘From Body Capital to the internet’ conference, Strasbourg
21-Nov-2018 Working with born-digital archives for humanities research – a new challenge Keynote, ‘Digital methodologies for understanding musical experience’ conference
22-Oct-2018 Open access and humanities research - an evolving relationship Keynote, 'Open and engaged' conference, British Library
21-Aug-2018 Digital history and cultural heritage: a question of collaboration? Keynote, Dansk Historikermode 2018, Helsingor
11-Jul-2018 Working to define a digital humanities community: local, national and international challenges Presentation at 'Searching Questions: Digital Humanities Symposium', Cambridge
05-Jul-2018 Digital (public) history - an introduction Plenary lecture, Public History Summer School, Wroclaw
11-Jun-2018 The Digital Humanities landscape in the UK Presentation, Digital Culture event, Newcastle
07-Jun-2018 Humanities and the born digital: moving from a difficult past to a promising future? Keynote, DH Benelux 2018, Amsterdam
25-Apr-2018 What difference does digital make? The present (and future) of digital humanities in the UK Presentation at Exeter Digital Humanities seminar.
13-Feb-2018 Authors and their publishing experiences Panel session, UP Redux 2018, British Library
26-Jan-2018 Negotiating web archives: a problem of search? Presentation, 'After the Digital Revolution' workshop, Loughborough London campus
26-Oct-2017 The use of social media in an academic context Keynote, HRB Ones 2 Watch conference, Dublin
17-Oct-2017 Negotiating the archives of UK web space Digital Humanities seminar, Linnaeus University, Vaxjo
11-Sep-2017 Too much information? Negotiating the archives of UK web space Keynote, Digital Resources for the Arts and Humanities 2017, Plymouth
16-Jun-2017 Moving into the mainstream: web archives in the press Presentation at Web Archiving Week conference, London
14-Jun-2017 Demonstrating the value of internet and web histories Panel on 'Internet and web histories', Web Archiving Week conference, London
14-Jun-2017 Web archives: truth, lies and politics in the 21st century Digital Conversations at the British Library, public roundtable
Other editing/publishing activities:
Date Details Series Co-Editor, New Historical Perspectives New Historical Perspectives is a new open-access book series for early career scholars (within ten years of their doctorate), commissioned and edited by the Royal Historical Society, and published by the Institute of Historical Research at the University of London. The series has a number of distinctive features designed to support high-quality scholarship from early career historians.
Editor, 'Academic Publishing' Gathering of Cambridge Elements: Publishing and Book Culture This new series, published by Cambridge University Press, aims to fill the demand for easily accessible, quality texts available for teaching and research in the diverse and dynamic fields of Publishing and Book Culture. Rigorously researched and peer-reviewed, this brand new Elements series will be published in thematic areas, or 'Gatherings', that can then be augmented by additional online materials.
Member of the Editorial Board, Internet Histories - Consultancy & Media
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- Available for consultancy:
- Yes