Directory of Research and Expertise

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Research Summary and Profile

Research interests:

Cultural memory, Culture, Digital resources, Digitisation, History, History of the book

Languages:

	Spoken	Written
French	Fluent	Fluent
Latin	Intermediate	Intermediate
Other:	Greek

Publication Details

Related publications/articles:

Date	Details
01-Jan-2025	Together : interdisciplinarity, collaboration and participation in digital cultural heritage research. The case of the Congruence Engine project Journal articles (with Arran Rees; Stefania Zardini )   This paper will discuss how interdisciplinarity, collaboration and participation have been re-imagined in large-scale digital cultural heritage projects, taking the Congruence Engine project as a case study, by highlighting how the interplay between the collaborative nature of DH, and systematic action research can bring together the human and computational.
01-Dec-2022	Embracing Decline in Digital Scholarship beyond Sustainability. In The Bloomsbury Handbook to the Digital Humanities, James O'Sullivan (ed) (pp. 309–316). Bloomsbury Academic. Chapters This chapter approaches sustainability in digital scholarship from a comprehensive point of view, beyond a dynamic network of technologies, infrastructures, people, financial, and managerial decisions battling about the longevity of digital outputs. I explore  the political and institutional contexts in which sustainability is being implemented in Digital Humanities environments, from technological preservation over time, project-bound frameworks, ethical innovation, responsible credit and evaluation to inescapable failure as part of our practice.
01-Sep-2022	Surfacing multiple perspectives on keywords for the Congruence Engine; embracing multiplicity, interdisciplinarity, and mutual learning Journal articles (with Stefania Zardini Lacedelli and Arran J Rees)   This article explores collaborative conversation as a method to surface multiple perspectives on community engagement and forms of knowledge creation in the Congruence Engine project. Our exchanges naturally converged around four main areas: the multiple meanings of the term ‘community’ and the nature of these relationships; the modes and spaces for engagement; the different nature of knowledge emerging from these interactions; and, finally, a series of practical issues and challenges that can act as potential barriers. The article also reflects on the opportunities of dialogic writing to enable participatory, inclusive and polyvocal approaches in the development of a national collection.
01-Sep-2022	The role of digital humanities in an interdisciplinary research project Journal articles (with Jane Winters)    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.
28-Feb-2022	Connected Histories of the BBC: Opening up the BBC Oral History Archive to the Digital Domain Journal articles This article describes the computational and data-related challenges of the “Connected Histories of the BBC” project, an interdisciplinary project aiming to bring into the public realm some of the hidden treasures of the BBC's own Oral History Archive through the creation of an openly accessible, fully searchable and interconnected digital catalogue of this archive. This project stands as an interesting case study on the tensions between “computational” and “archival”, by critically designing and employing computational approaches for an historical, complex Oral History collection of scattered analogue records of various forms with an archival pre-history. From data acquisition, modeling, structuring and enhancement, metadata, data analysis procedures, to web design and legal issues, this paper discusses the various computational challenges, processes and decisions made during this project, while showcasing the principles of (re)usability, accessibility, and collaboration throughout its course. Added
08-May-2019	Diversity and inclusion in digital scholarship and pedagogy: the case of The Programming Historian Journal articles (with James Baker; Maria José Afanador-Llach; Brandon Walsh)    This article presents several inclusion and diversity policies and strategies for digital scholarship and pedagogy, using The Programming Historian as a case study. By actively supporting and working towards gender diversity, as well as multilingualism, cultural inclusivity and open access, The Programming Historianaims to further enhance what is meant to be open in the context of access, diversity and inclusion in digital scholarship and pedagogy.

Publications available on SAS-space:

Date

Details

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.

Consultancy reports:

Date	Details
2023	iDAH Research Software Engineering (RSE) Steering Group Working Paper This working paper resulted from two (hybrid) workshops conducted in May and June 2022, chaired by Professor James Smithies (King’s College London) at the request of Tao-Tao Chang, AHRC Head of (Research) Infrastructure. The workshops were conceived and organised by Dr. Anna-Maria Sichani (AHRC Policy and Engagement Fellow), and hosted at The Alan Turing Institute. Contributors are listed in Appendix 4.
2021	Report on the AHRC Digital/ Software Requirements Survey 2021: Where is Investment Needed? (with Shoaib Sufi and Emily Bell) A report by the Software Sustainability Institute (www.software.ac.uk) (SSI) on the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UKRI AHRC) community to better understand views on digital/software tools, experience of development of such tools, practices, learning intentions and preferences around how projects involving digital/software should be resourced. The report was originally intended to help inform the digital infrastructure funding being envisaged by the AHRC. In its final form we believe it's of use and interest to the AHRC and other arts and humanities funders, organisations which support arts and humanities research and practice, communities of practice, members of AHRC's community and to individuals wanting to learn more about these topics whether to inform their own practice or to understand the space.

Research Projects & Supervisions

Research projects:

Details

AHRC Policy and Engagement Fellowship in Digital Research Infrastructure This project will focus on the development of a technical specification and architecture of a federated research infrastructure of Arts and Humanities in order to enhance national digital research capability of the Arts and Humanities research community. By working closely with stakeholders and the UKRI Digital Research Infrastructure Committee, this project will explore and define the design and development requirements of a robust data services and interlinked digital repositories ecosystem that will ensure integration, connectivity, discoverability, interoperability and access for our cross-disciplinary and cross-sectoral datasets. The project will also focus on the skills development aspect of the research community, through the planning of a national digital skills programme for the Arts and Humanities.

Professional Affiliations

Professional affiliations:

Name	Activity
Archives and Technology Committee of the Archives and Records Association (UK & Ireland)	Research Representative
European Association of Digital Humanities	Executive Committee member

Collaborations:

Name	Type	Activity	Start date	End date
Software Sustainability Institute	Fellow	Fellow	08-Sep-2018

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