Session 2 Intellectual Property, access and digital humanities research

This session grapples with some of the challenges which arise in a world where copying is easy, and copies proliferate exponentially fast. How can we keep track of who to credit for the creative work involved in the process of making digital content? Especially if we're working with digital representations of other media, such as historical manuscripts, paintings, or recordings of live performances? Copyright and other intellectual property frameworks have tended in the predigital age to restrict the reuse of other people's work without express permission of the original creator.

You'll be introduced to one of the major efforts to facilitate sharing and reuse of creative works by labeling digital content clearly. Many cultural heritage and academic collection holding institutions, such as major libraries, galleries, museums, and archives use the Creative Commons system to make their digital collections available for research and enjoyment without further cost.

We will also explore why you need to be a good steward of your own data. And how keeping records where you found the data you're using in your research is crucial. There are many different routes you might take to gather data for digital humanities research. You might access via a user interface, or via an application program interface, otherwise known as an API, or you might access via direct download, or via a collection holder making a copy on a physical medium, such as a hard drive, and delivering to you.

In addition, you may be creating your own digital data from original materials-- for example, by visiting an archive and taking your own photographs. In all of these cases, you need to make sure you are keeping track of the following points-- where and how you got it, how you changed it, who should be credited, who can make further use of it. A formal way to achieve this is through the creation of a data management plan. Finally, you'll be introduced to some key issues in data ethics, including your responsibilities under the General Data Protection Regulation, which applies to any data you collect with identifiable living humans in it.