Today marks the launch of my new Web site. I’ve spent a lot of time over the past few years working on the look and feel of several project-based Web sites, and then creating content for them, but this space has languished. I hope this isn’t symbolic (mid-40s and I’ve let myself go…)

 

With this site I wanted to do something different.

 

First, I wanted a space that gave a lot of attention to images. I’ve done that with some trepidation.  (Am I overcompensating for letting myself go? Isn’t the stylized “K” a bit over the top, akin to showing up at work in a mid-life crisis red convertible?)  Besides, many of my friends and colleagues in digital humanities have gone in the opposite direction: Steve Ramsay’s blog, for instance, elegantly hearkens back to a time before graphical applications.  Steve lives on the command line, and his Web space reflects it. If I could write as well as Steve, I might be content to let the text take centre stage.

 

I’ve adopted a different approach for several reasons. For one, I can’t help myself. I started my work life at the National Film Board of Canada, where images were everything, and text was used only as a last resort. Much of my research and development has taken aesthetics seriously (sometimes, too seriously). Humanists (especially in history) understand the power of images, but abandon them when engaging in humanistic discourse. Images are too popular; they’re un-academic. I’ve spent the last few years researching computer simulations and serious games, so I know the potential and the limitations of visualization; I wanted to reflect, and occasionally test that power, in this Web space. Plus, I wanted to force myself to capture more images (Google Glass, here I come!).

 

Second, I wanted to bring together my research outputs (publications, simulations, apps, workshops, conferences and organizations) on one “Projects” page.  Part of me wondered if this was online academic suicide.  Shouldn’t my publications, the gold standard of my output, be given their own sacred space?

I went in a different direction because all of these things constitute “scholarship”.  I’ve been inspired by the recent discussion (some of which can be found here) among digital humanists about what constitutes scholarship in the twenty-first century.  This is not small potatoes in a field populated by young people facing promotion and tenure with a dossier full of research accomplishments beyond articles and books. How, for instance, should one classify a software solution such as Omeka? And is this service, research, teaching, or something else entirely?

 

I’ve always had difficulty distinguishing among the component parts of the academic holy trinity.  I research the design, development and testing of digital environments for history (research). That means I have to build these environments for someone to use (service); usually the development process involves non-academic partners (service); typically the digital environments are purpose-built for education (teaching). And I often build these environments with students (more teaching).

 

I like Mark Sample’s definition of scholarship, and so my “Projects” space brings together that which I’ve created, or helped to create, that’s “public”, and “reviewed”.  I think those of us fortunate enough to work in digital humanities should take every opportunity possible to champion these non-traditional outputs as “scholarship”.

 

Now that the site is up, I just have to add the words (and pictures)…