Wednesday, 23 January 2019 8:00 to Friday, 25 January 2019 17:00

AIUCD2019, the annual conference of AIUCD-Associazione per l’Informatica Umanistica e la Cultura Digitale, will be held in Udine, Italy, at the “Dipartimento di Studi umanistici e del Patrimonio culturale” (DIUM) of the University of Udine.

The main topic of the AIUCD 2019 Conference is “Pedagogy, teaching, and research in the age of Digital Humanities”. The conference aims at reflecting on the new possibilities that the digital yields for pedagogy, teaching, and scholarly research: how will these transform teaching in the humanities? What contributions can humanistic cultural critique offer to the digital revolution? What is the connection with the digitization plan for Universities outlined by the Ministry? It also concerns the Digital Humanities as a new discipline, and this brings forward further considerations: how can the new professional figure of the digital humanist be developed? Which areas of knowledge define the Digital Humanities as a subject of study, research, and teaching? How can we recognise, classify, describe, and evaluate research efforts in the Digital Humanities?

While open to other topics related to Digital Humanities, proposals for contributions are particularly encouraged on the following:

  • General questions:

    • the epistemological positioning and area of knowledge of DH in relation to the systems of Academic Research Areas (Settori Scientifico-Disciplinari) and  Recruiting in Italy;

    • the positioning of DH in the European and International academic systems;

    • the evaluation of research in DH beyond traditional publications;

    • dissemination, public history, and crowdsourcing within research projects;

    • the role of inter(multi-trans-cross)-disciplinary DH research in European projects, enquiry, and teaching.

  • Pedagogy and teaching questions:

    • teaching DH: which models, technologies, and methods?

    • teaching the humanities in secondary schools and universities with DH tools;

    • teaching DH at the University: how is it taught today?

    • DH and media: production, dissemination, and analytical prospects

    • teaching history and DH;

    • DH and didactic strategies;

    • DH and hands-on teaching practices;

    • DH and primary source teaching;

    • Big Data methodologies and technologies in DH research and teaching.

  • Questions concerning research efforts:

    • statistical and quantitative research methods and their teaching applications;

    • Data Science and the role of DH in the definition of new knowledge;

    • Information science and DH:  meeting points and methodological integration;

    • cultural and social impact of humanities research with computational methodologies;

    • Semantic web technologies and linked open data in the humanities;

    • models and tools for knowledge representation in the humanities and the cultural heritage sector;

    • visualization methodologies and technologies and their significance for humanities and cultural heritage knowledge and information;

    • Natural Language Processing methodologies and applications for the humanities;

    • digitization methodologies and technologies for the production, preservation, and promotion of digital cultural heritage.

Deadlines

The deadline for submitting proposals is the 25th October 2018 (h. 23.59 CET).

Notifications of acceptance will be sent to the authors by 15th December 2018.

The official languages of the Conference are Italian and English. However, it is possible to present in other languages if English slides are provided.

Proposal categories and submission

Proposals must be sent in the form of an extended abstract (see below for details), using the ConfTool conference management system, accessible at: http://www.conftool.net/aiucd2019

The Conference provides the following proposal categories:

  1. long proposal (30 mins: 20 mins + 10 mins for for questions and answers): it should discuss innovative methodologies and their theoretical foundations, experiences of analysis and applications that are methodologically significant within a discipline; presentations devoted to presenting a specific tool or resource are acceptable only if they include a thorough critical discussion of the methods used and/or a theoretical evaluation of the results obtained;

  2. short proposal (20 mins: 15 mins + 5 mins for questions and answers): it must present a mature research product or a research project;

  3. panel (90 or 45 mins, including questions and answers): a series of presentations (maximum 6) should describe, from a theoretical and methodological point of view, a specific topic or a critical presentation of the grounding, methods and results of a big project;

  4. poster: must primarily address the progress of an ongoing project or the technical details of a tool or of a digital resource;

  5. workshop and tutorial: in the two days prior to the Conference, one or two workshops or tutorials on topics or tools of interest to the DH community will be accepted.

Proposals will be evaluated through double-blind peer review by scholars in the Humanities, Computer Science and/or Digital Humanities. The proposal evaluation will be carried out based on the following criteria:

  • Relevance to the topic of the conference; consistency with the Digital Humanities and Digital Culture domains.

  • Originality, relevance, or innovative approach.

  • Methodological rigour, accurate description of the methodology; the research presented should be reproducible

  • Adequacy of the theoretical and conceptual approach to the reference domain.

  • Consistency of arguments; clear definition of the objectives; coherence between objectives and results.

  • Critical analysis of the literature; a bibliography

  • Quality of any technical solutions proposed within the reference domain.

  • Good balance between the Humanities and Computer Science components of the research.

  • Structure of the text; quality of writing; ease of understanding; explanations of scientific language.

At the end of the evaluation process, the Program Committee may decide to move an accepted proposal to a different category of presentation.

To submit a proposal, please sign into ConfTool (http://www.conftool.net/aiucd2019). When submitting a proposal, authors must specify keywords from those suggested by the platform in order to facilitate the review process.

Proposal structure and formats

Proposals must clearly present the goals of the contribution, provide a brief overview of current research in the field, specify and discuss the methodology adopted and, where appropriate, the results obtained or expected. The abstracts will be published in a book with an ISBN identifier. The most promising contributions will be selected for publication as full articles in the AIUCD Umanistica Digitale journal (https://umanisticadigitale.unibo.it). Proposals must also include a short bibliography. Figures or tables may be included. The length of the proposal varies depending on the type of proposal:

  • Long paper proposal should be 1500-1800 words in length (including footnotes but excluding the bibliography);

  • Short paper and poster proposals should be 800-1000 words in length (including footnotes but excluding the bibliography);

  • Panel proposals should be 800-1000 words in length plus 200-250 words for each single presentation, (including footnotes but excluding the bibliography);

  • Workshop or tutorial proposals should be at least 1000 words and include: a title and a short description of the content and its relevance to the conference and the DH community in general, complete information of all tutors with a brief description of their research interests and previous experience, requests for technical support at the conference, and whether the workshop will have its own Call for Participation.

When submitting the proposal, ConfTool also requires the provision of a short abstract (300 words). Proposals should be drafted according to the templates available at:

which also includes editorial specifications. Valid formats are DOCX, DOC, and ODT.

The official languages of the AIUCD 2019 Conference are Italian and English, but it is possible to submit a proposal also in the following languages: French, German and Spanish. In these cases, it is mandatory to provide a short abstract in English in ConfTool.

Location:

Udine, Dipartimento di Studi umanistici e del Patrimonio culturale