The Icelandic Center for Digital Humanities and the Arts (CDHA) is a forum for the development, hosting, and consultation on the development and access to digital databases in the humanities and arts, as well as for research based on these databases.
The databases cover both linguistic data, i.e. text and language, and resources in other formats, such as images, videos, 3D models, audio and visual art in digital form.
CDHA will coordinate international collaboration in the field of digital research infrastructures in the humanities and the arts and have open access to data as a guideline.
CDHA is a collaboration between 13 institutions. Digital humanities is a rapidly growing field of research on the boundaries of the humanities and information technology. In digital humanities, information technology methods are applied to the subjects of the humanities and the arts, which opens up new interdisciplinary research and subjects and new opportunities for the dissemination of research and its results.
Objectives
CDHA’s goal is to promote the development of and access to research infrastructure in the field of digital humanities and to link Icelandic research to international development in the field.
CDHA will be an infrastructure core, run in collaboration with the leading universities and institutions in the field of humanities and arts, history, culture and languages in Iceland.
Themes
- Promote cooperation between institutions that host Icelandic databases in the field of humanities and the arts and conduct research based on them.
- Promote the development of databases, the maintenance of existing databases, and to ensure that databases meet international metadata standards.
- Development of technological solutions for databases and the purchase of ready-made solutions, depending on what is best for each case.
- Provide researchers with access to data and databases suitable for their research.
- Provide researchers with access to specialized tools and technological solutions to conduct research using digital databases.
- Support the dissemination of content that suits the needs of different target groups.
- Provide education and training in research techniques and methods of digital humanities.
Impact
CDHA will support and promote research related to major societal challenges. It provides new opportunities for research related to life and work in a world of change, where the databases contain a variety of information about:
- demographic change
- equality
- diversity
- culture
- mindset and changes in mindset over time.
The databases will also promote research related to health and welfare, as they contain valuable information on well-being and private life.
In addition, this will promote research related to environmental issues and sustainability, where good information on the impact of environmental change on people and communities is important.
Emphasis will be placed on open access to research and research data.
Emphasis will also be placed on mobilizing the public for participation (citizen science), among other things by crowd sourcing.
For whom
CDHA will serve all researchers in the humanities and arts in Iceland, as well as all others who are interested in working with Icelandic data.
Open access to high-quality data is one of the main objectives of CHDA. Researchers from various fields of social and educational sciences will benefit from data within the humanities and the arts. This also applies to other fields of study that work with historical and cultural data in their research.
CDHA aims to provide educational institutions with improved access to data and tools for processing cultural and historical information.
MSHL will collaborate with similar institutions internationally and participate in the development of new technical solutions in the field.