Ted UnderwoodDec 9, 2022
@thatandromeda @zoeleblanc @foundhistory @dh Yeah, this happens to some extent in the sciences as well. Mitigated there because there are grad students who can perform this function (whether they should or no). In the humanities we are not training humanities grad students to code, so reliance on RSEs tends to be heavier?
Show threadZoe LeBlancDec 9, 2022

@TedUnderwood @thatandromeda @foundhistory @dh 💯 agree Ted!! I would really be curious to hear how RSEs get valued in STEM and whether there's more we could do in the humanities. From the outside, my sense is that RSEs in STEM are valued more because ppl employing them have a better sense of what they are asking them to do but realize that's mostly me just conjecturing 😅

Wonder if there's a future where RSEs could get tenure similar to library faculty 🤔 (though also realize wedding any future to tenure is tenuous at this point 😬 )

Show threadTed UnderwoodDec 9, 2022
@zoeleblanc @thatandromeda @foundhistory @dh I suspect that the path forward here is a combination of a) teaching grad students and faculty to do more of the high-level software design and b) automating some of the coding grunt work, I hope. RSEs may still have a role, but I don't want to imagine it as an ever-growing one?
Show threadZoe LeBlancDec 9, 2022

@TedUnderwood @thatandromeda @foundhistory I think there's a lot of ppl assuming it will be ever-growing? or at least I know schools like Princeton where hiring A LOT of them in the last few years.

I'm very torn on this Q because I agree with both your paths forward, but also can see the benefits of/for RSEs as well. I still wonder if the low-prestige issue is a DH-specific one, and whether RSEs working in other fields are treated more like Research Scientists, who might not be PIs or teach, but are seen as important colleagues and critical members of labs (though maybe I'm painting too rosy of a picture on that front).

Somewhat related to this Q is a project I'm doing with @jerielizabeth looking at DHers on Github, and can share based on early results that the most active DH coders are not necessarily the ones that are showing up as prominently in DH citation networks, so there's clearly some differences going on in terms of who is doing what work and how that's getting valued.

Show threadMiaDec 9, 2022
@zoeleblanc @jerielizabeth I'd love to know more about your work looking at DHers on Github! Like, how did you identify them? Are they publishing in other fields / forms? Are they not publishing because it's not rewarding for them, compared to other activities?
Show threadJeri WieringaDec 16, 2022

@mia @zoeleblanc Those are excellent questions! We (by which I mean Zoe) have been working so far on getting data from GitHub and have an initial write up in the works (which I should be doing right now). Once we have a good handle on the different types of work/roles that are visible on GitHub, we will start to ask those questions about behaviors within the different groups.

I'm excited about this project - it started as just a "I wonder if we can see these dynamics on GitHub" and it just keeps growing.

Show threadZoe LeBlanc

@jerielizabeth @mia ohh thanks for answering Jeri! And sorry for missing this Mia. Still getting the hang of Mastodon 😅

To give a bit more detail, we are using the Github search API to identify repositories, users, and organizations that have the term Digital Humanities in them in all 184 ISO languages and then doing some additional searches based off of this initial dataset to find ppl that might contribute or star or subscribe, etc... to these repos or users but don't have DH in their bios.

But there's lots of further rabbit holes to explore! I've started doing some additional searches for just Humanities or subfield terms like Digital History or Digital Cultural Heritage, but haven't dug into that data yet.

Finally to your question about publishing and rewards, I'm hoping to eventually compare this dataset to ones that others have created looking at DH citations and DH Twitter to see how this dynamic compares. Any other advice/suggestions though are very appreciated!

Dec 18, 2022 at 3:39pmWeb
Show threadMiaDec 18, 2022
@jerielizabeth @zoeleblanc so interesting! And so many potential strands... in @LivingWithMachines we work with folk at Turing who might call themselves data scientists, or research (software) engineers and be interested in citations in their field as they'll move onto something else after our project. MuseTech / openGLAM folk often do work that might look similar to DH but haven't heard of it or don't see it as relevant