Research Guides @ Fordham: Digital Humanities: Project Planning & Data Management

Project Planning Tools & Tips

The following resources can be used to help research and scope out what might be needed to development and sustain a DH project.

Life Cycle of a Digital Resource
Explains the work needed to develop and maintain digital resources from Ithaka S+R.

Scholarly Web Design Best Practices for Sustainability
2017 blog post from HumTech at UCLA offering perspectives from DH practitioners on risk and lifespan for certain types of digital publishing.

Socio-Technical Sustainability Roadmap
NEH-funded tool from the University of Pittsburgh offering learning modules to plan, develop, sustain, and preserve DH projects.

See Project Reviews & Directories for more information about the work behind DH projects.

Project Charters & Collaboration

Project charters or agreements in DH are used to set goals, manage expectations, allocate resources, and credit contributions from collaborators.

Project Charter Examples from Princeton
Resources from the Center for Digital Humanities at Princeton defining project charters and sharing examples.

Sample Project Charter from Yale DHLab
Sample form from Yale that describes production workflow, roles and responsibilities of collaborators, project timeline, and allocation of resources.

Copyright and Creator Rights in DH Projects: A Checklist
Checklist offered to the DH community by participants of the Digital Humanities 2017 panel “Copyright, Digital Humanities, and Global Geographies of Knowledge.”

Funding & Research Data Management Plans

Data management plans (DMPs) are often required when applying for grants to support large-scale DH projects. The links below are open access templates that will guide you through writing a data management plan.

DMPTool
A service of the University of California Curation Center of the California Digital Library, this tool directs users through writing a DMP that complies with funder requirements including the NIH, NSF, NEH, and more. To create an account and practice writing DMPs, click Option #2 under the "Sign in" menu on the top right side of the page. (Fordham does not have an institutional affiliation with this tool.)

DMPonline
Developed by the Digital Curation Centre in the UK, this tool is optimal for writing DMPs that meet UK & European funding requirements.

Funding for Projects

Office of Sponsored Programs - Fordham University
This office at Fordham is responsible for reviewing and approving external funding applications for all grants, contracts and sub-contracts.

Office of Digital Humanities of the NEH
Offers grant programs for work "experimenting with digital technologies to develop new methodologies for humanities research, teaching and learning, public engagement, and scholarly communications."

Copyright Advisories

Intellectual Property Policy at Fordham
Approved by the Faculty Senate in 2011, this policy outlines varying intellectual property rights for the university, faculty, staff, students, and contractors.

Circular 30 : Works Made for Hire
This circular from the U.S. Copyright Office explains works made for hire. (See the Fordham's Intellectual Property Policy to see if this applies to you and your work on DH projects at Fordham.)

Workshop Slides from Fordham Libraries

Introduction to Data Curation in the Humanities : Managing Tabular Data
See Fordham Libraries workshop slides for tips on curating and publishing DH data in spreadsheet format.

Documenting DH Data & Archiving Projects

Below is a selection of resources that guide researchers to document their project data for archiving & preservation in a digital repository.

If you are using a third party application to visualize data you have curated, the dataset you have created is the most important asset of your DH scholarship.

Research Data Management (Overview)
List of tips and best practices from the UK Data Service.

Humanities Data Curation Record
Provides a template for writing a ReadMe file for humanities researchers.

Guide to Writing "readme" Style Metadata
Resource explains best practices for describing and documenting project data from the Research Data Management Service Group at Cornell University.

Taxonomy of Digital Research Activities in the Humanities
TaDiRAH is designed to organize and categorize DH content and aims to generate academic credibility and greater visibility. This taxonomy can be used when describing DH projects & contributor roles.

Data Primer: Making Digital Humanities Research Data Public by Felicity Tayler et al.
Collaboratively authored OER by over 30 DH researchers. Provides an overview of data curation and management practices. Peer reviewed by data professionals.

Guidelines for Preserving New Forms of Scholarship
A Mellon-funded project at NYU documenting guidelines for preserving digital scholarship. Resource provides keywords and terminology to explain complications with documenting certain digital items.

Digital Humanities: Project Planning & Data Management