Project management and sustainable revenue models in the Digital Humanities

1) Topic & Motivation
The Workshop is the european „successor“ of the last-year „Sustainability Strategies“- Workshop in Nebraska at DH2013 ran by Nancy Maron from Ithaka S+R (http://dh2013.unl.edu/schedule-and-events/workshops/#sustainability). The workshop@DH2014 offers a training in projects management and sustainability like the Ithaka-Workshop, additionally combined with a Round Table joined by national and international key players (Humanists, librarians, archivists, members of funding organizations etc.) to discuss main problem areas and to find possible solutions. The Project is supported by several key institutions in the Digital Humanities like the US- Office for Digital Humanities (ODH) [Brett Bobley] or the King’s College in London (Tobias Blanke).

Projects in the Digital Humanities are facing a lot of challenges concerning project management and sustainability in contrast to „traditional“ academic researchs projects. The limits between research, teaching and what one may call a lasting online service are blurred; projects have to deal with the laws of the field of the fast moving, fluid and competitive web-business. But because projects in the Digital Humanities are founded by academics, they are shaped by a research-centered and a supply-side mentality, which is neither aimed for sustainability nor user-oriented. Many of these projects — let’s call them generally „Online Academic Resources “— state problems developing a specific and adequate project management as well as a sustainable revenue model. Project leaders are simply not trained for such an enterprise. Coupled with the fast pace of the WWW and/or its technology a partial or complete absence of appropriate project management is to be stated. Project leaders seem to be overtaxed and thus the projects fail or cannot bail out their often huge potential. Furthermore, especially in switzerland, there is lacking an openness to collaborate with qualified partners, e.g. librarians and archivists who could bring in a lot of skills and experiences.

The Workshop aims at helping project leaders to improve project management, to develop sustainable revenue models and to bring different people together to share Knowledge and Know-How. Core goals of the Workshop are therefore: Offer a training possibiliy for project leaders and other interested people, connecting people and sharing Know-How, create an awareness of the relevance of the topic with key partners in Switzerland – because here, unfortunately, currently there is no organization yet that specifically supports Digital Humanities projects – in contrast to the EU and U.S. space. Of particular relevancy would be the participation of libraries and archives, since they are playing an increasingly more important role in the world of Digital Humanities.

B) Structure: Tutorial & Round Table
The Workshop will be divided into two parts of approximately two hours each: 1) A training tutorial in project management and sustainability ran by Stefan Andreas Keller with a maximum of 20 participants (recommended maximum number of participtants is based on the experiences of the Ithaka-Tutorial). Participants of this tutorial should be those with interest in and/or responsibility for charting a course for the development of a digital scholarly project or resource. This could include:

Academic project leaders who are leading or have created a digital resource.
Managers of digital collections and digitization units at cultural organizations, including museums, libraries, archives and other institutions.
Those in early stages of considering sustainability strategies for their projects are encouraged to attend.

Some participants like important project leaders (especially from Switzerland) will be invited prior to the Workshop, but it is intended to left some places open for participants of the DH-Conference to join - also spontaneously - the workshop on site.

2) A Round Table with invited national and international key partners to present strategies and discuss solutions on the topic. Experts from different countries (DARIAH, ODH, Ithaka S+R) will give small inputs concerning the specific situation in their countries and about infrastructures where project leaders can get support and funding. In addition, there should be an open discussion on different relevant topics between project leaders, DH-institutions and potential sponsors. Several relevant topics could be discussed and fixed in advance or directly on-site. Number of participants will be at about 20.

Some of the central questions of the workshop are:

Which areas of project management can be isolated in consideration of the different types of Digital Humanities-Projects?
What models of management and revenue do already exist and in which way are they adaptable for others?
What are the (dis-)similarities between projects? Is it possible to derive conclusions for project management and financing at all?
Concerning the legal and organizational level:

What are the roles and the relationsships of/between humanists, editors and libraries?
Which type of project is most suited to be ran by one of these roles ?
What are the legal frameworks (Copyright, licensing etc.)?
C) Participants and Contributors (short-term list, to be completed):
Dr. Stefan Andreas Keller, Faculty of Arts, University of Zurich (CH)
Dr. Alice Keller, Zentralbibliothek Zürich (CH)
Dr. Heike Neuroth, Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Göttingen (DE)
Prof. Dr. Jan Christof-Meister, Universität Hamburg, (DE)
PD Dr. Lukas Rosenthaler, DHLab Universität Basel
Dr. Tobias Blanke, King’s College London (UK)
N.N., Office for Digital Humanities, National Endowment for the Humanities (USA)
Prof. Dr. Johannes Stiegler, Universität Graz (A)
Dr. Sacha Zala, Diplomatische Dokumente der Schweiz (Dodis.ch) [CH]
Dr. Christophe Koller, IDHEAP - BADAC (www.badac.ch) [CH]
Daniela Vaj, Viaticalpes (www.unil.ch/viaticalpes) [CH]
PD Dr. Christophe Flüeler, e-Codices (www.e-codices.unifr.ch) [CH]
N.N., Schweizerischer Nationalfonds (CH)
N.N., Staatssekretariat für Bildung und Forschung SBFI (CH)