Graceful Degradation: Managing Digital Humanities Projects in Times of Transition and Decline
First announced at the Digital Humanities 2009 conference, the “Graceful Degradation” survey is now open at:
http://graceful-degradation.questionpro.com/
This is a survey of the digital humanities community — broadly conceived — on project management in times of transition and decline, and what we see as the causes and outcomes of those times. We invite participation by anyone who has worked on a digital project in or related to the humanities.
Decline is a pressing issue for digital scholarship because of the tendency of our projects to be open ended. One could argue that digital projects are, by nature, in a continual state of transition or decline. What happens when the funding runs out, or the original project staff move on or are replaced? What happens when intellectual property rests with a collaborator or an institution that does not wish to continue the work? How, individually and as a community, do we weather changes in technology, the patterns of academic research, the vagaries of our sponsoring institutions?
“Graceful Degradation” is being conducted by Bethany Nowviskie of the University of Virginia Scholars’ Lab in the United States and Dot Porter of the Digital Humanities Observatory in Ireland. The survey will run through September 2009, when initial results will be presented during a poster session at Digital Resources in the Humanities and Arts in Belfast. Full summary results will be presented and published in summer 2010. All responses are held confidential, unless specific permission to identify people and projects has been granted. Participants will have the option to grant this permission at the end of the survey.
We encourage your participation and look forward to sharing the results of the survey!
Please contact degrade.gracefully@gmail.com if you have any questions.
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Bethany Nowviskie
on Oct 24th, 2009
@ 6:08pm:
Just a note to say that we’re no longer collecting data, and are now in analysis mode. Response to the survey was splendid — thank you all!
collaborative work: links & kinks « Bethany Nowviskie
on Oct 24th, 2009
@ 6:09pm:
[...] scholarship. I’ll also draw on some of the anonymous data (now being analyzed) from the “Graceful Degradation” survey I conducted this summer with Dot Porter of the Digital Humanities Observatory in Ireland. I’m [...]
monopolies of invention « Bethany Nowviskie
on Dec 30th, 2009
@ 1:13am:
[...] found ways to work around this natural consequence of life beyond the lone-scholar model. (The broad survey Dot Porter and I have conducted of times of transition and decline in digital projects confirms [...]
foundhistory
on Dec 5th, 2009
@ 3:00pm:
@rikomatic See @nowviskie’s “Graceful Degredation” project re. failure, decline, transition http://bit.ly/79SynD #conconf
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
dchud
on Dec 9th, 2009
@ 5:45pm:
@rmazar do you know @nowviskie and about http://bit.ly/4st0h9 ? @nowviskie, do you know @rmazar & abt. #failcamp?
This comment was originally posted on Twitter