Data Reuse Among Digital Humanities Scholars: a Qualitative Study of Practices, Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract

Scholarship is more and more data-driven, and as digital tools continue to evolve, sound data use practices among scholars are now essential for scientific discovery. Data reuse is central to an emerging cultural push towards a more open way of doing science. The study investigates the challenges and opportunities in reusing research data among digital humanities (DH) scholars. Its findings may serve as a case study for how disciplinary practices influence the ways in which scholars reuse data. The aim of the study is to enhance current thinking and provide insight for information and library science practitioners at the intersection of DH and data reuse. Data were collected using interviews. An analysis of semi-structured interviews with 12 DH scholars working in universities, research centres and cultural and heritage organizations internationally was performed. The study found that lack of time and resources, inconsistent data practices, technical training gaps, labour intensity and difficulties in finding data were the most challenging. Participants revealed a number of enabling factors in data reuse as well, and chief among them were collaboration and autodidacticism as a feature of DH. The results indicate a gap between data reusers and data sharers - low rates of sharing reduce the amount of findable and accessible data available for reuse. Both data reusers and data sharers must begin to see themselves as embedded into the research data lifecycle within the research infrastructure. The recommendation includes policy, education, and structural changes to the research culture, including data literacy, the development of self-paced RDM training material, improvements to data discovery systems, rewarding data sharing, and creation of curation and preservation networks to help with data stewardship. The primary audience for this thesis is DH practitioners, librarians, funders and data repository managers and designers but findings around researcher motivations for data reuse may be helpful for researchers in the humanities and social sciences.