Faculty Fellowships for Digital Research in the Humanities
Call for Proposals
The UNL Center for Digital Research in the Humanities (CDRH) is seeking proposals from University of Nebraska faculty for an eighteen-month fellowship in interdisciplinary digital humanities research beginning in January 2010 and ending 30 June 2011. The intent of the fellowship is to advance knowledge in a subject or field through the digital medium or to offer new perspectives on a subject. Such research projects are primarily directed toward other experts or scholars. We anticipate that most research faculty fellows will come from the College of Arts and Sciences, but we welcome proposals for eligible humanities projects from any part of the University. For this call, we require that faculty from two different departments apply, at least one of whom must be in humanities.
The selected Research Faculty Fellows will receive a research budget of $20,000, access to computer equipment and software in the Center, technical support from highly trained staff, and ten hours per week of a Center GRA’s time on the project. After the grant period, projects are expected to be for the most part self-supporting—preferably through external grants or other foundation support. Through the Center, faculty will have access to staff who can provide assistance with project planning, grant writing, text encoding, web design, creation of maps, digital preservation, and copyright questions. In collaboration with other units on campus, there is the potential for GIS support. By the end of the eighteen months, we expect fellows to have developed a pilot web site on their project topic or a prototype of a tool.
Whenever possible, fellows should match support provided by the Center with other University funds (internal grants or a commitment of department resources). Fellows may wish to secure a course release with money provided by the Center and to match that with a further course release provided by their home departments. We encourage fellows to be resourceful in gathering support and managing research time so as to make possible the initial development of an ambitious project. Typically, there are significant intellectual and labor challenges associated with digital projects. The Center expects to provide fellows with substantial support, but fellows will need to combine that with their own energy, resources, and commitment. Digital projects are often collaborative, multi-year undertakings of a scale that exceeds that of an article or monograph. In the best cases, a project significantly alters scholarship in a field of study.
Fellows will spend much of their time at the Center on project design, collection of primary data, digitizing of analog information, development of interpretative essays or other new content, and testing of technical and methodological approaches. Typically, a research team is formed, and the fellows meet regularly with the team. A significant amount of effort will also be focused, during the fellowship, on finding outside sources of funding for the continuation or completion of the project. Electronic projects at Nebraska have had good success in attracting federal grant support, and it is important for both the Center and the projects to build on that success.
Expectations of Research Faculty Fellows
Fellows should plan on spending the bulk of their apportioned research time on the digital project during the supported eighteen months in order to create the pilot site or tool mentioned earlier. At the end of the period a Research Report will be posted on the Center's web site to document the progress of the project. Fellows are required to make a public presentation late in the grant period—either to the Center staff or to a broader audience, as seems best for each case. In addition, fellows need to submit a one-page single-spaced analytical statement about the year to be filed with the Center co-directors.
Fellows directing projects are expected to follow international standards and best practices, and to seek copyright permissions for any texts, images, music, and/or films that will be used on their sites. Copyrights must be clearly negotiated during the pilot year and copies of the permissions forms must be filed with the Center before projects are made available to the public. Whenever possible, we encourage scholars to take their own photographs or to hire a photographer for a specific project. The Center has digital cameras that can be used.
Funds are given with the expectation that fellows will develop a subsequent funding proposal to an external agency or foundation.
Examples of Fundable Projects
Development of online tools to assist humanists in studying texts, creating visualizations of time and space, and solving other problems in humanities scholarship.
Development of geographic databases and maps for tracking the movement of peoples or the study of geographical features associated with historical events through time and space. Creation of new maps for humanistic research.
Creation of dictionaries of endangered languages involving the use of Unicode or audio.
Creation of online concordances, bibliographies, calendars of letters, encyclopedias, and other reference materials to aid humanities scholars.
Historical studies of modern languages or literatures that contribute to an understanding of the development of languages or cultural practices of other nations or peoples.
Virtual archives of the letters, poems, newspapers, or other manuscripts associated with an individual or a subject in the humanities, with scholarly annotation and interpretation. New digital content that is interpretive in nature.
Studies to significantly advance international metadata standards.
Creation of new photographic studies using original images. Images created must be clear of copyright infringement.
Creation and performance of original musical compositions on the web in association with international conferences based at UNL.
Presenting significant new source materials or arguments on all aspects of the history of architecture or art, of all times and places. Images used or created must be original and clear of copyrights, or copyrights must be negotiated in advance.
Examples of projects that are not fundable through the Center
The research faculty fellowships are not intended for pedagogical projects aimed primarily at instructing students. Projects may have a pedagogical component, but the intent is that the primary focus of the work be on research.
Funds may not be used to create verbatim electronic versions of print books (PDFs).
Application Procedures
2009 Application [pdf] [word doc]
Application materials are due by 5:00 p.m., Mon. 12 October 2009. Projects will be judged by their intellectual interest, research promise, and on their likelihood to gain external funding. Awards will be announced in November 2009.
We invite you to make an appointment to discuss your proposal with the co-directors Katherine Walter (kwalter1@unl.edu) and Russell Ganim (rganim1@unl.edu) prior to submitting an application.
