Applying VGI to collaborative research in the humanities: the case of ARTL@S

ABSTRACT

Using Artl@s as an example of a project that relies on volunteered geographic information (VGI), this article examines the specific challenges that exist, beyond those frequently discussed in general VGI systems (e.g., participants’ motivation and data quality control) in regard to sharing research data in humanities: (1) most data from the humanities is qualitative and collected from multiple data sources which are often inconsistent and unmappable; (2) data is usually interconnected with multiple relationships among different tables which creates challenges for both mapping and query functionality; (3) data is both geographical and historical. Consequently addresses that no longer exist have to be geolocated and visualized on historical basemaps and spaces must be represented diachronically; (4) the design of web map application needs to balance both sophisticated research requirements and a user-friendly interface; (5) finally contributors expect their data to be cited or acknowledged when used in other studies and users need metadata and citation information in order to reuse and repurpose datasets.

In this article, we discuss how Artl@s, a project which developed a georeferenced historical database of exhibition catalogues, addresses these challenges. Artl@s provides a case study for VGI adoption by digital humanities scholars for research data sharing, as it offers features, such as flexible batch data contribution, interrelated spatial query, automatic geolocalization of historical addresses, and data citation mechanisms.

KEYWORDS:

• Volunteered geographic information (VGI)
• geographic information system (GIS)
• digital object identifier (DOI)
• Artl@s
• digital humanities
• spatial humanities
• art History
• historical mapping

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Yann Le Boulanger (Maitre de conférences en Sciences de l’informatique, IUT of Ville d’Avray, France) for the PostGre database development; Yunkai Sun (undergraduate student in Computer Sciences at Purdue University) for the web mapping prototype interface development; Qiaoying Wang and Shang Xu (M.F.A students in Interaction Design at Purdue University) for the web interface concept design; Julien Cavero (Geographer, Labex TransferS, Paris, France) for his help with the historical addresses and basemaps and mapping technology; Anne Varet-Vitu (Researcher, EHESS, Paris, France) for helping us with the georeferenced of historical Parisian addresses; Michael Witt (head of Distributed Data Curation Center and director of Purdue University Research Repository) for his assistance with the DOI mechanism; and last but not least, Léa Saint-Raymond (PhD candidate in Art History at Paris Ouest Nanterre University, France) for all the work she has done for BasArt; Olivier Marcel and Daniel Quiles, former Artl@s ANR Postdocs, Ecole normale supérieure, Paris; and Thomas Pierrot for the current web mapping interface development.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by ANR – Agence nationale pour la Recherche, France, under Grant ANR-Jeune Chercheurs SHS 3; the Laboratoire d’Excellence TransferS; Ecole normale supérieure/Collège de France, Paris; IHMC, Institut d’Histoire moderne et contemporaine, CNRS – France, Paris; PSL, L’université de recherche Paris Sciences et Lettres; and Purdue University through the Enhancing Research in the Humanities and the Arts Grant, and a Global Research Synergy Grant.