Building on the success of the first three conferences (2020, 2021 and 2022) on project management in the Humanities at the Digital Humanities Summer Institute (DHSI) and subsequent special issues in IDEAH: Interdisciplinary Digital Engagement in Arts and Humanities (2020, 2021 and 2022), the organizers hosted the fourth annual conference in 2023, again at DHSI. The thirteen papers continued the exploration of the conference’s theme and contributed to the growing body of knowledge on project management in the Humanities. Subsequently, three articles are published in this special issue.
As the papers from previous conferences and the most recent one show, it is clear that the number of projects and collaborations in Humanities and Digital Humanities are increasing. These projects involve researchers, librarians, students, programmers, developers and others across disciplines, institutions and countries. The budgets along with project complexity are also growing in size. The end result is that project leads are looking for tools and techniques to manage these project and associated tasks, resources and people. Traditionally a tool in business, project management tools offer a way for them to do this.
But this raises questions about the best ways to incorporate these tools. These include:
What skills and knowledge are needed among team members?
What are the best ways to work with graduate and undergraduate students?
What tools are the most effective?
What are the various aspects of projects that need management?
What can be learned from the experience of others?
As seen in earlier special issues in IDEAH and Digital Humanities Quarterly (Brown et al. 2009; Reed 2014)(Brown et al. 2009; Reed 2014), one way to answer these questions is through case studies which explore the experience of a specific project.
These case studies in this issue of IDEAH are varied and approach project management from a variety of perspectives, adding to our understanding of the application of these tools and techniques to the humanities generally and DH specifically.
In “Editorial Workflows and Project Management in the Harriot Papers,” Caterina Agostini explores the application of project management techniques to the editorial workflow of a digital edition of the Harriot Papers. These tools are needed given the size of the project and composition of the project team.
A key part of many Digital Humanities projects is securing and managing copyrights and other permissions to use written and audio material and manage the legal and reputation risks. Ariel Kroon, Sean Luyk, and Michael O’Driscoll faced such an issue and outline in “Right Managements of your Rights Management: Ethical Curation and the SpokenWeb UAlberta Collection” the ways that they managed this complicated process through project management techniques.
Finally, Teresa Lobalsamo and Dellannia Segreti provide insight into the ways that they involved graduate and undergraduate students to develop a large database on Italian restaurant menus. In “Overseeing Large-Scale Graduate and Undergraduate-Driven Digital Learning Projects,” the authors examine the process by which their project was managed to ensure the learning of all those involved.
Brown, Susan et al. "Published yet Never Done: The Tension between Projection and Completion in Digital Humanities Research." Digital Humanities Quarterly, vol. 3, no. 2, 2009.
Reed, Ashley. "Managing an Established Digital Humanities Project: Principles and Practices from the Twentieth Year of the William Blake Archive." DHQ, vol. 8, no. 1, 2014.