We are pleased to announce the winners of the first University of Lethbridge, Global Outlook::Digital Humanities, Digital Studies/Le champ numérique Global Digital Humanities Essay Prize.
How we determined these results
The competition received 53 entries in 7 languages, with 38 submissions in English. These were adjudicated by an international committee with competency in all submitted languages and topics.
Each essay was reviewed by two readers. In most cases, the readers of the paper included at least one native speaker of the language of submission (the exceptions were a few papers in English that were assigned to referees with strong L2 skills). The second reader too, in most cases, was also a native speaker of the language of submission.
Referees were asked to give a score of 1-5 (with 1 being the lowest score, and 5 the top) on the following three questions:
- To what extent is the abstract intellectually compelling? I.e. Is the problem or topic non-trivial? Is it well defined? Is the proposed solution or approach effective or convincing?
- To what extent is the abstract methodologically sound? I.e. does the author take an appropriate approach? propose the use of appropriate tools or arguments? use appropriate and/or convincing evidence?
- To what extent is the presentation of the abstract careful? I.e. is it clearly written? Free from typos? Appropriately structured? (Not this is not a test of artistry: many of our contestants are not writing in a second language and we should not hold them to native-speaker rhetorical style)
An additional question allowed referees to assign between 0 and 3 bonus marks for papers they thought were particularly exceptional, well suited to the goals of competition, or otherwise deserving of special attention. Submissions were then ranked on the basis of their average scores. Although mechanisms were in place for resolving cases in which the referees showed a wide divergence of opinion, there were in the end few papers on which referees’ opinions diverged markedly and none among the top four.
Although language was not considered as an adjudication criteria, the results reflect the linguistic diversity of the GO::DH community. Four of the top nine essays were in a language other than English.
The winning papers
The top essays/abstracts fall into three categories: “First Prize,” “Second Prize,” and “Honourable Mention.”
First Prize
There were four “First Prize” winners. First Prize includes an immediate award of $200 (all amounts are in Canadian dollars) plus a further $300 upon submission of a final paper suitable for review by the editors of Digital Studies/Le champ numérique. Funding for these prizes comes from a grant provided by the University of Lethbridge. The first prize winners, listed in alphabetical order, are
- Dacos, Marin (Open Edition, France). La stratégie du Sauna finlandais: Les frontières de Digital Humanities. Essai de Géographie politique d’une communauté scientifique.
- Gawne, Lauren (University of Melbourne, Australia). Language documentation and division: Bridging the digital divide.
- Pue, A. Sean, Tracy K. Teal, and C. Titus Brown (Michigan State University, USA). Bioinformatic approaches to the computational analysis of Urdu poetic meter.
- Raval, Noopur (Jawaharlal Nehru Univesity (JNU), New Delhi, India). On Wikipedia and Failure: Notes from Queering the Encyclopedia.
Second Prize
An anonymous donation allows the committee to recognise five additional papers with a “Second Prize” of $100. While no additional funding is available for these papers, the authors are also strongly encouraged to consider developing their work further for publication in Digital Studies or other Digital Humanities journals. The second prize winners, listed in alphabetical order, are
- Arauco Dextre, Renzo (Memoragram, Lima, Peru). Memogram, un Cloud-Service Para la Memoria Colectiva.
- Carlson, Thomas A. (Princeton University, USA). Digital Maps are still not territory: Challenges raised by Syriaca.org’s Middle Eastern places over two millenia.
- Tomasini Maciel, Julia (University of Maryland, USA). Humanidades Digitales y traducción literaria: Latinoamérica entre el portugués y el español.
- Portales Machado, Yasmín Silvia (Havana, Cuba). Perfil demográfico de la blogosfera hecha en Cuba en diciembre de 2012.
- Tasovac, Toma and Natalia Ermolaev (Centre for Digital Humanities, Belgrade, Serbia). Interfacing diachrony: Rethinking lexical annotation in digital editions.
Honourable Mention
The following sixteen abstracts/essays (listed in alphabetical order) are recognised by the committee as particularly deserving of an “honourable mention.” While the committee did not have the funds available to award prizes to these papers, it nevertheless also encourages the authors of these papers to consider developing their work further for publication in Digital Studies or other Digital Humanities journals. The papers given an honorable mention, again listed in alphabetical order by first author, are
- Arbuckle, Alyssa (University of Victoria, Canada). The risk of digital repatriation for indigenous groups.
- Baryshev, Ruslan, Igor Kim, Inna Kizhner, Maxim Rumyantsev (Siberian Federal University, Russia). Digitial Humanities at Siberian Federal University.
- Calbay, Francis Raymond (HayPinas.org, Taipei, Taiwan). User-Generated vitriol: Ethnic stereotypes in online comments on media reports of a South China Sea shooting incident.
- Farman, Jason (University of Maryland, USA). Mapping virtual communities: The production of crisis maps and cultural imaginaries of the Diaspora.
- Finney, Tim (Vose Seminary, Australia). How to discover textual groups.
- Ives, Maura and Amy Earhart (Texas A&M University, USA). Establishing a digital humanities center: Vision, reality, sustainability.
- Kaltenbrunner, Wolfgang (Leiden University, The Netherlands). Transparency strategies in digital scholarship.
- López Villaneuva, José Manuel (Mexico). Reflexiones sobre la RedHD en México: desarrollo y alcance de la RedHD en la comunidad académica universitaria.
- Menon, Nirmala (Indian Institute of Technology Indore, India). Multilingual digital publishing: A postcolonial Digital Humanities imperative.
- O’Sullivan, James (Ireland). The emergence of Digital Humanities in Ireland.
- Ouellette, Jessica (University of Massachussetts, USA). Blogging borders: Transnational feminist rhetorics and global voices.
- Perozo Olivares, Karla (Universidad Nacional de Rosario, Venazuala). Una aproximación al desconocimiento de las masas digitales.
- Riedel, Dagmar (Columbia University, USA). The digitization of books in Arabic script and the digital divide in Muslim societies.
- Sandstedt, Jørgen (University of Iceland, University of Oslo, Iceland/Norway). Text-dependent automated methods in scribal hand identification.
- Schmidt, Desmond (University of Queensland, Australia). Towards a model for the digital scholarly edition.
- Sobczak, Anna (Szczecin University, Poland). A co z humanistami? – Cyfrowa humanistyka jako lekarstwo na
obecny stan postrzegania humanistyki w mediach elektronicznych?
Other submissions
As the number of winners, runners up, and honorable mentions suggests, the competition was extremely strong, with only a few points separating the top from the bottom entries in each category. Several essays and abstracts not listed above also scored very close to the cut-off point or were otherwise remarked upon by the judges. We are currently gathering referees’ comments together and will be passing these on to the authors as soon as they are ready.
The adjudication committee would like to thank all who submitted abstracts or essays to this competition. The quality of the entries was extremely high and the process by which the winners were determined very difficult as a result. More than a few excellent papers had to be left off the list of named finalists.
Future competitions
Although this competition exhausts the funding received from the University of Lethbridge, we are actively seeking additional money to offer similar competitions in the future. We appreciate the patience and enthusiasm of all.
Adjudication panel
The adjudication panel consisted of the following members:
- Daniel O’Donnell (Lethbridge, AB, Canada) (Chair)
- Titi Babalola (Lethbridge, AB, Canada)
- Marcus Bingenheimer (Philadelphia, PA, USA)
- Barbara Bordalejo (Saskatoon, SK, Canada)
- Hilary Culbertson (Durham, NC, USA)
- Elie Dannaoui (Balamand, Lebanon)
- Heide Estes (Monmouth, UK)
- Domenico Fiormonte (Rome, Italy)
- Neil Fraistat (Baltimore, MD, USA)
- Alex Gil (New York)
- Elena Gonzalez-Blanco (Madrid, Spain)
- Jieh Hsiang (Taipei, Taiwan)
- Joey Jenjou Hung (Taipei, Taiwan)
- Anna Kijas (Storrs, CT, USA)
- Ernesto Priani (Mexico City)
- Gurpreet Singh (Punjab, India)
- Laurie Taylor (Gainesville, FL, USA)
- Christian Wittern (Kyoto, Japan)
- Jamie Jungmin Yoo (Cambridge, MA, USA)
Thank you very much to all adjudicators for their thoughtful work.