NEH Institute materials

Making collaboration work

Chelcie Juliet Rowell • Monday, July 18, 2022 • Advanced Digital Editing: Modeling the Text & Making the Edition • NEH Institute for Advanced Topics in the Digital Humanities

Discussion 1: Reflecting on past collaborations

Questions for discussion

Think of a past project. You may draw from your professional life (for example, co-teaching a course or carrying out a grant-funded project) or personal life (for example, planning a move or an event).

1. What were the most pleasurable parts of working with your collaborator(s)?

2. What were the most challenging parts of working with your collaborator(s)?

3. What contributing factors made the experience of carrying out this project pleasurable and/or challenging?

Participant reflections

• For a particular print critical edition, senior scholars hired junior scholars. I was one of the junior scholars. In my experience, the pleasurable slides into the challenging. The pleasurable is the work: I love Shakespeare! The challenge is negotiating shared authority. A paradigm shift was taking place within the field of textual scholarship, but because of entrenched power dynamics the editorial approach advocated for by senior scholars consistently won out over the editorial approach advocated for by junior scholars.

• The coordinator problem! You’re dependent upon rapid responses of people who don’t answer to you. You’re not their boss, you can’t say, “I want this on my desk by Friday.”

• The day job problem! I don’t get paid to do digital stuff; I get paid to teach classes.

Discussion 2: Reflecting on current edition collaborators

Questions for discussion

Think of a particular partner (for example, scholars, technologists, library workers, students enrolled in a course centered upon your edition, members of the public who are contributing through crowdsourcing). You can repeat this reflective exercise, answering this set of questions for each type of partner.

1. What will be this partner’s contributions?

2. What is the value of the project to the partner?

3. What is the pattern of their engagement? For example, the frequency of their contributions (one-time, semesterly, monthly, daily or embedded), but also the density of their contribution (what authority they have over the nature of the project).

Participant reflections

• We’re a linked data project, and our post-docs perform the most substantial labor. We asked them, “What aspects of linked data interest you?” One post-doc was especially interested in places, so the value of the project to that partner was to deepen their skills in developing a gazetteer. In this case, there was good alignment of interests, but challenges of sustainability: The post-doc moved on.

• For my project, the partner I’m thinking of is a 3D modeller, probably someone who makes miniatures for table-top gaming. For this partner, the value of the project is geeking out on gaming history (looking for someone who makes gaming miniatures). And let’s be real: money.

References

• Appleford, Simon, and Jennifer Guiliano. 2013. “Recruiting Partners.” DevDH.

• Gavia Libraria. 2011. “The c-word.”

• Rowell, Chelcie Juliet, and Alix Keener. 2021. Pre-print of “Sharing Authority in Collaborative Digital Humanities Pedagogy: Library Workers’ Perspectives.” In Debates in Digital Humanities Pedagogy, edited by Brian Croxall and Diane Jakacki, forthcoming from the University of Minnesota Press.