Strategies and Recommendations for the Management of Uncertainty in Research Tools and Environments for Digital History

Edmond Edmond

doi:10.3390/informatics6030036

Abstract

This paper takes a high-level view of both the sources and status of uncertainty in historical research and the manners in which possible negative effects of this omnipresent characteristic might be managed and mitigated. It draws upon both the experience of a number of digital projects and research into the many-faceted concept of uncertainty in data, and in particular, it explores the conflicting strategies for the management of uncertainty in historical research processes that are reflected in the historiographical and digital humanities literature. Its intention is to support a dialogue between the humanities and computer science, able to realise the promise of digital humanities without a reversion to a new positivism in disciplines such as history and literary studies and it therefore concludes with recommendations for the developers of research tools and environments for digital history.

Highlights

IntroductionIt is written to reflect the practical and epistemic positioning of that perspective and should, be viewed as a sort of user story at the theoretical or macro level, reflecting a composite view of community norms, values and perceptions, rather than an individual case
In her 2016 lecture to the Warburg Institute entitled “Exempla and the Epistemology of the Humanities” [1], historian of science Lorraine Daston described the experience well known in many interdisciplinary research fields when “mutual incomprehension or sometimes mutual indignation threatens to sever lines of communication” between researchers as they attempt to agree on the most basic premises of valid knowledge creation
Daston claims that it is barely an exaggeration to say that there “is no epistemology of the human sciences”. This is not due to the fact that the methods and strategies for knowledge creation are deficient in these fields, but rather, in Daston’s view, that they have been so little in the focus of the historians and philosophers of science that it can seem almost presumptuous to speak of an epistemology of the human sciences, this seeming like a “usurpation of the rights and privileges of the mightier natural sciences”

Summary

Introduction

It is written to reflect the practical and epistemic positioning of that perspective and should, be viewed as a sort of user story at the theoretical or macro level, reflecting a composite view of community norms, values and perceptions, rather than an individual case It may not seem immediately actionable, understanding and being sensitive to the values, methods and processes in operation at this level is a key success factor for the adoption in one domain (the humanities) of tools to support the epistemic processes developed according to others (information or computer science). The final section and the conclusion will extract from the sum total of this discussion a list of the areas where particular sensitivities exist in the management of uncertainty in the humanities, as pertains to the migration of this process into data-driven environments, as well as best practice exemplars in the management of these concerns

The Nature of Humanities Research Questions and Processes

Defining Uncertainty in the Humanities

Motivations and Mechanisms for Managing Uncertainty

Productive and Unproductive Management of Uncertainty in Humanities Research

Conclusions