On June 9 and 10, SSHRC president Chad Gaffield and SSHRC vice-president Gisèle Yasmeen, along with seven SSHRC-funded researchers, participated in the Digging into Data conference held in Washington, DC.
Hosted by the U.S.-based National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the conference brought together researchers and representatives from eight partner organizations (including SSHRC and NEH) for two days of presentations and the announcement of round two of the Digging into Data Challenge.
The “challenge” behind this funding program is to address how "big data" changes the research landscape for the humanities and social sciences. Now that scholars in the humanities and social sciences use massive databases of materials—ranging from digitized books, newspapers, and music, to transactional data like web searches, sensor data and cell phone records—to conduct their research, what new, computationally-based research methods might they apply? As the world becomes increasingly digitized, the Digging into Data program challenges the research community to help create the new research infrastructure for the 21st century.
The application deadline for round two of this SSHRC joint initiatived is July 16, 2011. For complete details, please visit the Digging into Data Challenge website.
