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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Bildung
- Sprache: Englisch
We are at a crucial time for the production and dissemination of knowledge - one in which the scientific community is questioning the nature of the digital humanities. Within this context, Learner Support in Online Learning Environments proposes, by taking into consideration the notion of assistance in a learning context, an original method of positioning digital resources for teachers, students and researchers in the humanities and social sciences. Questioning existing theoretical frameworks and prototypes, learner support in digital environments is presented as both a process and a result integrating a variety of resources. Some of these resources already exist, some may be adapted from existing objects and still others have yet to be imagined. The end goal is to facilitate both independent and group-based learning activities.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019
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Table of Contents
Cover
Foreword
Acknowledgments
Introduction
I.1. Context of reflection
I.2. Research training: a rapidly changing field
I.3. Content of the book
I.4. To whom is this book addressed?
I.5. Document structure
PART 1: Definition of Assistance in the Digital Humanities Field
Introduction to Part 1
1 Digital Humanities Context
1.1. Knowledge in humanities and social sciences should be structured through interaction
1.2. Lines of thought
1.3. Fields of actions
1.4. Digital resources at the heart of digital humanities
1.5. Conclusion: digital assistance in the fields of action
2 Digital Assistance Concept
2.1. Definition of assistance in a few major trends in educational psychology
2.2. Assistance as a cycle
2.3. Assistance as a response to a need
2.4. Assistance in its processing
2.5. Assistance in terms of its usefulness
2.6. Assistance in its future
2.7. Conclusion: methodology of the digital assistance approach
PART 2: Digital Assistance in the Researcher’s Activity
Introduction to Part 2
3 Digital Assistance in the Researcher’s Activity
3.1. Context of the researcher’s work
3.2. Researcher’s professional standards and digital resource contributions
3.3. Digital resources to design for assistance
3.4. Conclusion: three types of assistance
4 The Place of Digital Assistance in Professionalization
4.1. The concept of professionalization
4.2. Professional development and scientific scenario
4.3. Development of the researcher’s activities and scientific scenario
4.4. Contribution of assistance in the career path
4.5. Conclusion: from digital assistance to digitized assistance
5 Action Researcher Model for a Cognitively Increased Humanity
5.1. Survey results: the researcher’s expectations
5.2. Action researcher model
5.3. Conclusion: researcher’s position
Conclusions and Prospects
Appendix 1: Researcher’s Professional Standards
R1: Construction of a research project
R2: Carrying out a research project
R3: Exploitation and dissemination of results
R4: Coordination and scientific evaluation
R5: Training through research and teaching
R6: Scientific, economic and cultural development
R7: Operation of the research system
Appendix 2: Portfolio 2017/2018 – Postgraduate School 58 (ED 58) – A Guide for Doctoral Students
Glossary
References
Index
End User License Agreement
List of Tables
Chapter 2
Table 2.1. Presentation model of resources and activities in the expected MOOC V...
Table 2.2. Digital assistance in Bruner’s functions approach
Chapter 5
Table 3.1. R111 – solicited expansions and resource contributions
Table 3.2. R211 – Solicited expansions and resource contributions
Table 3.3. R741 – solicited expansions and resource contributions
List of Illustrations
Chapter 2
Figure 2.1. Definition of assistance through a few different trends in education...
Figure 2.2. Assistance cycle (extract from Pelissier 2014, p. 45)
Figure 2.3. Multi-agenda of macro-concerns (extract from Brudermann and Pélissie...
Figure 2.4. Analysis of a teaching situation of English based on the multi-agend...
Figure 2.5. Online task revision matrix of production in English (Brudermann and...
Figure 2.6. Comment sheet created by the teacher using the assistance module (Br...
Figure 2.7. Assistance timetable tool for activity management of student-prisone...
Figure 2.8. Assistance spaces and flows for the implementation of a MOOC (Péliss...
Figure 2.9. Discussion forum colored by learners in order to carry out the tasks...
Figure 2.10. Lytext excerpt – a model of knowledge to study a text integrated in...
Figure 2.11. Integration of knowledge presented in the TLFi in order to address ...
Figure 2.12. Activity zones depending on Vygotsky’s approach
Figure 2.13. Expansion roles of digital assistance
Figure 2.14. Expected strategy intention model (Mailles-Viard Metz and Pélissier...
Figure 2.15. Evaluation of the assistance provided by the ESI model
Figure 2.16. Organization of concerns related to the production of a personal we...
Figure 2.17. Evaluation of the contribution of the assistance provided by the re...
Figure 2.18. Screenshot of an individual interview with a trainee, future teache...
Figure 2.19. Weighting of macro-concerns of the foreign language teacher
Figure 2.20. Evaluation of the assistance provided by the reorganized model
Figure 2.21. Example of an indicator of assistance status change
Figure 2.22. A sequential view of the assistance process
Chapter 4
Figure 4.1. ZPD and scientific scenario
Figure 4.2. Expansion of the autonomy zone and the ZPD for the researcher throug...
Chapter 5
Figure 5.1. Level 1: macro-concerns of the action researcher model
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Begin Reading
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Series Editor Fabrice Papy
Learner Support in Online Learning Environments
Chrysta Pélissier
First published 2019 in Great Britain and the United States by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms and licenses issued by the CLA. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside these terms should be sent to the publishers at the undermentioned address:
ISTE Ltd
27–37 St George’s Road
London SW19 4EU
UK
www.iste.co.uk
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
111 River Street
Hoboken, NJ 07030
USA
www.wiley.com
© ISTE Ltd 2019
The rights of Chrysta Pélissier to be identified as the author of this work have been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019932255
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-78630-340-0
Foreword
It is with great pleasure that I have accepted the honor of opening the present volume with the following few words. The common research interests that the author and I have shared for a long time have led us to develop an intellectual proximity and to collaborate around academic projects, often in connection with an educational question that seems essential in the current socio-educational context: that of the assistance in digital learning systems.
As a need that transcends the compartmentalization between disciplines, the issue of assistance – also known as “support” in certain scientific communities – has always aroused the researchers’ curiosity and stimulated their pedagogical-academic endeavors. From Socrates’s maieutics, to Comenius’s epistemological and pedagogical principles, through the forms of cooperation that support Freinet’s essentially humanist approach, the purpose has always been more or less the same: to develop, implement, test and deploy educational means to promote the development of learning autonomy. However, since the advent of digital technology, the democratization of online training has resulted in more complex training spaces, and has led the researchers’ community to consider the assistance concept from different angles. For example, if it is now technically possible to manage the “informal spaces” between training time, to individualize the training pathway or even to consider various forms of mediation, many educational questions are, in fact, still pending: what are the skills required to ensure the tutor’s new roles in the mediated learning systems? In what way(s) can we redistribute these roles? Which methods can we consider to intervene effectively with learners?
To feed the reflection on the (broad) issue of digital assistance, it is in the more specific disciplinary fields of educational sciences and digital humanities that Chrysta Pélissier chose to widen her research and develop her own epistemological positioning, that she also had the opportunity to present and defend during her professional HDR thesis, in June 2017.
The chosen articulation follows a double dichotomy: temporal, on the one hand, with a focus on current/future epistemological, pedagogical and methodological challenges; a dichotomy relative to the beneficiaries of the assistance, with a distinction between assisting needs of learners’ with various profiles (high school students, prisoners, MOOC users, students in initial training, to name only a few) and forms of digital assistance that could in the future simplify some of the teaching, research and administration tasks which are the responsibilities of the teacher-researcher.
The fields of application of the assistance models presented in the book are numerous; the complexity and variety of the scientific devices which have been solicited to respond to the users’ diverse needs in terms of assistance are reflected in the invocation of a multitude of methodologies, concepts and other theoretical references which – like Lev Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development concept – are sometimes revisited. The application benefits are achieved, for their part, through a wide variety of data, devices and productions that support semi-systematically the theoretical considerations that are addressed.
From a more personal perspective, I would say that through the dynamics of this book, Chrysta Pélissier has a dual purpose: on the one hand, to highlight the vigor and richness of research aimed – from a design perspective of tutoring forms – to compensate for the impossibility to predict a priori the learners’ difficulties, needs and work strategies in digital teaching-learning systems; on the other hand, through the sharing of reflections, analyses and feedback, to advance academic thinking in the ever-changing field of digital humanities and, thus, to contribute to the stabilization of the scientific scope of this same disciplinary field.
In the end, by making it possible to apprehend – both from a practical and theoretical point of view – the current and projected issues inherent to the concept of assistance in digital devices, this book can be read profitably by any reader interested in educational issues, whether they are (apprentices-) researchers, trainers, teachers or policy makers.
Cédric BRUDERMANN
Sorbonne University (Faculty of Science and Engineering)
Acknowledgments
This book incorporates a large number of works that we have carried out in recent years within different research teams. We would like to thank all of our lecturer and researcher colleagues for their participation in these scientific activities (Lucie Alidières, Eugénie Duthoit, Stephen Lédé), as well as all those who have enabled us to develop them, whether they are teachers, technicians or, of course, students. Without them, this book would not exist.
In particular, we would like to thank Cédric Brudermann for our always very rich scientific discussions, as well as for all his wise advice during the writing process of this book. We would also like to thank Stéphanie Mailles-Viard Metz for her constant encouragement in the progress of writing this book as well as in other research initiatives that she has directed. Finally, we would like to thank Laura Davis for her rigorous and enlightened re-reading of this document.
Introduction
I.1. Context of reflection
Since 2007, France has been eighth in the world in its number of researchers and third in the European Union (behind Germany and the United Kingdom)1. In 2011, it awarded2 11,500 doctoral degrees3 (Harfi 2013), while globally, in 2008, this number was 393,700 (idem, p. 9). Commencing their scientific training with a master’s degree (research, professional, or undifferentiated4), many5 apply for further education. The number of doctoral students has increased by 2% between 2002–2003 and 2012–2013, and the discipline distribution among registrants has been stable since the beginning of the 2000s: 45% in sciences; 34% in literature, languages and human sciences; and 19% in law, economics and AES6. Thus, if we compare the number of researchers to the active population, France, with 8.8 researchers per thousand active in 2011, is behind Japan (10.0‰) and the United States (9.1‰) but ahead of Portugal (8.5‰), the United Kingdom (8.3‰), Germany (7.9‰), Spain (5.7‰) and Italy (4.3‰).
Today, the French institutional desire is to most fully train its 25,000 doctoral students/year7 and to link the research carried out in laboratories with training (initial, continued), the general public (in a perspective of knowledge dissemination) and all the other interested sectors8. In order to accomplish this, it relies on a rapidly expanding dynamic in humanities and social sciences (HSS): digital humanities. These digital humanities are at the intersection of computer science and arts, literature, and HSS. Characterized by the convergence of the so-called scientific (production and dissemination of knowledge), educational (didactic transposition integrating the interpretation of knowledge produced and written in scientific articles), and instructional design (presentation and dissemination of this knowledge gained through IT applications/environments) activities, digital humanities are at once a field of research, teaching and engineering.
In particular, as a research field, digital humanities, which already has a long history (Berra 2015; Doueihi 2011; Doueihi 2013; Sinatra and Vitali-Rosali 2014), lead the people involved in the scientific world to question the research methodologies, the actual and potential uses of technological tools, as well as the (innovative) practices allowing the development and sharing of results, offering new educational content (informational and/or didactic and/or scientific and/or technological content) to the training world (among others). This research field can be apprehended both as a human and scientific dynamic. On the one hand, it suggests a resurgence for researchers wishing to examine their own approaches by questioning their research methodologies from the point of view of computer science contribution. On the other hand, these humanities constitute a pretext to make progress in several issues, by soliciting, in particular, collaborations between researchers from different disciplines. The issue of multidisciplinarity in digital humanities is today essential and pluralist: plurality of disciplinary approaches, diversity of views on the same research topic, on the same question, or even on a scientific approach in order to build a global vision of a targeted phenomenon or a set of phenomena that seem to be similar or related. Multidisciplinarity is considered fruitful on principle; however, it is difficult to implement. It was, in some projects and for some participants, the basis of a fragmentation where each approach was more or less separated from the others. This approach, which up to this point seemed to cause confusion in the roles of each of the participants in the overall approach and fuel identity insecurity, is currently being implemented, by digital humanities, in the coherence and respect of a certain continuity of social scientific practices (Hooland et al. 2016).
Following on from this, where the computer tool participates in and encourages the evolution of research practices, especially in the methods of data collection, analysis, presentation and dissemination of results, the first objective of this convergence is to facilitate scientific work in areas that have yet to be investigated, or in the same area but in a different way: taking into account new indicators (more explicit, more massive, more precise and/or more targeted) and/or new, more appropriate means that make it possible to interpret them (quantitatively and qualitatively). The second objective is to re-question certain monodisciplinary models/concepts which are historically present in literature. These models/concepts are brought up to date with digital technology, reconfigured according to new components and/or situational participants. Finally, the third objective of this convergence is to be able to foresee and initiate changes which are taking place in (and on) a society where the people involved in the scientific world are constantly solicited by a dematerialization (digitization) policy, and connected to others through their work in databases that interact with each other.
I.2. Research training: a rapidly changing field
Research training, proposed in France by doctoral schools, supports the training and the future of each doctoral student by responding to the needs of PhD supervision9 regarding both specific disciplinary skills and a scientific culture going beyond the strict scope of the dissertation.
This training “is part of a rapidly changing university research landscape: new conceptions in the production of knowledge, the transmission of acquired knowledge; the need for new digital skills and editorial know-how, the need for the dissemination and development of doctoral research during the curriculum, the internationalization of research networks, taken into account starting from the design of the doctoral project, orientation prospects and professional insertion, etc.”10.
Under these circumstances, the institutions are no longer only questioning the scientific knowledge and practices which must be the subject of a transmission; they are also led to consider ways to support these future researchers in the development of the digital skills necessary for the advancement and development of their research results, as well as the development of their scientific approach.
The objective of the book is not to question the different practices implemented in these doctoral programs but, firstly, to question the place digital tools11 occupy today and could occupy tomorrow in the activities carried out by apprentices and experienced researchers, and secondly, to contribute to the provision of means to these people in order to allow them to question their personal practices, in such a way as to consider “getting assistance” from digital resources/solutions made available to them. Digital technology thus supports12 “fragmented”13 activities (Fave-Bonnet 1998), to which we will have the opportunity to return.
I.3. Content of the book
In this book, you will not find any sociological data referring to the place of digital technology (Boullier 2016) in today’s society14, nor a presentation of methods of the existence of social links entangled with techniques (Dagiral and Martin 2017). Our desire is to open a debate focused on the role that digital technology can play in the university research landscape in HSS today. More particularly, we contemplate the assistance that different digital resources (Develotte and Pothier 2004) can provide in the realization of the scientific activities conducted. Thus, in light of the various possibilities offered by technologies in the 21st Century, our contribution aims to implement work on the identification of the needs of disciplinary, inter-disciplinary, individual and collective “assistance”, oriented toward the success of the professional projects of each future doctoral student and experienced researcher, as well as the definition and the role of (present and future) digital resources that could respond to these needs in the near future.
Of course, each researcher/apprentice-researcher is different. It therefore seems a priori difficult to propose a finite and identical set of target activities and digital resources of assistance for all. In fact, it is not possible, in the framework of this book in any case, to take into account all the parameters which participate in the choice of the implementation of digital research assistance. Among them, we can mention the diversity of activities carried out throughout a career (several affiliate institutions, several disciplines, research laboratories): the disciplinary research habits, the knowledge of the digital world, the initial training experience, the monodisciplinary or multidisciplinary practices, etc. This is the reason for which we have made the choice to present, based on different results of research conducted over the last 15 years, a methodological approach aimed at facilitating the reflection of each scientific participant on his/her own activities, supported (or not) by the use of digital technology.
Regarding the solicited tools, you will, again, not find a detailed presentation of each of them (when they exist) in this book, but rather examples which illustrate the methods of proposed approaches. The aim is to enable the readers to better understand the reflection methods implemented around the digital assistance concept, so as to enable them to implement a reflective approach themselves on their activities, to integrate them into a professional practice, or even to create their own digital assistance. Thus, we have made the choice to present only a few resources which are related to the scientist's activity in the field of language sciences, to which our work belongs. We do not provide an exhaustive list but rather examples which illustrate the principles governing the assistance process in which the digital resource is involved. That's it! The word “assistance process” makes its appearance. In particular, it will be presented in the first part of the book.
Finally, we note that this book was written based on the results of our work and our personal experiences as participants wishing to assist and be assisted on a daily basis by digital resources. Other reflections on the assistance concept in a scientific context, for a wider audience and/or in reference to other disciplines, can be proposed in the coming years and fuel the debates. In the meantime, our ambition is perhaps to give a “breath of hope” to researchers, giving a glimpse of the days when, for example, the temporal organization of the different tasks incumbent upon them will be alleviated through the implementation of digital assistance adapted and adaptable to each one, which they will have selected to assist doctoral students or to assist themselves (to better plan their actions, in a way that is more oriented toward a chosen professional strategy, while taking into account personal but also situational, political and institutional factors). Thus, a greater place will perhaps be left to creativity in the research projects initiated by researchers, which will be better supported in data processing and interpretation, and questioned by work from other disciplines. The objective is to facilitate the researchers’ daily work (Leclercq 2006), while seeking to achieve new investigations or to implement new, not yet imagined methodologies.
Thus, like Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar (2008) in their book entitled La Vie d’un laboratoire, we present a perception of “this strange world” (Latour and Woolgar 2008, p. 15) that is scientific research, an activity which remains very poorly known and which we apprehend by the potential of the assistance offered through digital technology. The challenge of such a work is to facilitate the production of scientific knowledge, to participate in the changes in existing professional practices, as well as to pool the works carried out and to articulate them in a manner which will make it possible to advance science.
I.4. To whom is this book addressed?
First of all, this book is aimed at researchers in education and language sciences. By its definition in the systemic context, assistance is presented as a fully-fledged, complex, multifaceted entity, which can be difficult to identify by the different forms it can take. Scientists will find in this book theoretical references (e.g. Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development approach; Bruner’s support) for questioning assistance as it is implemented in a training context (initial and continued), for conducting personal reflections on their own uses, and finally, perhaps for questioning the content of the doctoral programs.
In addition, this book is aimed at young researchers (master or doctorate), who must integrate, as soon as possible in their careers, a reflective approach to their personal professional projects, as well as the different ways to implement it. In this book, by definition of the proposed digital assistance, we give to apprentices-researchers avenues to question the reasons that push them to use certain digital resources and not others, to implement deviations of use of available resources, as well as ways of developing their professional digital skills. Concerning this last point, the objective is to make the reader aware of the importance of the place that this digital assistance can take in the framework of a skills assessment in preparation for professional integration15 or a presentation of a career path.
We then enlighten the stakeholders from the industrial world on the digital resources that they could consider designing and developing in the near future. In fact, at the end of this book we present an action researcher model. This model makes it possible to question the participants about their activities, their needs and the contributions of digital resources that they are likely to use or to consider using. It constitutes a means of characterizing current digital resources as well as those that have not yet been designed, in order to respond to real and explicit needs. In addition, throughout this book, some existing digital resources are presented, others are described as being able to be adapted to the world of research, while others still have to be imagined, for example by involving 2D, 3D graphic art, virtual reality or augmented reality, a promising innovation.
With regard to doctoral training, we initiate a methodological reflection, through the action researcher model, on the multiple dimensions of the research profession in HSS envisaged by some of the doctoral students, that goes beyond training sessions related to the academic field in the use of office and communication tools (with social networks, for example). Based on the role given to the digital resources in the assistance provided to the researcher (as a person giving and receiving assistance), along with their functions and their places in the professionalization process, we offer the means to implement a reflection method that can be integrated into a personal reflective approach facilitating professional integration.
I.5. Document structure
The first part of this book is devoted to the context of our reflection, namely digital humanities, and to the definition of the digital assistance concept. In Chapter 1, we describe digital humanities as a research field that we reposition in the history of disciplines. We also discuss the current issues in this field for Humanities and Social Sciences, its fields of action, and establish interaction as essential to its development. In Chapter 2, we propose a break from the common understanding of the word “assistance” and we provide the outline of the “digital assistance” concept. We first define it based on the different trends in education psychology spanning throughout the centuries. We then describe this concept as a process, a cycle; each stage is described, illustrated by specific examples from research, and produces a result.
The second part addresses the question of digital assistance in a scientific context. It consists of three chapters. In the first chapter (Chapter 3), the researchers’ work context and their daily activities are described. Based on these activities, the digital resources which are integrated into the digital assistance process are presented in their contributions. In the next chapter (Chapter 4), the researchers’ professionalization concept is questioned. This leads us to define the implementation of a new concept, the scientific scenario, through which the researchers consider their activities supported by digital technology, which is put in a professional activity that integrates into a professionalization process. Finally, in Chapter 5, the last chapter, we discuss the manner in which digital technology can support the researchers’ cognitive activity and even increase it through its contributions to meet identified needs within the framework of repetitive tasks and connections that can be implemented.
Throughout this book, the assistance provided by digital technology is questioned: in the pedagogy context (first part), and then in the researchers’ professionalization context (second part). The objective is to give the reader the possibility to implement a personal reflective approach on the uses of the digital tools which are available today and on their needs of support that can be expressed and filled tomorrow with the help of digital technology.
1
According to the 2014 report on the state of scientific employment in France: “L’état de l’emploi scientifique en France”, written by the Directorate General of Higher Education and Research & the Directorate General of Research and Innovation,
http://cache.media.enseignementsup-recherche.gouv.fr/file/Personnels_ens._sup_et_chercheurs/20/1/rapport_emploi_scientifique_2014_382201.pdf
.
2
These figures are not easy to find and vary by source. Concerning the doctoral students and doctorates awarded, there are two data sources: SISE (Système d’information sur les étudiants – French student information system) and Siredo. The first one is carried out via “computer” enrollments and only concerns universities (not taking into account the doctorates awarded by engineering schools). The other one is linked to the monitoring of doctoral schools. SISE therefore underestimates the actual number, but it may be that the monitoring of doctoral schools is not perfect either.
3
And the number of doctoral students was 65,000 the same year.
4
Training offering preparation for the research and professional path.
5
The number of enrollments in the second year (research, professional or undifferentiated master) was 152,474 in 2012–2013. This number seems to have stabilized since 2010–2011.
6
Economic and social administration.
7
According to the StraNES (Stratégie nationale de l’enseignement supérieur – French national strategy for higher education) project, let's build the France of tomorrow, act for equality, give a future to young people,
http://www.enseignementsup-recherche.gouv.fr/cid76975/la-strategie-nationale-de-l-enseignement-superieur-stranes.html
.
8
“The 2014 report on the state of scientific employment of the Ministry of Higher Education and Research reveals the strong growth of the sector in France, which has increased by 22% since 2001. Most jobs are concentrated in the private sector.”
Le Figaro.fr
, published on January 15, 2005,
http://etudiant.lefigaro.fr/stage-emploi/actu/detail/article/la-france-au-8e-rang-mondial-en-nombre-de-chercheurs-10581/
.
9
Dissertation supervision: decree of May 25, 2016 laying down the national framework of training and the methods leading to the awarding of the national doctoral diploma.
Article 13
–
An individual monitoring committee of the doctoral student ensures the proper conduct of the curriculum based on the doctorate charter and the training agreement. It evaluates, in an interview with the doctoral student, the conditions of his/her training and the progress of his/her research. It formulates recommendations and sends a report of the interview to the director of the doctoral school, the doctoral student and the dissertation supervisor. In particular, it ensures the prevention of any form of conflict, discrimination or harassment. The methods of composition, organization and functioning of this committee are determined by the council of the doctoral school. The members of this committee do not participate in the direction of the doctoral student’s work
.
10
Extract from the “Livret du doctorant”, Inalco doctoral school,
http://www.inalco.fr/sites/default/files/asset/document/livret_doctorant_16-17.pdf
.
11
Also designated by instruments (Loizon and Mayen 2015).
12
Composed of a research, teaching and administrative activity described in Article 3 of the Decree of June 6, 1984 at the lecturer-researcher level.
13
Composed of a research, teaching and administrative activity described in Article 3 of the Decree of June 6, 1984.
14
“La société a besoin aujourd’hui de chercheurs aptes à comprendre ces mutations, à les anticiper, à les expliquer grâce à leur formation et à leur bagage intellectuel. Et c’est là que l’on pourrait parler d’humanités numériques.” (“Society today needs researchers able to understand these changes, to anticipate them, to explain them through their training and their intellectual background. And that is where we could talk about digital humanities.”) In
Les humanités numériques: une nouvelle discipline universitaire
, Suzanne Dumouchel:
http://dhiha.hypotheses.org/1539
.
15
We align with the approach advocated by the French Confederation of Young Researchers (
Confédération des Jeunes Chercheurs
– CJC) and the National Association of Doctors (
Association nationale des docteurs
– AND), which, through the proposed training, focuses on the implementation of a research work, the professional development as a researcher, and the construction of his/her professional project.
Le Doctorat à la loupe
, no.12, published on April 3, 2014,
http://cjc.jeunes-chercheurs.org/doctorat-a-la-loupe/fiches/FicheDoctoratALaLoupe-12.pdf
.
PART 1Definition of Assistance in the Digital Humanities Field
Introduction to Part 1
Digital Humanities can be apprehended, according to Domenget, Bonaccorsi and Carayol (2016) as “a new research field” (Four 2013), a transdiscipline1 (Le Deuff 2014; Davidson 2010) integrated not into a “unified field” but rather into “a mosaic of convergent practices”2. They are defined (Welger-Barboza 2012; Svensson 2012; Dacos and Mounier 2014), as a very broad research field, the source of heuristic methods, devices and perspectives related to digital technology in the Humanities and Social Sciences field (Dacos 2011). A major shift is predicted (Carayol and Morandi 2016), offering an “HSS renewal movement”3 (Dacos 2011) to which we associate our reflection.
For us, digital humanities offer a fertile ground for participants’ initiatives involved in HSS research. Methodological and reflective approaches (Laubé et al. 2014) can help raise awareness of the participants’ research for actual and potential contributions of digital technology and can be a source of proposals in the design of new technical solutions which will be able to participate in the progress and diversity of their research, as well as to a certain ease of realization of daily activities. These approaches are also relevant in the implementation of a process of anticipation of the researchers’ actions and professional evolution. They play an educational role. They support the individuals in a personal intellectual activity of comprehension of what is behind their professional development, but also in their own uses of digital resources dedicated to the research profession. The objectives are to facilitate the understanding of today’s world and to anticipate the world of tomorrow in its changes related to a certain scientific competitiveness and a constant development of digital technology.
Thus, in this first part, we present digital humanities as a rapidly expanding field4, which gives rise to many epistemological debates: there are many books discussing its (ancient5) origins, its nature and its denominations over the centuries (Berra 2015). More particularly, we present these humanities as a field that has been engaging, for several years, two historically well separated disciplines whose interaction remains to be structured. The objective of this disciplinary merger is to set new lines of thought, to identify new research objects in fields of action specific to these humanities. The challenge is to be able to breathe new life into HSS research, in both collective and individual dynamics.
1
“Transdiscipline”, “interdiscipline” and “multidiscipline” reason as “words without any real meaning” aimed at the meeting of researchers, engineers and practitioners from, on the one hand, computer sciences, and on the other hand, HSS (such as history, geography, literature, sociology, archeology, language sciences, education sciences, information and communication sciences, etc.).
2
IRCOM is an HSS Research Infrastructure Consortium of the CORPUS-IR department. Its administrative lead is the Universal Linguistics and Typology Federation (Fédération typologie et universaux linguistiques) (FR 2559). It references more than 50 Francophone reference corpora.
3
Symbolized by the
Digital Humanities
manifest in 2011.
4
As evidenced by the multi-annual Horizon 2020 project funding program of the European Commission. It includes digital humanities among the preferred disciplines.
5
Initially known in the English-speaking world as
humanities computing
, the discipline was renamed as
digital humanities
(Fourmentraux 2012; Le Deuff 2014).
1Digital Humanities Context
Technological changes at the information production, communication and mediation level (Barbot and Lancian 2003) affect the economic and social life of all people, and in particular of the researcher. At the same time, these changes are transforming his/her practices: we can cite, as an example, the access to scientific knowledge facilitated by the use of databases, the presentation of this knowledge to the community through digital media as well as to the public student and “any public”1, according to different formats (audio, audiovisual or graphic). These changes integrate into a development approach already initiated several years ago. Even if digital humanities are rooted in a movement in favor of the dissemination, sharing and development of the scholarly knowledge produced by scientific communities, they want to play a role and incite the use and development of HSS digital tools, online/offline, as well as to motivate questions around their definition: do digital humanities constitute a new discipline? And/or a methodology for HSS? Both?
With this in mind, we describe in this chapter the reasons which, today, lead the HSS to “be structured”, or rather to “evolve” with the computer science field. We then present the different lines of thought which structure the current debate on digital humanities (training, innovation related to teaching and research, transliteracy development2), as well as the questions that these lines raise in the academic context. Next, we present the three fields of actions which make up the activities related to this field and to which our research results, presented later in the book, are joined. Finally, we describe the digital resources which, over the years, have contributed to the evolution of scientific practices in humanities and social sciences (HSS).
1.1. Knowledge in humanities and social sciences should be structured through interaction
Developing knowledge, along with the epistemological question of the construction of this knowledge, has always been the goal of scientific research. In the field of language sciences, we can cite, for example, Ferdinand de Saussure, the founder of linguistics. He rejects the primacy of the ontological existence of objects of knowledge for the benefit of their construction in and through scientific practice: “it is the point of view that creates the object” (Saussure 1916). From a completely different perspective, Michel Foucault, who intended to identify “changes that occur in general in the field of history” and more specifically “in the field of history of knowledge” (Foucault 1969, p. 25), defended the idea that discourses are not simple representations of things but “of practices which systematically form the objects of which they speak” (ibid., pp. 65–67). These objects are thus developed through discourses, exchanges and divergences between the participants who formulate their individual, but also collective, points of view (associated with communities and/or theoretical trends).
However, historically, in “the discipline of knowledge” which dates back to the 18th Century (Foucault 1997), the world of academic research is organized in “fields” (Bourdieu 1992). Until the middle of the 20th Century, each of these fields, such as sciences, history, arts, literature, law and management, identified its own objects of study, drew on its methodologies and disseminated its knowledge according to its own specific methods and scientific protocols of communication. Thus, knowledge and know-how were produced and disseminated to closed communities, to which the researcher, author of his/her publications, belonged. This structuring by fields is translated over the years in the representations of stereotypes, still present today: on the one hand, we have the so-called “exact” sciences, also called “hard sciences” or simply “sciences”, and on the other hand, the HSS, also called “soft sciences”.
We had to wait for the research conducted in the 1990s in the sociology of sciences to be able to consider “science as a system of exchanges” (Vinck 1995) between different networks formed by laboratories, research teams, inter-university projects, partner institutions, etc. The use of digital technologies in these networks has promoted the development of new methods of scientific work, in consortia, in larger communities and in collaboration between participants who are not all researchers (technicians, engineers, industrialists, for example). These methods generated geographic mergers, groups and exchanges of research practices between “hard” and “soft” sciences, constituting this “third culture” (Brockman 1995), Digital Humanities (Berry 2012; Latour 2010). Through this third culture, we are witnesses of the development of perspectives from different horizons (HSS and computer science, among others) which were previously separated, to open up a “community of interests” between researchers (Booker et al. 1997) belonging to laboratories3 that integrate individuals from different disciplinary fields.
These new practices tend to disrupt scientists’ activities in HSS. They reveal new needs that are fulfilled in some cases by the work of a technician or an engineer (audiovisual or computer scientist). They also participate in data collection, in the search of particular components/phenomena in the framework of a qualitative and/or quantitative analysis, as well as in the dissemination of the results on computer media (a website, for example). Today, with the arrival of the political and institutional “wave” associated with digital humanities, this effort of the union of two communities (HSS and computer science) and of research practices is fully realized. It opens not a plotted, but a very real path on an exchange effort, agreement on research protocols, mixed methodologies, broader scientific communication methods and still unidentified theoretical frameworks. Today, these unions are essential for the survival of certain disciplines in HSS that must organize and interact with other actors, other disciplines in order to continue to exist. Knowledge is no longer seen as a possession of the subject, in an internalist view of cognition; rather, it is designed in a localized and distributed social construction (Goffman 1961; 1988; Suchman 1987; Hutchins 1995). With this approach in mind, knowledge is an “embodied and socio-technically registered practice” or “mind-body-thing practice” (Amin and Cohendet 2004). It is both an object and a process, resulting from an interpretative practice which is “increased” by computer applications and Internet architectures designed as objects embedded in the action, in which the individual researcher, actor of his/her thoughts and activities, is a participant, sometimes despite him/herself, in two communities (HSS and computer science) through the use of digital resources that are imposed/proposed by his/her hierarchical authorities. New approaches for the production of bi-disciplinary scientific knowledge gradually take hold, offering the possibility of comparison with those previously implemented.
