RDF Project Meeting

We survived - it was intense, but actually quite productive. And I think that we didn't have to wrangle as much about terminology and miscommunications between c. 4 distinct academic cultures as much as I had thought. Perhaps that speaks volumes for me nagging my student researchers all summer about thinking outside the box and to try and grasp where other students on the RDF project are coming from. Of course the biggest gap is between the humanists and the computer scientists, but even this was bridged quite easily.

The excitement in the room about some of the questions we've been wrestling with - the nature of how we might map social processes as networks - was palpable, and there was interest in how humanities take on the existing data models might alter them in fundamental ways. At numerous points I had to rein in the discussion since we actually want to complete the research objectives of this grant! Still there are numerous things coming out of the RDF project. The humanities student researchers are really beginning to grasp the potential usefulness of the approaches we're looking at, but are rightly focused on HOW the data they integrate with the making publics extracted data will be accessed and controlled as part of their own research. Not really a daunting task I think since it's critical we build a user interface that allows such a sense of control in the first place.