Scholarly Communication Institute Reports on Rethinking Humanities Graduate Education

Following the completion in July 2011 of our last planned summer session, SCI entered a new phase of work (1 January 2012 to 31 August 2013) focusing on the following program areas:

• Scholarly Production
• Graduate Education
• The Value of the Humanities in the Digital Age

SCI undertook concentrated work in these three areas, with continued generous support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Our goals for this period included fostering further development of new-model scholarly authoring and production processes; rethinking and redesigning the methodological training of humanities scholars and scholarly communication professionals for the digital age; and building support for the humanities by articulating their value in and for the digital age.

These program areas evolved from conversation at recent SCI institutes. Participants’ attention reflected a growing sense of urgency felt by scholars and their scholarly societies, by presses and academic publishers, and by research libraries. The urgency is not only to understand the rapidly evolving landscape of scholarly communication, but to shape it by enacting a clear vision for scholarly communication in and for the digital age, a vision that carries forward centuries-long traditions of humanities scholarship.

SCI undertook three related strands of activity to explore and test new programs for the education of scholars and scholarly communication professionals. These are designed to survey needs and opportunities, develop and articulate new models, and foster the growth of collaborative networks among organizations, institutions, and sectors of the academy with a stake in graduate and professional methodological training in the humanities.

First, SCI has administered a broad survey of humanities-trained respondents who self-identify as working in alternative academic careers—as well as their employers—to illuminate perceived gaps in graduate-level preparation. The data collection period of the survey is now closed, but more information is available at the links below. The data and a full report are available in Libra and ICPSR [LINKS].

Concurrently, working with the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes (CHCI) and centerNet, an international consortium of digital humanities labs and centers, we are hosting a number of meetings to facilitate conversation on curricular change at the graduate level and the roles of scholarly societies, libraries, centers, and professional schools in driving that change.

Finally, SCI developed the Praxis Network, a partnership of allied but differently-inflected initiatives that are all engaged in rethinking pedagogy and campus partnerships in relation to the digital.

Rumsey, Abby Smith. "Scholarly Communication Institute Reports on Rethinking Humanities Graduate Education.".

These reports cover meetings from October 2012 and March 2013.

Additional SCI materials are available at the following URLs:

Scholarly Communication Institute Reports, 2004 – 2011: http://libra.virginia.edu/catalog/libra-oa:3260

Reports on Scholarly Production and Authoring: http://libra.virginia.edu/catalog/libra-oa:3261

Statement on “Creating Value and Impact in the Digital Age Through Translational Humanities”: http://libra.virginia.edu/catalog/libra-oa:3268

“Humanities Unbound”: Report, Executive Summary, and Slides on Survey on Humanities Graduate Education and Alternative Academic Careers: http://libra.virginia.edu/catalog/libra-oa:3480

Datasets from Survey on Humanities Graduate Education and Alternative Academic Careers
Main: http://libra.virginia.edu/catalog/libra-oa:3272
Employers: http://libra.virginia.edu/catalog/libra-oa:3500