Data donation presents a new and unique approach to collecting digital trace data, liberating researchers from platform dependencies and restrictions. A consortium of six Dutch universities has now started building its own digital data donation infrastructure. Within this initiative, Karin van Es and Dennis Nguyen from the Faculty of Humanities at Utrecht University, supported by…

During her research Lorena De Vita stumbled upon the personal diaries, spanning from 1932 to 1989, of Otto Küster, a German jurist who dedicated a significant portion of his professional career seeking reparations for Holocaust survivors. His handwriting, however, was almost illegible. De Vita participated in a Trankskribus workshop offered by the UB and CDH…

Data School’s Mirko Schäfer and Iris Muis are keen to push for a broader definition of impact at university level. Although they do not find the time to publish as often as they would like, their research is having significant impact, with their work used in Austria, Sweden, Finland and Greece. Schäfer: ‘If you really want to achieve an impact,…

This interview is part of a series conducted by UU FAIR research IT, aimed at showcasing the impact of their projects on FAIR research IT. This TextMiNER project, led by the CDH Research Software Lab, has been made possible through a FAIR Research IT Innovation Grant. ‘You get much more out of a text corpus with…

Dutch version of this article. While deepening a pond in his garden, Erwin Jesterhoudt from the Zeeland village of Philippine, stumbled upon a piece of an old wall in early October. Using a digital historical map from Utrecht University, he learned that it was a section of an 18th-century fortress wall. The Centre for Digital…

The AI & Media Lab, a cooperation between Utrecht University, HU University of Applied Sciences Utrecht and Media Perspectives, works on exploring AI applications in the media and the gaming world. Operating under the umbrella of AI Labs, it actively collaborates with a varied network of partners from the IT sector and creative industry. In…

In this series of interviews the FAIR Research IT Innovation Fund shows what contribution projects can make to FAIR research IT. The research teams of the projects have received a grant from them. Good news for scientists whose technological skills are limited, but who want to work with social media data in their research: now…

Between 2016 and 2018, Jeroen Salman led the EDPOP project. What digital techniques has he used in the project? What role did Utrecht University Library and the Research Software Lab of the Centre for Digital Humanities (CDH) play in EDPOP? And are such roles ever played out? The EDPOP project (European Dimensions of popular print culture) is…

Edo Storm used a combination of computational methods and close reading to conduct research into the history of the term ‘the West’. It earned him this year’s Digital History Thesis Award. Storm: ‘I wouldn’t have seen the big overarching narrative without this computational method.’ Fellow students sometimes joked about him and his ‘digital stuff’ when…

How did a sixteenth-century Dutch inhabitant experience the animals and plants around him? And how did that change in the centuries that followed? When did the rabbit change from food into pet and the horse from means of transportation into pleasure animal? Literary texts, scientific texts and folk tales, in particular, offer a unique glimpse…

Utrecht University presents its new vision on Recognition and Rewards in a series of videos. Our developers Luka van der Plas, Berit Janssen and head of DH-IT Andre van Kooij explain in this video how the Digital Humanities Lab (DHLab) fulfills a unique hybrid role between academics and support staff. The scientific developers of the DHLab develop…

Iris Muis has just returned from a trip to the European Parliament, where she presented the Fundamental Rights & Algorithms Impact Assessment (FRAIA) together with Mirko Schäfer from Utrecht Data School (UDS). Muis: ‘Organizations are increasingly using algorithms to make work more efficient and to hire fewer people. But if you use technology, you also…