Date: Friday June 27, 2014
Time: 9.00am-5.00pm
The Digital Repository of Ireland is very pleased to be partnering with the Knowledge and Data Engineering Group at Trinity College Dublin to deliver an innovative workshop on data-driven Humanities research.
The International Workshop on Computational History, which focuses on the challenges and opportunities of data-driven humanities, brings together world-leading scientists and scholars at the forefront of this emerging field, at the interface between computer science, social science, humanities and mathematics. As historical knowledge becomes increasingly available in forms that computers can process, it becomes amenable to large-scale computational analysis and interpretation. Mathematical analysis of the dynamic, evolutionary patterns observed in the data helps us to better understand the past and can even produce empirically-grounded predictions about the future.
This day-long event will be divided into two main sessions. The morning session will focus on teaching history to computers. Computer scientists and digital humanities experts will introduce technologies and tools they have applied in order to extract knowledge from historical records in a form that can be processed by computers without losing its meaningfulness. The theme of the afternoon session is calculating the unknown. A collection of leading international scientists, working at the forefront of mathematical and theoretical analysis of historical data, will describe what is possible with current tools.
Why is computational history important?
Historical research adds to our knowledge of the past, and is increasingly being made available online. If this research is published in ways that computers can process, we can use computers to help us understand historical events. A wide array of theoretical and mathematical tools can be used to analyse this data for patterns or trends, and to reveal insights not otherwise available.
Who should attend?
Researchers, students and practitioners interested in History, Data-driven or Digital Humanities, Linked Data, Social Complexity, Cultural Evolution and Complex Systems, Big Data, Research data sharing, Open Data.
Who are the organisers?
This event is jointly hosted by the Knowledge and Data Engineering Group, Trinity College Dublin, and the Digital Repository of Ireland, Royal Irish Academy.
FULL DETAILS (schedule, titles, abstracts, bios) are available here.
This event requires registration in advance. The small fee of €20 Euro includes a catered lunch and tea/coffee breaks.
This workshop has been partially funded by a New Foundations Grant from the Irish Research Council.
Please note: The workshop will be preceded by a public lecture, The mathematics of impending social implosion on Thursday June 26th by Professor Peter Turchin. It will be held at 6-7:30pm in the Royal Irish Academy. Admission to the public lecture is free to all, and offered on a first-come, first-served basis (no registration required).