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Herman Stehouwer, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen
Researchers in the Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) areas are facing new challenges in handling their data as the nature of data collection in the humanities has changed vastly in recent decades. For example, nowadays crowd-sourcing information is collected from mobile devices, which generates vast quantities of data to be processed. Similarly, data from 3D scans of objects and MRI measurements, along with information taken from the internet, are all methods of collecting data that are pushing the boundaries of our current abilities to store, process and manage large volumes of digital data. Heterogeneity and the highly structured nature of SSH data are also issues that pose clear challenges for managing research data across the Social Sciences and Humanities.
We need to find effective ways to process and store this data, and these methods need to work for the types of data used in SSH research. To that end, we are holding a workshop on the Big Data Challenge for the Social Sciences and Humanities at the 2nd EUDAT Conference on 28 October. The goal of the workshop is to formalise specific key points that will improve the situation for handling SSH digital research data. We aim to use the points that are established at the workshop to form the basis of programs to address key issues for SSH data under the EC's H2020 framework program and national funding programs, where appropriate.
For more information about the workshop, see http://www.eudat.eu/eudat-2nd-conference-workshops#SSH