Academics

Digital Humanities // DH 201
Miriam Posner
Fall 2019

Abstract
The Carnegie Museum of Art (CMOA) is a contemporary art museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. CMOA asserts that their programming, exhibits, and publications “frequently explore the role of art and artists in confronting key social issues of our time, combining and juxtaposing local and global perspectives.” Their mission statement champions creativity with a global focus, stating that “CMOA collects, preserves, and presents artworks from around the world to inspire, sustain, and provoke discussion, and to engage and reflect multiple audiences.”

This project takes its lead from CMOA's mission statement, examining their accession records to get a sense of how global their collection is. CMOA recorded the nationality of artists within each artwork’s accession record, and was fairly thorough in this effort. While there is no silver bullet for determining the diversity of a museum’s collection, the data visualizations in this project will tease apart aspects of CMOA’s contemporary art collection to get a better understanding of the nationalities and countries represented in their artworks.

Inclusion in portfolio
This project required strong data cleaning and visualization skills, and developed my expertise in OpenRefine, Tableau, and web design. Further, a recurrent theme of the course was debunking the myth of "raw data." Data need to be collected, cleaned, and curated, all of which involve human intervention. A large part of this project was thus documenting decisions I made when working with data in order to allow people to critically engage with and analyze my work. I included this project in my portfolio as it reflects my ability to work with data in a transparent, ethical manner, and also illustrates my technical skills with data work.

Classmate Marisa Purcell showcases the metadata crosswalk we created for Dr. Cooney. Dr. Cooney's data followed a homegrown schema; this crosswalk to Dublin Core would make her research data more interoperable and reusable.

Data Curation and Policy // IS 262B
Jillian Wallis
Spring 2019

Abstract
A critical component of research is data management. Responsible data management benefits research on numerous fronts—it promotes trust in the data and transparency for the user; it facilitates data reuse; and it provides standards and context that support the longevity of a project, which can be important if the research project is a years-long endeavor with a multitude of changing contributors. Data management, however, can be complicated in interdisciplinary research projects, as different disciplines have different data standards and practices. This is where the expertise of those in the information studies field comes in. Professionals with a background in information studies are specifically trained to think about preservation, trust, and access of information.

We collaborated with Dr. Kara Cooney, a professor in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures. Her research explores coffin reuse in Ancient Egypt. This work is an expansive endeavor, involving eight years of data collection. All in all, Dr. Cooney has examined over 300 coffins in over 20 museums and private collections around the world, generating over 100,000 photographs as well as qualitative data on each coffin, totalling one terabyte of data.

Dr. Cooney’s work is interdisciplinary, drawing on art history, archaeology, and Egyptology. Her data also has rights’ concerns, as museums have different permission controls with regard to disseminating the photographs of coffins. With regard to data transparency and trust, appropriate measures are needed as her data is qualitative, consisting of Dr. Cooney’s observations and determinations regarding signs of coffin reuse. And finally, Dr. Cooney works with graduate students who were not necessarily there since the beginning of her research, which can affect the longevity of her data.

We created a data management plan that supports these concerns, and offers a path forward for sharing her findings online in order to facilitate data reuse. Our recommendations cover a number of areas that promote data transparency, reuse, and longevity, including description, rights, storage, repositories, citation, budgets, and timelines.

Inclusion in portfolio
I included this report in my portfolio because it shows a deep understanding of data lifecycles, metadata, transparency, trust, and preservation—all of which are critical concepts with applications in a variety of information domains. Further, this project spanned two terms; in winter 2019 I took the 262A course, in which we created the data management plan, and in spring 2019 I took the 262B course, in which we implemented the data management plan. Accordingly, I was able to go more in depth with the report and with the client to deliver the most useful recommendations possible.