Pathways to SEASR
January 15-16, 2009
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Illinois

The Software Environment for the Advancement of Scholarly Research (SEASR) is a software engineering project, funded by the Mellon Foundation, that is leveraging the latest informatics research to innovate essential technology for the humanities. The SEASR team is developing software that:

• Enhances humanities researchers’ ability to use digital humanities applications for knowledge discovery
• Provides digital humanities developers with an improved environment for advancing and innovating applications

SEASR’s software research and development environment will enable existing applications (e.g., Wordhoard; Nora; MONK: Metadata Offer New Knowledge; IMIRSEL: International Music Information Retrieval Systems Evaluation Laboratory) to more actively, precisely and comprehensively analyze information extracted from large collections in a variety of formats (i.e., digital libraries, databases, archives, mixed media, and even custom data). SEASR offers a range of data synthesis improvements, from focused data retrieval and data integration, to intelligent human-computer interactions for knowledge access, to semantic data enrichment, to entity and relationship discovery, to knowledge discovery and hypothesis generation.

This extended workshop is being offered to initiate dissemination of SEASR software and to facilitate future development based on participant needs. The purpose of this workshop is to explain and demonstrate the utility of SEASR for digital humanities, and to bring you to a point where you could deploy and contribute to the SEASR environment. The workshop will include presentations by SEASR team and by selected attendees along with ample discussion intended to explore practical means of preparing and contributing applications and tools for running in or in conjunction with SEASR. Special attention will be paid to laying the foundation for a strong working relationship with the SEASR team, as part of which we hope to learn more about your needs, your strengths, and your objectives.

The goals of the workshop are:

• Provide a detailed understanding of the SEASR framework
• Provide detailed instructions on how to install, build components, integrate existing applications, and maintain the SEASR environment
• Provide a foundation for participant teams to use SEASR in a study or inquiry,
• Provide a base for future development and dissemination of SEASR
• Develop plans for resolution of issues in utilization of SEASR
• Begin to develop plans to use SEASR in specific projects

The workshop is intended for institutional teams of scholars from the Humanities. Our intent is to bring together 10-15 teams from across the country that represent the various disciplines in the humanities. A team should ideally include a research group from a university that has a specific research focus. The teams can vary, but might include a senior scholar/team leader, an emerging scholar, and a graduate student/post doc. We also want at least one of the team members to have some technical expertise so they can facilitate use of the software by the team. SEASR is attempting to provide analytic software that can be applied to different types of collections. Collections might include one of the following, but we are open to others: Text, Audio, Images, etc.

The workshop is organized to provide expanded opportunities for learning, knowledge sharing, and support. The major activities of the workshop are in four phases.

• Phase 1. Pre-Workshop Web-based Briefing and Communication
  • December 2008 @ Participant’s campus
• Phase 2. On-site Workshop Awareness Activities, Training, Knowledge Sharing, and Planning for Implementation
  • January 15-16, 2009 @ UIUC
  • Agenda - Click here.
• Phase 3. Implementation of Use Plans by Participant Teams. Using SEASR in a study or inquiry activity with an NCSA contact/support person
  • January – May 2009 @ Participant’s campus
• Phase 4. Follow-up Workshop to share study results, SEASR experiences, and updates on SEASR. Discussions regarding next steps for sharing and proposal writing.
  • May 2009 @ UIUC or Virtually

The extended workshop is intended to provide sufficient introduction and support so that teams can implement a study using SEASR.

As noted above, the workshop will include communication and work from a team’s home campus as well as face-to-face meeting on the University of Illinois campus. Meals and lodging will be provided on or near campus. Travel reimbursement for each team is limited to $1500 depending on number of team members. Plus 2 hotel nights, 2 breakfast, 2 lunches and one dinner will be covered.

The workshop will span a five-month period from December 2008 through April 2009.

• Response to “Call” due December 1, 2008
• Teams selected and notified December 10, 2008
• Phase 1 briefing and communication with teams December 2008 and early January 2009
• Two day meeting at the University of Illinois starting in the morning on January 15 through January 16, 2009
• Work on team campuses with NCSA contact January 16 – April 19, 2009
• Follow-up meeting with teams at UIUC April 20, 2009

To make application to participate please complete this form.

For additional information regarding travel to the Workshop and hotel arrangements, please click here.

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation is the primary sponsor of this SEASR Workshop. The workshop is also being supported in part by NCSA.

Please contact Loretta Auvil at: lauvil@illinois.edu