On June 21,Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology (JASIST), a top journal in the field of Library and Information Science, published Digital Humanities in the iSchoolonline, which was participated by Xiaoguang Wang, Professor at the School of Information Management in Wuhan University and Director of the Research Center for Digital Humanities of Wuhan University.

This paper is the latest authoritative research achievement of iSchool Digital Humanities Teaching Steering Committee. As the only Chinese member of the Committee, Xiaoguang Wang, on behalf of the Chinese Digital Humanities, participated in the Committee’s research and academic discussion for one year, and finally published the Committee’s findings in the form of paper. The 13 co-authors of this paper includes Professor Sam Oh, former Chairman of iSchool, Professor Simon Mahony at the University College London, Professor Ted Underwood at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Professor Jeonghyun Kim at the University of North Texas, Associate Professor John A. Walsh at the Indiana University, and Professor Koraljka Golub at the Linnaeus University in Växjö, Sweden.

This paper makes a comprehensive investigation and content analysis on the curriculum, talent training and scientific research projects under the background of iSchool by using a variety of research methods, such as network research, questionnaire analysis and topic modeling. The Committee investigated the curriculum contents and talent training programs of Digital Humanities major in iSchool field, and found that there are great differences in Digital Humanities education models around the world. There are four different interdisciplinary cooperation models in Digital Humanities projects in iSchool field. The research also uses QDAMiner software to make a qualitative analysis of recruitment advertisements for Digital Humanities jobs, revealing the types of employers, job types and required technical capabilities. Based on the survey results, this paper comprehensively and profoundly reveals the current situation, trend and challenges of Digital Humanities research and teaching in iSchool field, provides guidance for the development of Digital Humanities discipline system, and provides authoritative guidance for universities around the world to set up interdisciplinary Digital Humanities courses, set up majors and carry out related research projects.

Target text visualization of iSchool Digital Humanities course

iSchool is composed of 116 information schools/departments of well-known universities in more than 20 countries and regions. It always advocates understanding the opportunities and challenges brought by information technology to society from an interdisciplinary perspective, and is committed to carrying out research and practice centered on the interaction among information, technology and human beings. In recent years, with a new round of scientific and technological revolution and the needs of liberal arts innovation and development, as the main direction of new liberal arts construction, accelerating the development of Digital Humanities has gradually become the consensus of academic circles. With its natural advantages in data resource construction, academic tool platform development and scientific device development, iSchools is becoming the main force and vanguard of Digital Humanities teaching, research and practice. At present, 26 universities in iSchool alliance have set up Digital Humanities specialty. In view of the emerging trend of Digital Humanities, iSchool alliance established the Digital Humanities Teaching Steering Committee in 2019, which is committed to the teaching guidance of Digital Humanities, including the confirmation of teaching objectives, the formulation of teaching syllabus, the design of teaching courses, the recommendation of teaching materials and other tasks.

Founded in 2012, the Research Center for Digital Humanities of Wuhan University is the first Digital Humanities research institution in China. The Center has established long-term exchanges and cooperation with Dunhuang Academy China, University College London, Academia Sinica and other world-famous Digital Humanities research and cultural heritage protection institutions. The Center has published a number of academic papers in the top academic journals at home and abroad, such asJournal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Journal of Documentation,Journal of Library of China, Journal of Information, People's Daily and Guangming Daily. The Center has led the establishment of the China Digital Humanities annual conference and led the development of China's Digital Humanities. It plays an important leading and exemplary role in supporting the first-class discipline construction of Library, Information and Data Science of Wuhan University and even the development of new liberal arts and the construction of liberal arts laboratory in China.

Links to the paper:https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24535