Evaluating Peer Review Criteria: The Geo-Twist

Abstract

The evaluation and impacts of digital humanities works, and defining their scholarly contributions is quite complex and hotly debated within many scholarly communities. Peer review criteria are being developed, including those recently published from DH Commons. GeoHumanities interactive scholarly works present numerous additional challenges in their evaluation, that is, spatially-inflected digital projects embody assumptions in their data and visual outputs that differentiate them from text-based research. A poster and pre-conference workshop at DH2015 was conducted as a community consultation designed to explore review criteria of GeoHumanities interactive scholarly works. “Supporting Peer-Review for GeoHumanities and Spatially-Inflected Projects” (Weimer and Wrisley) and “Exploring Peer Review in the GeoHumanities,” (Wrisley, Weimer and Grossner) addressed the issues surrounding peer review of digital humanities interactive scholarly works, specifically those in geohumanities. Workshop presenters prepared a criteria document, based on the DH Commons Review Guidelines, enhanced with criteria specific to geospatial works. Attendees reviewed pre-selected projects, working in small groups to test the draft criteria. Further community engagement is sought in order to enhance the draft document.