Proposal Development Workshop

Lisa Marie Rhody, Ph.D. Deputy Director of Digital InitiativesCUNY Graduate CenterEmail: lrhody@gc.cuny.eduWebsite: lisarhody.comTwitter: @lmrhody

Sheila Brennan, Ph.D. Senior Program OfficerNational Endowment for the HumanitiesEmail: sbrennan@neh.govWebsite: https://www.neh.gov/divisions/odh Twitter: @SheilaABrennan

GC Digital Initiatives

Preparing GC Students and Faculty for 21st Century Research and Teaching

cuny.is/gcdi2

Purpose

The Project Lab is designed to help you develop a reasonable, informed, and purposeful plan for your digital project that can be used with modifications for multiple purposes: to propose a seminar, capstone, or dissertation project; to submit a grant proposal or funding request; to communicate clearly with potential partners or collaborators; to guide project management; or to build out a publication about your work.

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Learning Objectives

In this workshop, you will learn the following skills:

● To identify the purpose of and need for your project

● To place your project within the context of other existing work

● To account for the resources already at your disposal and those you may need

● To locate partners, collaborators, and audiences

● To develop a work plan● To communicate your plan● To evaluate your progress● To describe how the work and data will be

managed and sustained● To draft an initial project proposal

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Overview

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What we will cover

● Begin with the end in mind● Identifying audiences and needs● Surveying the field and opportunities● Assessing resources● Developing a work plan● Communicating your work● Establishing effective partnerships● Evaluation is a revolving door● Finding funding● Drafting your proposal

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Projects That Use This SkillAll projects involve planning at some stage. Sometimes these plans turn into publications about a project. Other times you may see them as sample grant proposals. Here are some places you could look to find samples of digital project proposals.

● The Graduate Center's Provost's Digital Innovation Grants site features proposal narratives from successfully funded projects by doctoral students. Look under "Funded Projects" for a list of digital project descriptions, narratives, and white papers for each academic year.

● The NEH Office of Digital Humanities posts sample application narratives with its call for applications. You can find these at the bottom of the grant program announcements, for example, on the Digital Humanities Advancement Grant Program page.

● GCDI Projects: https://gcdi.commons.gc.cuny.edu/projects/

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Readings to Consider

● Price, Kenneth M. “Edition, Project, Database, Archive, Thematic Research Collection: What’s in a Name?” Digital Humanities Quarterly, vol. 003, no. 3, Sept. 2009.

● Spiro, Lisa. “Getting Started in Digital Humanities.” Journal of Digital Humanities, vol. 1, no. 1, Winter 2011, http://journalofdigitalhumanities.org/1-1/getting-started-in-digital-humanities-by-lisa-spiro/.

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Ethical ConsiderationsThroughout this workshop, you will be prompted to consider the ethical dimensions of your work as it relates to the technologies, funding, labor, and data that the project encompasses. Here are a few preliminary readings to get you started thinking about what to consider as you design your project. This list is not meant to be exhaustive, but suggestive. Some readings will be more applicable to the type of project you are working on than others.

● Keralis, Spencer D. C., and Pamela Andrews. “Labor.” Digital Pedagogy in the Humanities: Concepts Models, and Experiments, edited by Rebecca Frost Davis et al., Modern Language Association. digitalpedagogy.mla.hcommons.org, https://digitalpedagogy.mla.hcommons.org/keywords/labor/. Accessed 16 June 2020.

● Ess, Charles, and Association of Internet Researchers. Ethical Decision-Making and Internet Research. 27 Nov. 2002, http://aoir.org/reports/ethics.pdf.

● Hoffmann, Anna Lauren. “Data Violence and How Bad Engineering Choices Can Damage Society.” Medium, https://medium.com/s/story/data-violence-and-how-bad-engineering-choices-can-damage-society-39e44150e1d4. Accessed 23 May 2018.

● Losh, Elizabeth. “Hacktivism and the Humanities: Programming Protest in the Era of the Digital University Debates in the Digital Humanities, edited by Matthew K. Gold and Lauren Klein, University of Minnesota Press, 2012. dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu, https://dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/read/untitled-88c11800-9446-469b-a3be-3fdb36bfbd1e/section/f6fe2a59-8937-4446-a2fb-86dc6ba1975b#ch10.

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What you need to begin

● A plain text editor or word processor

● A research question, project idea, or area that you are interested in studying

● To free yourself from other distractions, social media, requests, or needs so that you can focus your attention completely on your work for the next 2 hours.

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Getting Started

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What Makes an Effective Project Plan?

Effective digital projects begin with three critical components:

● a goal, ● a need, ● and a plan.

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Projects are about people…

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Designing People-centered Projects

What are primary causes of burnout? According to the WHO, major contributors to burn out in the workplace are:

● poor communication and management practices;

● limited participation in decision-making or low control over one's area of work;

● unclear tasks or organizational objectives

A well-designed project clearly communicates responsibilities and goals. It credits the labor and intellectual contributions of every member of the team, and creates opportunities for input and responding to evolving circumstances.

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But, what if I already have a plan?

Great! This workshop can be useful to you, too. Even the best and most thoughtfully designed project plans need care and feeding. You may be thinking about a side project for something you are already working on. Perhaps you have a project that you started without a plan, but now you've decided it needs to go in a new direction.

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Begin with the End

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What does "done" look like?

Done can take many different shapes:

● it can morph into something new;● it can be retired;● it can be archived in a repository;● it can be saved on some form of storage media;● it can run out of funding;● and sometimes you are done with it!

Picture the final project. Who is involved? Where does it live? How is it supported? What will happen to it if you are not there to care for it?

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Activity - Draft your end vision and Key Deliverables● Imagine what your project is like

when it's over. Imagine what it means to you to set it down and walk away. What will you do with it? How will you know if it succeeded? Who was the last person to care about it? Why?

● Now, Describe your 2-3 sentences to a non-expert audience the purpose of your project.a. Does it solve a problem?b. Meet an institutional need?c. Put an existing resource to new

use?

Take 5 minutes to write out your project vision.

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People

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Identifying Audiences, Constituencies, and Collaborators

● Who will participate in, use, and/or benefit from the project?

● Is there a specific group already asking for this new resource? Who?

● The "general public" is too general an audience. the more specific your audience is the more likely you are to meet their needs.

● Is there anything that my audience can bring to my project?

Your project always has an audience.

● You are an audience.● Your dissertation advisor● A community you are working with ● A public interested in a related current event● Students in a particular type of course● Researchers working on related questions

Projects typically satisfy more than one audience's need. The key to identifying a well-defined audience is research and creating several narrow profiles

NOTE: Your audience is not "People who will find this interesting are..."

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Activity: Identify and Narrow Your Audiences

Identify multiple narrow audiences for your project, including their needs, interests, values, available resources, relationship to your work, and the limits they face. If you are working on a project that is institutionally based (such as creating a platform, creating a resource, or building a teaching tool), you may have institutional partners who have a stake in your project's success. It's a good idea to identify these folks and consider their interests and needs as well.

Possible stakeholders include: your library, colleagues, IT division, academic program, a center, or institute who shares your mission and/or goals.

Sample 1:

1. Needs/Interest: Faculty who teach undergraduate linguistics classes are looking for an engaging way to teach fundamental linguistics concepts through guided practice and repetition.

2. Resources: They have access to chrome books, laptops, and tablets in the classroom with limited wifi. They are unable to update software frequently, but they can use web applications.

3. Limitations: This audience needs clear and specific documentation and has a low threshold for errors.

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Environmental Scan

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Who else is working in this space?Federal grant agencies maintain repositories with white papers from previously funded grant projects:

● Institute of Museum and Library Services: http://imls.gov

● National Historical Publications and Records Commission

● https://www.archives.gov/nhprc● National Science Foundation:

http://nsf.gov ● Smithsonian Fellowships:

https://www.smithsonianofi.com/fellowship-opportunities/

● Library of Congress, Kluge Center: https://www.loc.gov/programs/john-w-kluge-center/chairs-fellowships/fellowships/

● National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH): http://neh.gov

Search and browse through literature in the field and resources for digital tools and innovations. Some examples of places to look include:

● IMLS UpNext https://www.imls.gov/news-events/upnext-blog● D-Lib Magazine http://www.dlib.org/● The Signal: Digital Preservation http://blogs.loc.gov/digitalpreservation/● Curator Journal http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)2151-6952● American Archivist http://www2.archivists.org/american-archivist#.V1kWCZMrLGI● Informal Science http://www.informalscience.org/● Center for the Future of Museums

http://www.aam-us.org/resources/center-for-the-future-of-museums● OCLC blogs http://www.oclc.org/blog/main/● DiRT registry of digital humanities tools http://dirtdirectory.org/● Digital Humanities Now http://digitalhumanitiesnow.org/● SSRC's Items http://items.ssrc.org/● Ant, Spider, Bee http://www.antspiderbee.net/● PLOS http://blogs.plos.org/ & http://blogs.plos.org/collections/● The Winnower https://thewinnower.com/topics● HubZero https://hubzero.org/groups/browse● AAAS Trellis https://www.trelliscience.com/#/site-home

Other places to check:

● Search preprint repositories, academic repositories, and data warehouses for similar datasets

● Check conference programs and gray literature from your field and related materials.● Discuss your project idea with your colleagues inside and outside of your own

department at your institution, at conferences, and even with peers in different fields.

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Questions to help fill out your environmental scanThe key to the environmental scan is to see what a wider community is already up to. How does your project fit into the ongoing work of others in your field? What about in a related field that addresses a similar question from another perspective? Is someone already working on a similar question?

● Brainstorm where you might go to look for digital projects in your field that use emerging or new forms of technology. Try to list 3 places you might look to see how others in your field are adapting their methods to use new digital tools.

● What technologies/methods do most people use in your field, if any, for capturing, storing, exploring/analyzing, or displaying their data? Why do they tend to use it? Is there a reason why you want to use the same technologies as your colleagues? What are the benefits of doing things differently?

● Does your project fill a need or stake new methodological ground? How do you know?

● If there aren't any technologies that do exactly what you were hoping for, has anyone else run into this problem? How did they solve it? Will you need to create a new tools or make significant changes to an existing one to accomplish your goal?

● Once you have gathered information about what is "out there," what are the limits of what you are willing to change about your own project in response? How will you know if you have stretched beyond the core objectives of your own research project

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Resource Assessment

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What do you have available to you? What do you need?

Types of Resources1. data2. technology3. human4. institution5. financial

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Data, Digital Assets, Collections

Do you have the dataset you need to do your project? Finding, cleaning, storing, managing changes in, and sharing your data is an often overlooked but extremely important part of designing your project. Successfully finding a good dataset means that you should keep in mind: Is the dataset the appropriate size and complexity to help address your project's goals? Finding, using, or creating a good dataset is a core part of your project's long-term success.

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ActivityWhat data resources do you have at your disposal? What do you still need? What steps do you need to take during the course of your project in order to work with the dataset now that you have a general sense of what the data needs to look like if you are working with either textual or numeric data?

If you already have a dataset in mind…

● What format does your data need to be in so that you can begin working with it?

● Is the data in a format that you can use?● If not, how will you get it into that format? How long will it

take? Are you unsure?● What is the biggest challenge that your dataset presents?● What should go well?● What makes your dataset interesting?● Do you plan to make your dataset open? If yes, how will

you do that? (GitHub?)● If you do not plan to make your dataset open, where will

you store it? Will you make it available to fellow researchers upon request? How will you communicate that?

● If you do not know what format your data needs to be in, whom will you ask for more information?

● Will your efforts and cleaning and preparing data be useful to anyone else? Would you be willing to share your methods? How would you do so?

● Will your data be standardized so that it can be combined with other datasets? What standards will you use?

● How will you fill gaps?● How long will it take for you to be able to answer all of

these questions? (You are unlikely to be able to do it all today.)

If you’re unsure what data you will use or create

● Do you know where to go to find it?● Is it digitized?● Do you need to create it yourself?● Is it under copyright?● Is it free to your institution? over the web?● Who could you talk to about finding, accessing, or

digitizing what you need?● Not sure what “data” means for humanities or

humanistic social science? Consider going through the Digital Humanities Research Institute workshop on Data Literacies. 28

Technology

Name all the types of technology that you will need to go from "raw data" to "final project"? If you don't know the name of the technology, you can just describe it. (Example: First I will scrape texts from poetry websites like poets.org from the internet using a python library called Beautiful Soup. Next, I will clean my data using Python, explore the data in NLTK to look for coocurrances of the words "painting" and "sea." I will store my results using GitHub, and visualize the results using the D3.js libraries. I will use these visualizations to write the second half of my article. When the project is done, I will deposit the dataset into the Academic Works repository." )

● Do you need a server or other cloud computing environment?

● Do you have someone who can work on the public-facing presence of the project (design skills)?

● Where will you host your project?● How much time do you think will need to be dedicated to

tech support for the project?● Do you need mobile devices? 3D printers? other hardware

or software?● Will you choose open source platforms or proprietary

ones?

Example:

Have: basic knowledge of git and python and some nltk

Need: I need a more powerful computer, to learn how to install and use Beautiful Soup, and to get help cleaning the data. I will also need to learn about the D3.js library.

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Human Resources

Looking back at the Audiences worksheet, review which of your audiences were invested in your work. Who can you draw on for support? Consider the various roles that might be necessary for the project. Who will fill those roles?

● design● maintenance and support● coding/programming● outreach / documentation● project management

Locally:

● Have you met anyone at this week's institute who is working on a similar kind of project that uses similar methods?

● Are there other colleagues in your program who are interested in using similar technologies or methods?

● Is there a digital scholarship librarian at your college? Have you signed up for the GC Digital Fellows email list?

● Who is going to manage the work of the project? Is it you? What if the project grows?

● Do you need to bring someone on board who has a more extensive digital skill set? Other content knowledge? Describe what that person would do on the project.

Remote:

● Is there an online research community that you could connect to such as an online forum? blog? research center?

● If you have presented at a conference or are part of a scholarly society or other group, do they have a listserv with people who are interested in the same technologies or research questions?

● Do people in your field use Twitter or another social network platform to communicate? Could you create a hashtag for people who share similar research interests and/or technology needs?

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Institution● What resources are available to you through your

institution?● What services or support might be available

through the GC Digital Initiatives, the Teaching & Learning Center, the New Media Lab, or the Futures Initiative? If you are not at the GC, does your institution have a digital research support network?

● Have you joined the CUNY Academic Commons?● Have you applied for internal funding? Where

would you look?● Are there resources at your institution for hosting,

data sharing, and/or preservation?

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Resources: Workshops Outside CUNY

Digital Humanities Summer Institute (DHSI) 2021 Workshops (7 - 18 June 2021):

- Podcast from Scratch- NLP & Network Coding for Textual Corpus

Analysis. With a Bonus Track: #GraphPoem Live Interactive Coding

- Creating Digital Collections with Minimal Infrastructure: Hands On with CollectionBuilder for Teaching and Exhibits

- Linked Open Data and the Semantic Web- And many more!!

Digital Humanities at Oxford Summer School 2021 Workshops (12 - 16 July 2021):

- An Introduction to Digital Humanities: Expert Insights into our Digital Landscape

- An Introduction to the TEI: From source to publication

- Applied Data Analysis- Crowdsourced Research in the

Humanities: Theory and Practice- Humanities Data: Case Studies and

Approaches- When Archives Become Digital- And many more!!

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Resources: GCDI Working Groups

Python Users Group

- Meetings: Fridays, 3:30pm to 5:00pm, including: 3/5, 3/19, 4/16, 4/30, 5/14

R Users Group

- Meetings: Fridays, 1:00pm to 2:30pm, including: 3/5, 3/19, 4/16, 4/30, 5/14

Digital Archives Research Collective (DARC)

- Meetings: Check GCDI Calendar

GIS/Mapping Working Group

- Meetings: Check GCDI Calendar

Sound Studies and Methods Working Group

- Meetings: Check GCDI Calendar

Data Visualization Working Group

- Meetings: Check GCDI Calendar

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Activity

What do I have to work with already? What will I need to complete my project?

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Outreach

● Will you create a website for your project?● How will you share your work?● Will you publish in a traditional paper or in a

less-traditional format?● Whom will you reach out to get the word out

about your work?● Is there someone at your college who can help

you to publicize your accomplishments?● Will you have a logo? Twitter account? Tumblr

page? Why or why not?● Can you draw on your colleagues to help get the

word out about your work?● What information could you share about your

project at its earliest stages?● Does your project have a title?

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Sustainability and Data Management

You will need to come up with a plan for how you are going to manage the "data" created by your project. Data management plans, now required by most funders, will ask for you to list all the types of data and metadata created over the duration of the project and then account for the various manners by which you will account for various versions, make the datasets available openly (if possible) and share your data.

Sustainability plans require detailing what format files will be in and accounting for how those files and your data will continue to be accessible to you and/or to your audience or a general public long after the project's completion.

Librarians are your allies in developing a sound data management and sustainability plan.

Activity

Very quickly, try to think of all the different types of data your project will involve.

● Where will you store your data?● Is your software open source?● What is the likelihood that your files will remain

usable?● How will you keep track of your data files?● Where will the data live after the project is over?

[Take 3 minutes to jot your ideas down now.]

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Effective Partnerships● Identify what you need

○ Once you know where you need help, start thinking about whom you know who might have those skills, access to materials, areas of expertise, resources, and interest. Partnerships should be based on the specific strengths each can bring to the project.

● Find Collaborators○ Attend conferences and talk to scholars in your field. Talk to a grant program office about your project. Search

previously awarded grants. Consider using social media.● Identify a good fit

○ Talk. Introduce yourself and schedule a phone call. It’s important to speak or meet face-to-face before formalizing a partnership. Good partners share in the project’s vision and are mutually committed to its success. They respect one another and appreciate what each brings to the project.

● Formalize your partnership○ Clearly state expectations of work in a written document or contract. Make sure each partner understands what

their contributions will be, when those contributions are due, and who else is responsible for the other pieces. ● Communicate Effectively

○ Determine who the primary contact for each partner will be, and maintain open, regular dialogue. ○ Early on establish communication norms, such as regular meetings, note taking, contact information and

method, etc. ● Stay flexible

○ All projects encounter challenges. How will your group respond to changing situations? ● Bad Marriages

○ Consider at the outset how you will communicate when things are not working well. 37

Letters of support

When preparing a proposal, you will need mentors, collaborators, or other interested parties to write a strong letter of support for your project that will help your proposal stand out to the reviewers. Some funders want letters from all project participants.

It is important to respect people’s time when asking them for a letter by showing that you’ve done your research and that you have some grant materials to share with them. Good letters demonstrate some knowledge of the project and recognition of its impact if funded.

Tips for Writing Letters of Support

● One month before grant deadline, begin brainstorming candidates for letters of support and note which collaborators are required to submit letters of commitment and support.

● Start asking supporters at least two weeks in advance of grant deadline, because they will also have deadlines and other work competing for their work hours. You may find some folks are on leave at the time you inquire, be sure to have back-ups on your list.

● Email potential supporters, collaborators:○ State why, specifically, you are asking Person A for support;○ Be specific about what you are asking Person A to do over the

scope of the grant, if anything, such as participate in 3 meetings, 2 phone calls over 18 months; or agree to review the project and provide feedback one month before official launch;

○ Provide any information about compensation, especially when asking someone to participate (Will there will be a modest honorarium of $xxx to recognize the time you give to this project?); Tell supporters what exactly you need to complete the grant application, in what format, and by what date (ie, a 2-page CV in PDF and letter of support on letterhead by ____).

● Attach materials that will be helpful for them when writing the letter.○ Provide a short project summary that includes the project goals,

deliverables, and work plan from the grant proposal draft;○ Include a starter letter containing sample text that references

that person’s or institution’s role and why they are supporting the project.

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Creating a Work Plan

What is a work plan?

● A specific task that can be achieved (not an abstract idea).

● A person responsible for completing the task

● A date the task should be completed by

A plan can be organized by deliverable, by work type, or by time frame, but must always include these three elements.

Example:

Quarter 1 (March - May):

● Collect data and store in GitHub - due 3/15 - Sarah

● Create social media identity - due 4/1 - Malcolm

● Tidy the dataset and prepare for analysis - 4/15 - Amir

● Begin drafting grant proposal - due 5/1 - Hannah

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Activity: Draft a Short Project Proposal

Project Details:

● Title● Abstract (150 word summary of project)● The Need: Statement of the conditions that

make the project necessary and beneficial for your key audiences (2-3 paragraphs).

● Impact and Intended Results● The Plan Rough outline and project calendar that

includes project design and evaluation, and possibly a communications plan, depending on the grant with major deliverables (bullet-pointed list of phases and duration):

● Phase 1 (month/year - month/year):● Phase 2 (month/year - month/year):● Phase 3 (month/year - month/year):

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Additional Resources

● DevDH.org – Development for the Digital Humanities● Project Management | Digital Pedagogy in the Humanities | MLA Commons ● Preparing Future Primary Investigators for Project Management:

http://mediacommons.org/alt-ac/pieces/preparing-future-primary-investigators-project-management-humanists

● Sample narratives from successful NEH grant programs: ● Writing grant aim statements:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/19Gtbd1DqaXCgm-SRLT5VSx-L_dFyjntbcXSyfjjMb6g/edit?usp=sharing

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