What Counts as Data? Interdisciplinary Panel
_Panelists: _Jen Serventi (Office of Digital Humanities, NEH), Angus Murphy (UMD Department of Plant Science & Landscape Architecture), Joanne Archer (UMD Special Collections and University Archives), and Catherine Knight Steele (UMD Department of Communication and Director of the African American History, Culture, and Digital Humanities) _Moderator: _Ricardo Punzalan (School of Information) This panel of diverse disciplinary representatives invites participants to discuss the definitions of data, practices of data collection, ethical considerations and threats against data. Viewed in concert with each other, these domain perspectives will aid us in understanding the complex environment of research data preservation and the numerous dangers that can threaten the long-term usability, sustainability, and discoverability of this information.
Speakers
Catherine Knight Steele is a native Chicagoan who received her doctorate in Communication from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2014. She previously served as an assistant professor at Colorado State University. Her research focuses on African American culture and discourse in mass and new media, and publications have appeared in the Howard Journal of Communications and Intersectional Internet: Race, Sex, Class, and Culture Online(Peter Lang, 2016). Her dissertation, "Digital Barbershops: The Politics of African American Oral Culture in Online Blog Communities," explored the politics of African American blogs as contributing to online counterpublics and secondary orality. She is currently working on a monograph about digital black feminism and new media technologies. Steele is the first Project Director of African American History, Culture and Digital Humanities (AADHum), for which she will lead up initiatives to prepare a diverse cadre of scholars and students whose work in African American History & Culture and the Digital Humanities will enrich arts and humanities research and teaching with new methods, archives, and tools.
