Vision Statement

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RichardLight
Vision Statement

I've been thinking that it would be good to have a Vision Statement as well as a Mission Statement for the consortium. Something like:

"Data for History helps historians to find useful datasets, add value to them, and share their enhanced data with the community."

What do others think?

carlo.meghini@g...
carlo.meghini@gmail.com's picture
Vision Statement

I like the idea of a vision statement and the statement proposed by  Richard. I'd like to add to the vision that one of the long-term goals is to identify reasoning patterns in historical discourse that can use some form of computer-based support.

 

RichardLight
Vision statement

I was deliberately keeping the statement as short and punchy as possible. If we unpack "add value", we find it contains things like:

  • creating a CIDOC CRM-based ontology for the data and applying it to the data
  • making a correspondence between this ontology and others, for the purpose of harmonizing data from different projects
  • using tools like Open Refine to convert string-value data to Linked Data URLs
  • releasing the resulting data set under a suitably permissive Open Data licence

Your point about identifying reasoning patterns that can use computer-based support might also be part of a more detailed explanation of what we are about.

This sort of detail could go into an updated Mission Statement.

awagner
Vision statement

I think this is a very good idea. To reflect this further, I have the impression, that what is being "unpacked" under "add value" at the moment is somewhat contingent. Could we identify something like "axes" of value-adding there? E.g. some of the activities seem to go towards tooling (surveying, collecting, commenting and demonstrating tools, but also developing our own tools where there is a lack of one), whereas others go towards conceptualizing (extending CIDOC CRM, finding common ground for prosopographic or geographic projects), and still others go towards organization of research and publication processes (best practices, guidelines, reviews).

I agree that this is something that would best come as part of the more detailed explanation and not immediately upfront. But it (or something comparable) could help in giving this detailed explanation more structure.

RichardLight
Vision and mission statement

I agree, and think this more considered analysis will have two benefits. First, it will allow us to state, clearly and specifically, the benefits that we plan to bring to the historical research community (mission statement). Second, and following on from that, it will clarify how we need to organise ourselves in order to achieve our goals.

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