DH Virtual Discussion Group for Early Career Researchers

One of the major challenges during the on-going COVID-19 pandemic has been and continues to be maintaining and growing our DH communities. With an added sense of instability and risk, in-person conferences, workshops, lectures, and informal group meetings have become few and far between. In the wake of these challenges, new ways of interacting as well as ways of adding structure to our academic lives has become a necessity.

This poster focuses on one way we have worked to develop our DH community in Belgium through the DH Virtual Discussion Group for Early Career Researchers. This initiative grew out of a pre-COVID interest from the DH community of researchers at Ghent CDH, Ghent University to have a group dedicated to learning new DH tools, methodologies, and workflows on a regular basis. The idea was received with interest at KU Leuven Libraries as well, and the first edition of this series took place in Fall 2020 jointly organized by Prof. Julie Birkholz (KBR and Ghent University) and Merisa Martínez (formerly of KU Leuven Libraries Artes). The series has continued since then and is approaching its fourth edition in Spring 2022 jointly coordinated by Prof. Julie Birkholz, Prof. Margherita Fantoli (KU Leuven), and Dr. Leah Budke (KU Leuven Libraries Artes).

The meetings of the DH Virtual Discussion Group take place on a monthly basis during the academic semesters. Each session lasts 1.5 hours and usually follows a standard format designed to combine both networking opportunities and more traditional presentations. No DH expertise is required to attend the discussion group meetings, and we welcome participation from various groups, including but not limited to students, PhD candidates, postdocs, and library staff. Everyone is welcome to attend!

The group meetings are intended to be informal and have a portion of time designed to mimic the social moments at conferences or workshops where you might discuss your interest in DH or your research project with other researchers over a cup of coffee. We utilize the breakout room function in Zoom to facilitate conversation during this networking portion of our meetings, allowing members of our Belgian DH community to either introduce themselves for the first time or to catch up with contacts they’ve met in previous sessions or in pre-COVID times at physical events. This part of the meeting is followed by a moment to share any upcoming DH-related events, funding opportunities, job vacancies, or interesting news. Next follows the “Under-the-Hood” presentation where a speaker from our DH community gives us a behind-the-scenes look at their digital project, a particular workflow, or a specific tool that has been useful in their own research. The presentation portion is followed by a Q&A session where we welcome questions and comments from the audience. The emphasis here is on learning from the bottom up and no question is too basic. In the spring semester, we hope to continue last year’s special session which tied in with the DH Benelux conference. In this session, those in our community who were presenting at DH Benelux were invited to give an elevator pitch of their DH Benelux contribution. This served as a way to help ECRs prepare for the conference—for some of them, it was their first time presenting—and for our other attendees to get a preview of what they could expect if attending DH Benelux.

To facilitate the conversation and to help people keep track of any relevant information shared during our meetings, we supplement the meetings with a dedicated Padlet. On this platform, attendees are invited to share their social media details, links to their research projects, links to other interesting projects or tools, and any DH-related events or opportunities. We also share links relevant to the presentation. The Padlet information is exported and distributed to the mailing list after the session has taken place so that all registered members of our group stay up-to-date on any opportunities or events and can connect with fellow DH-enthusiasts.

While it is uncertain when we will reach the end of the pandemic, the DH Virtual Discussion Group for ECRs in Belgium has made clear the advantages of technology in allowing us to not only maintain our DH community, but to welcome new researchers into it and to learn together in a digital forum. This format facilitates regular and informal meetings among a larger group of digital humanists, which would not be possible on a monthly basis in physical format. Our DH Virtual Discussion Group for ECRs in Belgium provides an effective, low-threshold way for those interested in DH to step into the community, it gives us as co-organizers a clear indication of the wide interest in DH in our broader Belgian community, and it provides a space to share new research and to learn about current DH research being undertaken in Belgium.