Cultural Data Principles: How to Best Work with Cultural Data

This week we have been discussing topics of preservation and sustainability, as well as the principles that inform how we work with cultural data. Some of the examples we have seen in this course include the following:

• Colored Conventions Principles https://coloredconventions.org/principles
• Minimal Computing https://go-dh.github.io/mincomp/about/
• Data Feminism Principles https://data-feminism.mitpress.mit.edu/

Other relevant resources include:

• The Turing Way https://the-turing-way.netlify.app/welcome.html
• The Carpentries https://carpentries.org/
• The Digital Humanities Literacy Guidebook https://press.rebus.community/dhlg/

Group Activity

In this group activity, you will work in small groups to start drafting a set of principles that you think are important for working with cultural data. You can draw on the examples above, as well as your own experiences and our discussions in class. Your goal is to create a set of principles that you think would be helpful for anyone new to working with cultural data, and then we will discuss in class why you think these principles are important.

You should aim for at least 4 principles, but you are welcome to draft more if you think it is necessary. You should create a Google Doc to record your principles and then be prepared to share your findings with the class. Once you have created your Google Doc, please share the link with the class via Slack. Be sure to include the names of all group members in the document.

We will discuss the principles you have drafted in class and try to come up with a set of overall principles that we think are important for working with and preserving cultural data.