Humanities and Social Sciences
Introduction
Scholars in the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) are using increasingly complex computational tools, methods, and techniques in their research. There are three elements of the current landscape that place the HSS in a position for rapid growth:
- increasing open source data;
- increasing access to significant computing power and tools; and
- growing research computing competency among humanities researchers.
To support researchers in the HSS, the Digital Research Alliance of Canada has a dedicated team of professionals. For more information, please contact the HSS Team using the support email address found on this page, adding (HSS) at the beginning of the subject. Alternatively, you are welcome to request a specific staff member, consult the list of names below to find the appropriate person to contact.
Who We Are
The lead team:
- Meghan Landry, team lead, Humanities & Social Sciences Research Specialist at St. Francis Xavier University (ACENET)
- Megan Meredith-Lobay, Associate Director, Research Computing Group at Simon Fraser University (BC DRI Group)
- Pier-Luc St-Onge, Advanced Research Computing Analyst at McGill University (Calcul Québec)
- Sarah Cameron-Pesant, Advanced Research Computing Analyst and HSS specialist at Université du Québec à Montréal (Calcul Québec)
Team members by region:
Regional partner: BC DRI Group
- Simon Fraser University
- Alex Razoumov, Research Solutions Lead and Visualization Specialist
- Marie-Hélène Burle, Research Solutions Specialist
- Jillian Anderson, Big Data Analyst
- University of British Columbia
- Garth Evans, Audio-video Analyst
- Jennifer Abel, Language Sciences Specialist
- Wade Klaver, System Administrator & Consultant
- University of Victoria
- Matt Huculak, Head, Advanced Research Services
Regional partner: Prairie DRI Group
- University of Calgary
- Dave Schulz, System Administrator & Consultant
Regional partners: CAC, SHARCNET, SciNet
- University of Toronto
- Arun Jacob, Specialist in Media Studies and Digital Humanities
- University of Windsor
- Paul Preney, High Performance and Technical Computing Consultant
Regional partner: Calcul Québec
- École des Hautes études commerciales (HEC)
- Mohamed Jabir, Data Analyst
Regional partner: ACENET
- Acadia University (Nova Scotia)
- Michele Fash, Director Business Development
- Saint Mary's University (Nova Scotia)
- Joyce Thomson, Digital Services Librarian
Services for HSS researchers
National services are available to all members of the research community with documentation in both official languages, trained support team and robust system architectures.
- Advocacy and Outreach - Members attend conferences, make presentations to academic and other groups, and actively participate in the scholarly community in order to better understand our user needs.
- Collaboration Services – Sites located across Canada are capable of both delivering and viewing large video conferences.
- Cloud – Virtual-machine development space that includes an outward-facing IP address.
- Computation – Expandable power ranging from the equivalent of a second desktop to supercomputers with thousands of cores, terabytes of RAM, and a variety of system architectures.
- General Analyst/Consultant Support – Consultations regarding project architecture and resource needs with technical experts with skills ranging from specialty software selection to program optimization.
- Globus – Fast, secure, sharing and fire-and-forget file transfers.
- Nextcloud – 50Gb of shareable, Dropbox-like space available across multiple devices.
- Platforms and Portals – Hosting for specialized data and tools for entire research communities.
- Specialized Software – More than 900 software programs and packages already integrated with national compute clusters.
- Storage – Robust storage solutions for backup and mid- to long-term storage.
- Training – Training sessions covering core skills offered regularly and custom courses available on request. Please see below for all training opportunities, including those pertinent to Humanities and Social Sciences for your specific region.
- Visualization Support – Dedicated 3D visualization expert available
- Windows in the Cloud - run Windows applications in the cloud.
Other Resources for Canadian Digital Humanities Scholars
- Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations (ADHO)
- Canadian Society for Digital Humanities (CSDH)
- Digital Humanities Summer Institute (DHSI)
- HSS Commons