| Description |
A new form of scholarship has emerged in recent years that can be called digital scholarship. I have seen it defined as online publishing or digitized material presented online, or, in other words, scholarship that appears in a digital form. However, a more compelling definition treats it as scholarship that depends entirely on being digital, i.e., it is created, carried out, and disseminated entirely digitally. In essence, it is not possible without digital technology. This is an important distinction. Many objects can be converted to a digital format, and as desirable as that is, most of them can fulfill their functions quite well without being digital. Scholarship that is dependent on being digital is a new development. It is often highly visual and visually oriented. It often contains text but may also be a study of text. It may combine many different data types, systems and software. It may include a special interface. Often digital scholarship takes the form of stand alone projects that are not integrated with other digital works. However, there may be nothing that prevents this from happening, in fact, by being digital, the possibilities for collaboration, sharing or repurposing are enormous. |
