THATCamp

What is THATCamp Florence “unconference” all about ?

According to it.Wikipedia and en.Wikipedia,  an unconference is “a conference where the content of the sessions is created and managed by the participants….” An unconference is not a spectator event. Participants in an unconference are expected to present their work, share their knowledge, and actively collaborate with fellow participants rather than simply attend.

Organisation of  THATcamp Florence Ateliers:

In Florence, registered campers will meet after lunch in the Teatro, Badia Fiesolana, at 2.30 p.m. on Thursday the 24th of March until 4 p.m.: with all campers meeting together, Tom Scheinfeldt, Managing Director, CHNM and Amanda French, THATCamp Coordinator, CHNM, George Mason University, together with the many “tutors”, will organize all the THATcamp Ateliers, following your proposals and Florence THATcamp organizers proposals.

THATcamp Florence contemporaneous ateliers will start at the Badia Fiesolana at 4.30 p.m. on the 24th until next day, Friday the 25th, evening. Five (5) contemporaneous ateliers could possibly be organized on the 24th and four (4) on the 25th. Available rooms are: Sala del capitolo (24 and 25), Seminario 3 & Seminario 4 in the Badia Fiesolana (24 and 25th), Seminario 2 (24 and 25th morning) Teatro (24) and Sala Rossa (24 and 25). (See the complete time-table for THATCamp Florence here.)

Who should attend THATCamp Florence ?

Anyone with energy and an interest in the humanities and/or technology is warmly invited to join us in Florence, to suggest topics to integrate to the list of  THATCamp ateliers and to participate. Send your proposal to

Available list of Topics and Coordinators for THATCamp Florence Ateliers

  1. Intellectual properties – copyright in Digital Humanities (Isabel Vaillant – CVCE Luxembourg)
  2. Copyrights issues in scholarly collective platforms and shared libraries (Isabel Vaillant – CVCE Luxembourg)
  3. Crowdsourcing (Frédéric Clavert – CVCE Luxembourg)
  4. Teaching Digital Humanities (Stéphane Lamassé- PIREH – Sorbonne)
  5. Building infractures for Digital Humanities (Pierre Mounier – CLEO, France)
  6. 3D virtual environment for cultural heritage (Enrica Salvatori – Maria Simi – CISIAU, University of Pisa)
  7. Building ontologies for Humanities (Valeriano Sandrucci – Fondazione Rinascimento Digitale)
  8. Finding primary sources online (Gerben Zaagsma – UCL/ EUI)
  9. Text Mining activities (Stéphane Lamassé- PIREH – Sorbonne)
  10. Genealogy and Social Networks Software’s ff0000">(Looking for Coordinators, many requests at EUI)
  11. Online collaborative analysis in History and the Social sciences (Stéphane Lamassé- PIREH – Sorbonne and Philippe Rygiel, CHS, Paris 1)
  12. OCR and voice recognition software’s ff0000">(Looking for Coordinators, many requests at EUI)
  13. Scientific foundations of the ‘European NAvigator’ (ENA): Experiences and perspectives of a digital research library to foster interdisciplinary research in European Studies” (Cristina Blanco Sío-López – CVCE)
  14. Collaborative Platforms and file sharing tools in the humanities ff0000">(Looking for Coordinators)
  15. Identifying socio-economic impact of Digital Humanities, “As an emerging transdiscipline, Digital Humanities could not rely on well established networks of academics (and industrials?) that may influence positively national and international funding programs. Promotion and lobbying actions could however enable larger, more ambitious and more visible projects. In this context, one may question the socio-economic impact of DH beyond the improvement of research quality. Could citizens and/or companies directly leverage DH studies? How? When?  This “atelier” will try to engage a debate on the seduction power of digital humanities and the best practices to attract further sponsors and public funding.”, (Ghislain Sillaume  – CVCE)
  16. Personal publishing, (Looking for Coordinators, requests at EUI)
  17. ArcGis, Google Earth, geo-tagging and mapping techniques for historians ff0000">(Looking for Coordinators, many requests at EUI)
  18. Education and research for digital scholarship in the humanities (Anna Maria Tammaro – University of Parma)
  19. Education in Digital Humanities (or Humanities Computing) : what is the appropriate level to introduce “interdisciplinary education”? Our choice has been to introduce it as early as possible, at the undergraduate level; which is the right blending/proportion of humanistic culture and technology? What kind of subjects from the humanities? What kind of subjects from computer science? Should we teach programming and databases? At what level? Should we rather aim at students that are just skilled in the relevant tools? The ways of teaching: Traditional lectures? Labs? Ateliers? Distance learning? How to avoid the “”no meat, no fish”” (an Italian way of meaning “”you don’t have much going for you””) result? Which fields are worth a specialized education (Master and PhD), requiring a deep; understanding of both humanistic culture and technology? We are betting on the following four: Electronic publishing, Language technology, Graphics, interactivity, virtual worlds, Knowledge management, (Enrica Salvatori & Maria Simi, CISIAU.
  20. Next Step Publishing Tools & Practices, Federico Ruberti, FakePress
  21. Study case of mapping humanistic data: The “Gabinetto Vieusseux Collections”. From stand-alone to Pinakes 3.0. Chosen by campers, the presentation would focus on four main topics: the original data structure (non-structure) of the Vieusseux Collections and the limits of any vertical application for humanities studies; the mapping criteria to upgrade into an OWL performant application a specialized data set (local stand-alone repositories of the Vieusseux Collections; the proposal of an Upper/Foundational Ontology for the humanities crossing the CIDOC Cultural Heritage model; the advantages and limits of a commune ontologies for the Humanities. On the basis of the Vieusseux Collections example we would like to explain how it can be possible to overcome the waste of collected and specialized information within in the disciplinary different research projects of the humanities. The target of such presentation is to enforce the idea of a shareable information domain to be used within the so- called “Virtual Research Environments” so much supported, in the last decade, by the European Union. Maurizio Bossi and Francesco Catastini, (Gabinetto Vieusseux, Florence) and Andrea Scotti, (Pinakes Project, Fondazione Rinascimento Digitale) .

There will be no spectators at THATCamp Florence !

  • Everyone will participate.
  • THATcamp ateliers will be coordinated by one or more tutors.
  • THATCamp ateliers will be small and intimate, having from 15/20 participants maximum.
  • One and a half day will be used for THATcamp activities, starting on Thursday the 24th of March 2011 at 2 p.m. for organising the Camp all together and ending on Friday the 25th evening.
  • THATCamp Florence will be made of non-hierarchical atelier opened to everyone: like in previous European Camps in Paris in April 2010, London in July 2010 and Cologne in September 2010, graduate students, scholars, librarians, archivists, museum professionals, developers and programmers, administrators, managers, teachers, professors and funders will all be welcome like people from the non-profit sector, the for-profit sector, and interested amateurs.
  • The working language of  theTHATCamp Florence will be mainly English, but Italian will also be used during the camp. Some teachers will be able to interact in Italian, French and English with Campers.

Connected Materials to THATCamp Florence

  • THATcamp Florence organizers are strongly supporting participants to share their notes, slides, and other materials from THATCamp Florence discussions before and after the event . All materials in THATCamp Florence website will be loaded contacting Serge Noiret, EUI LIbrary at serge.noiret at eui.eu.
  • Use of THATCampFlorence Twitter: @thatcampfirenze and #THATCamp or #Thatcampfirenze are warmly supported
  • Use of THATcamp Facebook page is recommended too !

Registration for THATCamp Florence

  • ThatCamp ateliers accepted participants depending on the EUI, Badia Fiesolana seminar rooms capacities.
  • THATCamp Florence is not-for-profit but you needed to register (registrations closed on the 15th of March) and pay two lunches (2 x 10 € each for a total of 20 €) or, for the whole BootCamp/THATcamp Florence activities, pay three lunches (3 x 10 € each for a total of 30 €)


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