As Luck Would Have It: Discovery in the Digital Age

Discovery and innovation in humanities research has traditionally rested on researchers making serendipitous connections by meandering along knowledge trails and proposing unexpected conceptual links. Emerging digital research tools are producing even richer opportunities for connectivity in the humanities but are often designed for efficient information retrieval rather than serendipitous discovery. Interrogation techniques based on networked information models or collection visualisations as well as more general discovery tools offer promising new avenues for discovery but don't always align with approaches to the production of knowledge used by humanities scholars. This workshop will engage participants in a computational platform specifically designed to co-create a new and imaginatively revised "ordering" of the world.

Deb Verhoeven is Associate Dean of Engagement and Innovation at University of Technology Sydney and the Director of the Humanities Networked Infrastructure (HuNI) Project.

Photo credit: © James Verhoeven, creator Andrew Beveridge