Skills in Heritage Data Science: Meet the Dogs of 19th Century Denmark

Henriette Roued-Cunliffe (University of Copenhagen) discusses how to create a smooth learning curve for data-led research in the humanities.

In the humanities and the heritage sector, Henriette has often heard her colleagues complain that the main thing standing in their way of data-led research is their lack of technical skills. Henriette has taken this very much to heart and has spent years teaching humanities students how to work with data, organise it, and visualise it. Recently, she has written the book “Open Heritage Data” (2020, Facet Publishing) aiming to motivate the heritage sector to explore the possibilities of open data. But basic data science skills are still a stumbling point for many. The learning curve is often too steep and begins at too difficult a step.

A few years ago, Henriette was introduced to fabulous protocols of registering dog ownership in 19th century Denmark, which she has transcribed and organised into a dataset together with a group of students at the University of Copenhagen.

This talk will introduce this dataset, and using it as an example, will discuss how we can start further down and create a smoother learning curve for data-led research in the humanities.

Henriette Roued-Cunliffe (University of Copenhagen) is an associate professor in digital humanities with a background in archaeological computing.