Revised November 5, 1999; February 11, 2000 February 28, 2000
These questions have been designed by the NINCH Building Blocks Steering Committee to elicit information and opinions about research and teaching, with specific regard to the use and re-use of source materials. The Committee will use the responses as a way to open and stimulate discussions in the first set of Building Blocks workshops to be held in September 2000. We are sending these questions to the 17 workshop participants and an additional number of key figures in each of five fields. The learned societies and others participating in each field are listed at the end of this document.
Confidentiality: Your response is being solicited for the sole purpose of helping the field committees initiate conversations in the workshops. We do not plan to produce or publish the results of this survey.
How To Respond Under each topic header we open with a lead question, followed by others to stimulate thinking about ways to approach the topic. We don't expect or encourage you to answer each individual question under each topic header, simply answer once under the main question with whatever information you believe is appropriate. Short essay responses are welcome.
Reports and Feedback: Reports on the workshop sessions will be available in early 2001. There are no plans to formally report on the results of the survey.
Thank you for your thoughtful responses.
Name:
Field: (required; please check one):
History Interdisciplinary Studies Language & Literature Performing Arts Visual & Media Arts
Reply by: April 15, 2000
Describe the full range of types of materials, especially if they differ markedly in their nature and sources. How do you relate these materials one to another?
How do you find these materials? Who or what is most helpful in enabling you to find the best material?
What are the ideal conditions for working with the resource?
How often do you work under these ideal conditions?
What are acceptable substitutes for these ideal situations and in what contexts?
How does the form and location of materials affect the ways you can use this material?
How much of your time do you work with an "original" as opposed to a copy or surrogate of the original?
If you work with an original, what proportion of it do you actively use in your work?
How do you contextualize originals (with other originals, with usage, as part of a continuum over time, etc)?
How do you weigh quality against quantity of resources in their value to your work?
If you use databases or datasets, how would you describe the similarities and differences with other kinds of "original" source material?
What questions would you like to be able to ask of them?
How do you find what you are looking for in the materials?
How do you model your research techniques with your students? Are there different technological needs in teaching that need to be identified?
How do you define what you are looking for?
How do you make explicit your assumptions and bias?
How do you situate your work in the context of other earlier work or of work from other fields?
How do you evaluate any particular resource?
What is the balance in your use of primary and secondary (interpretive) sources?
Do you reconstruct materials? What is the value added in the work you do (e.g., in scholarly/documentary editions; restoring/preserving original resources, etc.)?
How do you work with your materials in your teaching and in your research? What is the relationship between these uses?
How do you build an argument; what is the relation between evidence, analysis and theory?
What constitutes your understanding of "rigor" and results that can be tested and evaluated by others in your field?
How are your results tested and gauged?
If you collaborate, do you work on the same material?
What do you most value about collaboration?
How do audiences find you?
How do the forms of dissemination affect the way you present your work?
What is the relationship between your research process and the ways materials/research results are used in teaching? Is there a significant difference in their use in undergraduate and graduate teaching?
What is the relationship between your research process and dissemination to broader publics?
How are debates shaped and expressed around research and its primary sources?
What would you really like to be able to do but currently cannot?
American Antiquarian Society American Historical Association American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Economic History Association History of Science Society Organization of American Historians Society for the History of Technology
African Studies Association American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies American Studies Association Association for Jewish Studies Latin American Studies Association Middle East Studies Association Renaissance Society of America
American Comparative Literature Association Modern Language Association National Council for Teachers of English
American Musicological Society American Society for Theater Research American Theatre in Higher Education Society for American Music: Society of Dance History Scholars
College Art Association Society for Cinema Studies Society for Architectural Historians Visual Resources Association