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Executive summary

The emergence of the Internet has transformed the practice of the humanities and social sciences—more slowly thansome may have hoped, but more profoundly than others may have expected. Digital cultural heritage resources are a fundamentaldataset for the humanities: these resources, combined with computer networks and software tools, now shape the way that scholarsdiscover and make sense of the human record, while also shaping the way their findings are communicated to students, colleagues, andthe general public. Even greater transformations are on the horizon, as digitized cultural heritage comes into its own. But wewill not see anything approaching complete digitization of the record of human culture, removal of legal and technical barriers toaccess, or revolutionary change in the academic reward system unless the individuals, institutions, enterprises, organizations,and agencies who are this generation’s stewards of that record make it their business to ensure that these things happen.

The organized use of networks and computation for the practice of science and engineering was the subject of a2003 report to the National Science Foundation (NSF), Revolutionizing Science and Engineering throughCyberinfrastructure.

National Science Foundation, Revolutionizing Science and Engineering through Cyberinfrastructure: Report of theNational Science Foundation Blue-Ribbon Advisory Panel on Cyberinfrastructure (January 2003) (External Link) .
In both the NSF report and this one, the term cyberinfrastructure ismeant to denote the layer of information, expertise, standards, policies, tools, and services that are shared broadly acrosscommunities of inquiry but developed for specific scholarly purposes:cyberinfrastructure is something more specific than thenetwork itself, but it is something more general than a tool or a resource developed for a particular project, a range of projects,or, even more broadly, for a particular discipline. So, for example, digital history collections and the collaborativeenvironments in which to explore and analyze them from multiple disciplinary perspectives might be considered cyberinfrastructure,whereas fiber-optic cables and storage area networks or basic communication protocols would fall below the line forcyberinfrastructure.

Recognizing that a revolution similar to the transformation of science and engineering addressed in the NSFreport is inevitable for the humanities and the social sciences and that these disciplines have essential and distinct contributions tomake in designing, building, and operating cyberinfrastructure, the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) in 2004 appointed aCommission on Cyberinfrastructure for the Humanities and Social Sciences. This report reflects the reach of its sponsoringorganization, the ACLS, by focusing on the needs of the humanities and nonnormative social sciences, that is, social sciences that areinterpretive.

The ACLS Commission was charged with three tasks:

  • To describe and analyze the current state of humanities and social science cyberinfrastructure
  • To articulate the requirements and potential contributions of the humanities and social sciences in developing acyberinfrastructure for information, teaching, and research
  • To recommend areas of emphasis and coordination for the various agencies and institutions, public and private, thatcontribute to the development of this infrastructure
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Source:  OpenStax, "our cultural commonwealth" the report of the american council of learned societies commission on cyberinfrastructure for the humanities and social sciences. OpenStax CNX. Dec 15, 2006 Download for free at http://cnx.org/content/col10391/1.2
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