On the weekend of the 28th and 29th of August I was fortunate to be able to attend the first THATCamp in Australia, THATCamp Canberra. It was the first unconference that I’ve ever attended.

I wasn’t sure what to expect but was determined to attend with an open mind and a willingness to participate. I was struck by the similar feelings of the other participants. From the first group meeting where scheduling for the two days occurred through to the individual sessions and the bootcamp sessions as well. There was always a willingness to share, collaborate and discuss, even if discussions got a little passionate during some sessions.

I didn’t realise it at the time but my suggestion of a session on Exploring the Semantic Technologies in the Humanities was to prove a popular session and one that I would need to facilitate. This caught me by surprise and I hope the participants of the session were pleased with the direction that it took.

One of the main themes from the session was a sense that those of us using these types of technologies are all working through similar issues with regards to data formats, selection of ontologies, building our own ontologies and exploring the potentials of the technologies.

During the discussions an interesting link to a paper from 2000 highlighted that many of the issues that we are working through are similar to those of 10 years ago. Showing that while technologies improve and change the underlying questions, assumptions, and goals remain the same. Another useful outcome from this session was the start of a document that listed all of the semantic web projects that we are working on.

During the two days it became clear to me that Twitter was an invaluable tool for backchannel communication. We all used the same hashtag #thatcamp which means that it is possible to group all of our messages together using a service such as Twapper Keeper. My own tweets are an eclectic mix of notes on discussions, thoughts for future consideration, and topics to explore.

The other sessions I attended included:

A session on linked data where one participant discussed a current project to make there data available in a variety of different formats to promote collaboration and sharing in the form of mashups. What was surprising about this project is that they used screen scraping techniques to convert their HTML based website into data available for sharing because it was easier than trying to interface directly with the backend systems.

Some interesting thoughts from this session are:

• OpenSearch could provide a useful means of sharing data and search results with others that may be useful in the AusStage website redevelopment
• It is easy to focus on the data and lose sight of the documentation and other materials that users may require
• Persistent URLs are key to any linked data project as it provides a reliable way for users to build on your dataset by including reliable links to it from their own systems

A session on crowd sourcing data and participation highlighted a number of very interesting projects including

• Invisible Australians – Living under the White Australia Policy
• London Lives – 1690 to 1800 – Crime, Poverty and Social Policy in the Metropolis
• Founders & Survivors – Australian Life Courses in historical context 1803 to 1920

During this session there was a discussion about project scope and managing the desire to have a large project with the reality of resource constraints such as time and money. In this middle of this discussion one of the participants had one of the best quotes of the day namely:

one way to move forward is to narrow, another is to make the idea bigger which opens up bigger possibilities

I finished the day with a session exploring the topic of what a digital humanist needs to know in relation to technology. This session proved to have some of the most lively and passionate discussion of the day and highlighted a number of issues facing digital humanists. Including the issue of managing the needs to use and understand technologies whilst at the same time maintaining focus on the research and those elements that make a researcher a humanist.

The discussion predominantly focused on the issue from a researchers point of view. That is, they have the research skills but not necessarily the technology skills. My own individual focus is the reverse. I have the technology skills but not the research skills. I’m still not sure how to bridge the gap.

The first session I attended on Sunday was on mapping and this session highlighted many of the issues that we’re working through as part of the development for the Mapping Service as part of the Aus-e-Stage project. One thing to keep in mind is that even small datasets, when approached from the perspective of a map, can provide insight and answers to research questions. Not every mapping activity requires large and complex systems.

It was also useful to see that others who have worked on these types of systems have grappled with similar issues to those that we’re working through with our own development.

The final session was nominally on digital space and was a wide ranging discussion. The main themes that I noted in my Twitter Stream included:

• Consideration for the social justice issues in providing services that require the latest smartphones / tablet devices
• The impact that these services have on the way we view the environment around us
• Now that smartphones have GPS capabilities, is it necessary to create an explicit link between the physical and digital worlds using technologies such as QR Codes. Or is location simply enough?
• how do we visualise the virtual space that we create as we move through our lives in both the physical and virtual world?

It was an exhausting and rewarding weekend and one that gave me plenty to think about.

My thanks and congratulations to the organisers of the THATCamp and my thanks also to my fellow participants without whom the experience wouldn’t have been so positive.

The “Parliament House, Canberra, Australia” photo was uploaded to Flickr by Matt Stewart and used under the terms of a Creative Commons License.