Watch now! Roundtable discussion of Living with Machines new book on collaboration

In February our book Collaborative Historical Research in the Age of Big Data: Lessons from an interdisciplinary project was published by Cambridge University Press. The book shares lessons from the experience of running a large collaborative digital project like Living with Machines. We might think collaboration should be easy, that it simply divides a task – distributing work along lines of expertise. But setting up effective collaboration itself takes a lot of work. Our project is a good case study not only because it has a large team from diverse disciplines and professional backgrounds, but also because we had a cold start with most of us never having worked together before. The book is designed for those thinking of taking on a digital humanities project whether large or small, and it tackles three key issues: data, infrastructure, and collaboration.  

To celebrate its release we held an online roundtable discussion with two of the authors, Professors Emma Griffin and Ruth Ahnert. The event was hosted by two of the members of the Living with Machines Advisory Board, Professors Jane Winters and James Smithies, who had initially encouraged the team to write the book.

The event was part of the project’s Distributed Conference and AI UK Fringe. 

If you like who you see, the book is available to read open access.