Q1: I am keen to apply but need to find an international research partner. Any suggestions on where to look?
A: We are aware of two listservs that people seem to be using to discuss potential Digging into Data partnerships. These listservs are not an official part of Digging into Data, but you may wish to subscribe to them to participate in these discussions. They are:
The DH-Collaboration listserv at the University of Victoria in Canada. https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/dh-collaboration
The Centernet listserv run by the University of Illinois in the U.S. http://digitalhumanities.org/centernet/?page_id=3
In addition, researchers who wish to form partnerships with relevant teams in the UK may wish to contact Stuart Dunn (e-mail: stuart.dunn@kcl.ac.uk, web: http://www.ahessc.ac.uk/) at the Arts and Humanities e-Science Support Centre or Sophia Ananiadou (e-mail: sophia.ananiadou@manchester.ac.uk, web: http://www.nactem.ac.uk/) at the National Centre for Text Mining
Q2: I know that the Letters of Intent (LOIs) are due 15 March. But I don't yet have my team fully together. Can I still send in an LOI?
A: Yes. We realize that putting together an international research team takes time. We don't expect you to have ironed out all the details by 15 March. The Letter of Intent is an opportunity for you to give the funders a broad idea of what your project is about and who you see as the key participants. We will read your LOI and write back with comments and advice for your final proposal. But you don't need to have everything in place by 15 March.
Q3: The U.S. part of my research team involves people from several disciplines. We're not sure if we should be applying to the NEH or the NSF. Do I need to have that settled prior to submitting an LOI on 15 March?
A: No, it is fine if you're not sure at this point. One of the reasons for having an LOI stage is to give the funders an opportunity to provide you with advice and feedback. So if you want to send in an LOI but aren't sure if you'd be applying to NEH or NSF, just check off both agencies when you submit it. In your LOI text, describe what your project is all about. All of the funders will discuss your LOIs and will give you feedback to help you determine what would work best for your project.
Q4. Can you tell us more about the Letter of Intent? What kind of feedback can we expect?
A: As noted in an earlier question, we will give you advice on your project and how you might best write up your final proposal for success. One of the key issues we’ll be looking at is the appropriateness of your research outcomes to the missions of the respective funders. One tricky aspect of any international grant competition is ensuring that the outcomes of your project satisfy the missions of the funders.
While the four funders are working together on Digging into Data and have some common goals, we each have different mission perspectives. Broadly speaking, NEH funds projects to advance the humanities, SSHRC funds projects to advance the humanities and social sciences; JISC funds Information and Communications Technology (ICT) projects to advance teaching, learning, and research; and NSF funds projects to advance the sciences.
When we respond to your LOI, we will try to give you advice on how to ensure that the outcomes of your research meet the needs of the sponsoring agencies. Remember that the letter of intent is due 15 March. The final application is not due until 15 July.
Q5. My research team also includes members from Germany. Is it OK for my team to include researchers outside of the sponsor countries? Would you be able to advise whether or not the proposals may include other international research collaborators, and whether or not they would have to bring their own resources into the project in order to be able to participate?
A. It is perfectly fine if research teams include collaborators from countries other than the four who are sponsoring the competition (Canada, England, Wales, or the U.S). The awards, of course, may only go to researchers from the sponsoring nations. But the teams may certainly include members from other nations.
Let us illustrate with an example: Let's say a research team is led by a Canadian university and an English university. Let's also say researchers from a German library are participating. The team may apply to both SSHRC and JISC under Digging into Data and, if successful, they will win two grants. In the budgets they send to SSHRC and JISC, they will describe how the grant money is to be spent, to include how some of the money might go to their German partner. This is just fine. We should also note that the team is certainly welcome to seek additional grants from other sources, if appropriate. In the scenario above, the German library could also seek funds from the DFG (German Research Foundation) or any other source, if they like. But this is not a requirement.
Q6. Can my research team include members who are NGOs, community organizations, businesses, etc?
A. Yes. Of course, your team will need to include eligible researchers who will be the official applicants. (Check with each funder about specific eligibility requirements). But there is nothing preventing you from also including other institutions, businesses, NGOs, to serve in some capacity on your team. In your proposal, you will describe the membership of your team and what role they each play. It may well make perfect sense for you to team up with a technology firm, NGO, or some other kind of organization.
Q7. What kind of dataset would be considered “large-scale?”
A. This is an issue we thought about quite a bit and we couldn't find a simple metric to define it. The bottom line is that we want to explore how you analyze a dataset larger than a single researcher could ever hope to "read" himself. In other words, it is certainly possible to use technology to perform a textual analysis of, say, Shakespeare's Hamlet. But one book doesn't get at the notion of scale. Now that we have very large repositories of digital data, we want to explore how you can take advantage of more material than you could personally consume. So if you are analyzing books, you'd certainly want to be looking a several thousand. If you are analyzing music, you'd want thousands of hours of it, etc. So there is no hard and fast rule here. You will make the case for your dataset in your proposal.
Q8. Does the dataset have to include media, film or cultural artifacts? Could it be large survey data?
A. Yes, the dataset could indeed contain survey data, scientific data, etc. The bottom line is what you do with that data and does your research meet the overall missions of the sponsors. [See Question 4, above, for more].
Q9. Would the compilation of data be considered an eligible expense as part of a research proposal to go along with the analysis?
A. If a significant portion of your budget was dedicated to digitizing and simply compiling data, that might be problematic. There are many other grant programs available for digitizing and compiling collections and that is not the focus of this competition. So peer reviewers may not look kindly on your proposed budget if a significant portion was about digitizing or compiling the data. On the other hand, data mining and text analysis often include a significant amount of data normalization and pre-processing. This would be considered a normal expense for Digging into Data.
Q10. I'm confused on the maximum funding I can apply for. What is the max funding cap? How much can come from each funder?
(Note: This FAQ was updated on 9 March).
A. The max funding can be a little tricky, especially with fluctuating exchange rates. Here's how it works for DiD:
You can ask for up to 100,000 units of money from any funder in their local currency. In other words:
NEH: Up to US $100K
NSF: Up to US $100K
JISC: Up to £100K
SSHRC: Up to CAN $100K
There is also a "project cap" of 300,000 units of money.
Below are some examples:
-- Project Example 1 (If you applied to two agencies & asked for the max):
NEH -- US$100K
JISC -- £100K
-- Project Example 2 (If you applied to three agencies & asked for the max):
NEH -- US$100K
SSHRC -- CAN$100K
JISC -- £100K
-- Project Example 3 (If you applied to four agencies, you can't ask for max from all of them):
NEH -- $50K
NSF -- $100K
SSHRC -- $100K
JISC -- £50K
Note: In this example, due to "project cap" of 300K units, you wouldn't be able to ask for the max from all four. You would need to reduce your funding request so that the total doesn't exceed 300K units.
Q11. When I submit my final application, do I submit one budget? Or one for each funder? What format do I use?
A. In the RFP, please note the following paragraph found in section IV Application and Submission Information:
5) Budget. Include the appropriate budget form for each of the individual funders to which you are applying, indicating the funds being requested from each of these funders. Please see the appropriate RFP Addenda to download the budget forms.
So, for example, if you are applying to two funders, you must include two budgets. Three funders, three budgets.
Budget Formats for each agency:
1) JISC: For JISC, you may supply your own budget form (e.g. a spreadsheet). For details on the content of the budget, please consult Appendix C of the JISC addendum.
2) NEH: NEH prefers you fill out and attach their standard NEH budget form, which includes full instructions.
3) NSF: For NSF, you may supply your own budget form (e.g. a spreadsheet). For details on the content of the budget, please see the budget section (g) of the NSF grant proposal guide.
4) SSHRC: For SSHRC, please note that on 26 May, SSHRC made a modification to their addendum. This modification now indicates that you do not need to include your budget with your application. Instead, SSHRC will contact you at a later date and request the full budget after the adjudication process is completed. For more information, please see the SSHRC addendum.
Q12. What is a Letter of Commitment? What is a Letter of Support? How do they differ?
1) A letter of commitment is a letter from an outside organization or person that is committing to do something for your project. For example, let's say that in your proposal you say "ProQuest has agreed to give us free access to their newspaper database for our research." You would want to attach a letter from ProQuest confirming that, indeed, they are providing this to you, and under what terms.
2) A letter of support, on the other hand, is usually from a noted scholar who is simply writing to say "this is a wonderful project and will have a great impact on the field" etc.
So feel free to attach either or both types of letters if appropriate.
Q13. In the RFP, you note that winners of the DiD competition will be expected to present their work at a special conference. Should we include travel funds in our budget to attend this conference?
Yes. We anticipate the conference will be held in spring/summer of 2011. While we don't have the exact location, we expect it to be in North America, quite possibly in Washington, DC or Ottawa.
We would recommend that you include about $2000 (1500 GBP) in each of your budgets for PI travel to this (and perhaps other) conferences where you will present the results of your project.
Q14. Do we have to use a particular resume or CV format?
No. We realize that because of the interdisciplinary nature of the DiD Challenge, many of your team members will have very different resume or CV formats. So feel free to use whatever format you choose. That said, please do try to keep the size of them down. No more than two pages, if possible. We ask this because the peer reviewers will have a lot to read and your brevity will be much appreciated.
Q15. Do references count towards the 8 page limit for the narrative?
You may place a references or bibliography section in the appendix. (In your narrative, just note something like "Please see the References section in the appendix."). That way, you can dedicate the full 8 pages to just narrative.
Q16. Help! I'm submitting an application but getting an error message after typing in our cover sheet information.
Check to make sure that when you enter in the amount of money you are requesting that you don't enter any spaces. Just use numbers. For example, for ninety thousand, type 90000 not 90 000. [Note: this bug has been fixed! So even if you enter spaces in the money field, it will still accept it].