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3. Funding opps AKA "seed-y grants": a rethink of ACH's past microgrants program. Focusing less on project-shaped deliverables; more on fostering learning + sharing that knowledge with the DH community as the desired + achievable outcome.

Making public what you didn't complete and why, what challenges you ran into, and what you learned. The realities of DH work—especially for the many folks whose day jobs don't include time/funds/support for this work. +

In 2012, one of the past ACH Microgrants funded me learning basic use of Gephi to explore Digital Humanities Quarterly’s citation networks. @travisbrown created the research dataset & mentored; Jennifer Guiliano mentored on project & grant proposal design. +

I produced a website and 2 blog posts introducing some info viz I learned.

I *really* didn't understand viz best practices and the underlying math+code at that point (11 years ago?!), so caveat emptor if you want to read the products (LiteratureGeek.com, ctrl+F "View DHQ"; and https://amandavisconti.github.io/digitalliterature-net/viewDHQ/).

But the opportunity got me started learning enough to try a new tool & notice some patterns in the data worth further exploration. And to make that learning public—where I've heard it supported others also getting started in infoviz and citation network analysis. +

(Looking back, noticed that my 2012 ACH microgrant cohort was @quinnanya, Matt Burton,@davelester!: https://ach.org/blog/2012/04/19/ach-announces-microgrants-winners/)

I dig that the ACH "Seed-y grants" are approaching funded opportunities in similar ways to what I've heard NEH ODH folks like @JenServenti discuss—the experience of doing the work, and how you reflect on + share that experience w/others, being important and effective deliverables themselves. +

I also dig that the ACH "Seed-y grants" approach funded opportunities similar ways to what I've seen @scholarslab colleagues emphasize to good results:

less complete devotion to a big completed project as the outcome—

more focus on fostering learning,
making that learning public so others can learn from and build on it, and
generally trying to prioritize outcomes that are good for people (work/projects we may create are also good, but priority order still people over projects) +

.@walshbr's recent "The Shape of DH Work" https://scholarslab.lib.virginia.edu/blog/the-shape-of-dh-work/ is a fantastic narrative of how and why he+other @scholarslab folks are shaping our work this way—and in particular, moving our graduate Praxis Fellows program to more smaller outcome milestones throughout the program (including, as @quinnanya notes, something that is part of the program's fame). https://mstdn.social/@quinnanya/110655747251654254 +

Those outcomes include focused weeks spent on teaching statements & workshop teaching practice, project design & management, DH events & community building & admin/infra. https://walshbr.com/blog/the-shape-of-dh-work/

A shift from a big ramp up to a public launch of a collaborative project; to a smaller collab project experience with more time for meta-attention to how do we design, manage, work together to learn and publish research together.

(Whoops, that was definitely a blog post and not a post thread…)