Introduction

Heurist - a Collaborative KnowledgeSpace For Humanities Scholars

Developed by the Digital Innovation Unit, University of Sydney

Heurist captures and manages web bookmarks, bibliographic references, personal notes and a host of other specialised data types (expandable) in a simple, searchable web interface, available anywhere.

Researchers can easily and quickly find, capture and share relevant information, organise information resources and publish teaching/research project web site content automatically using Heurist.

Heurist has been developed as a flexible eResearch database infrastructure handling a wide variety of digital records describing research objects (from formal bibliographic records to web bookmarks; from historical events to document annotations; from images to contemporary stories). Heurist development is user-driven, resulting in a range of functions far exceeding any other Humanities eResearch infrastructure tools. A concise list of functions is available here.

Heurist aims to overcome the problems of research data stored in many separate incompatible silos by allowing the storage and interlinking of all research data, notes, annotations and digital attachments in a single web-accessible, shared repository, while providing individual ‘views’ on this data and workgroup-owned and private areas for research in progress.

Heurist’s search and on-the-fly reformatting capabilities allow data to be entered once and repurposed as required for use in analysis, in reports, in publications, in rich content web sites and in the classroom. It has strong group collaboration functions, annotation and free text capabilities, and can store geographic and temporal data and generate maps and timelines.

Heurist was conceived as a digital knowledgebase for managing heterogeneous and relatively unstructured data, such as one finds in the Arts and Humanities. It does not aim to address large collections of well structured, quantitative data typical of the Sciences.

e-Research Database

Heurist's flexible infrastructure that handles a wide variety of digital records describing research objects (from formal bibliographic records to web bookmarks; from historical events to document annotations; from images to contemporary stories). Heurist development is user-driven, resulting in a range of functions.

Shared Repository

Heurist overcomes the problems of research data stored in separate incompatible silos by allowing the storage and interlinking of all research data, notes, annotations and digital attachments in a single web-accessible, shared repository, while providing individual views on this data and workgroup-owned and private areas for research in progress.

Data Repurposing: Create Once, Use Many Times

Heurist’s search and on-the-fly reformatting capabilities allow data to be entered once and repurposed as required for use in analysis, in reports, in publications, in rich content web sites and in the classroom. Heurist has strong group collaboration functions, annotation and free text capabilities, and can store geographic and temporal data and generate maps and timelines.

For example, a collection of bibliographic records created for a literature review can be compiled into a bibliography. This bibliography can be published and imported into a learning management application for students to use in course work. In the same way, a collection of geo-spatial records created to document field work or research, can be shared and annotated by a Workgroup. These records can be mapped using Google Maps and made available as an online research resource.

Applicability

Heurist was conceived as a digital knowledgebase for managing heterogeneous and relatively unstructured data, in small to medium collections of (often textual) data such as those typically found in the Arts and Humanities, and in personal research spaces. It is not aimed at large, structured, homogeneous, numerical datasets typical of the Sciences.