Research portals in the arts and humanities

Discipline matters

“…For others, reliant upon bounded historical collections of letters or parish records, for example, the parallel may be less obvious (Harley et al, 2010). Yet Brown and Greengrass (2010) argue that even in these cases technological advances help to drive research agendas. In some cases, it is suggested that the users themselves may not be aware of the extent to which their priorities and questions are influenced by the technologies available to them (Bates, 2006).…”

“…The high importance of certain resources to small numbers of researchers was one reason that the AHRC study (Bates, 2006) on peer review rejected usage statistics as a way of measuring quality – the researchers were concerned that the crucial role played by these resources might be missed, with dire consequences for their long-term sustainability. Researchers investigating the possibility of a single portal for digital resources found that researchers needed such a portal to be highly customizable, and concluded that a single repository or portal was unlikely to meet the needs of all researchers (Brown and Greengrass, 2010). This concurs with the conclusion reached by Warwick et al (2008) that, for both content and interface, it is ‘naïve’ to suggest that a single solution exists.…”