Scholarly Credibility and our Refereeing Process
Digital Scholarship
As the ways in which we disseminate scholarly research change, a number of scholarly bodies have addressed the issues of peer review of digital projects or articles published in the digital medium. The following links will be of interest both to site users and to potential contributors:
- Peer Review and Evaluation of Digital Resources for the Arts and Humanities: A joint project by the Institute for Historical Research (IHR) and King's College, London (KCL).
- Guidelines for Evaluating Work with Digital Media in the Modern Languages: A report by the Modern Language Association (MLA).
- Minimal Guidelines for Authors of Web Pages: Guidelines from the Modern Language Association (MLA).
- Statement on Publication in Electronic Journals: Statement from the Modern Language Association (MLA).
- Recognition of Digital, Scholarly Achievements and Teaching Applications: Appendix to the Faculty Evaluation Policy, Faculty of Humanities, University of Victoria.
- "Determining Value for Digital Humanities Tools: Report on a Survey of Tool Developers": Article by Susan Schreibman and Ann M. Hanlon in DHQ 4.2 (2010).
- Done: A Special Cluster in DHQ 3.2 (2009).
MoEML's Refereeing Process
The Map of Early Modern London project is in the process of establishing an Advisory Board and an Editorial Board that will, with the aid of expert readers, evaluate submissions from contributors to ensure that the information on this website meets current scholarly standards. The refereeing process will mean that users may cite our work with confidence in its accuracy.
We also deploy a cross-refereeing process whereby contributors of encylopedia-style articles confirm the accuracy of the map locations mentioned in their articles and corroborate the information in the articles to which their articles link. By this means, we hope to achieve multiple scholarly confirmations of each statement about the streets and sites of early modern London.
The addition of new literary and historical sources to the Library and the Dramatic References database and our ongoing work on Stow's A Survey of London increases the number of variant names and spellings for streets and sites in the database. Occasionally, this work results in minor adjustments to the location of map markers or to a repointing of a link to a different location. In this process, multiple literary and historical data points tend to converge in ways that confirm our georeferencing of London's culture.
If you would like to propose a contribution or enquire further about the process, please contact the General Editor. We invite potential contributors to review the Guidelines for Contributors.
Non-Refereed Articles
The Map of Early Modern London currently contains many pages from the development stages of the website that have not yet gone through the refereeing process. They have been edited for style, consistency, and documentation by the General Editor.
Note that the diplomatic transcriptions of early modern texts contain a note indicating who transcribed the text and who checked it. A textual note indicates the source of the documentary witness transcribed.
Student Projects
The student projects have been written by undergraduate and graduate students taught by Dr. Janelle Jenstad at the Universities of Windsor and Victoria. Students must demonstrate a high level of competence in research and writing before they are given permission to write a web project as part of their course requirements. All projects are co-edited by Dr. Jenstad and the student before being posted to the website. Students are not required to perform as much research as a more advanced scholar would.
We invite instructors teaching courses on Early Modern London to devise assignments suitable for publication on MoEML. Please contact Janelle Jenstad for more information.
-- Updated 4 May 2011.
This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.