This post is collectively written by the GCDI fellows: Tuka Al-Sahlani, Silvia Rivera Alfaro, Parisa Setayesh, Maggie Schreiner, Anna Corbett , Zachary Lloyd, Cen Liu, Maura McCreight, Cortnie Belser, Peyton Cordero, and Chen Zhou.

When we, the digital fellows, set out to create an event to build community, skill share, and learn from other digital humanists, we didn’t know what it would be or what it would look like, we just knew we wanted to have conversations with other GC DH members. After many internal conversations and planning sessions, we decided that we didn’t need to create an elaborate event, we just needed others at a table to talk and share. We knew from our virtual drop-in hours, consultations, and workshops that there were other GC DH folks, beside us, who wanted and sought out a space to brainstorm, work through challenges, and simply share among a larger audience. We had our own questions and challenges and it was time we, the DH community at large, had a space and time to do just that–converse! 

On May 13th, GCDI fellows held the “Conversations in Digital Scholarship”in the C level with five topical roundtables: “AI for Qualitative Research,” “Digital Archives,” “ Education Game Design,” “Open Pedagogy on Manifold,” and “Working with Open Government Data.” After the official conversations, we all gathered in the Masters for DH lounge to share what we learned and discussed in our respective roundtables. Below you can read some of our reflections from each roundtable. 

AI for Qualitative Research

Artificial intelligence is a relatively new technology, thus, our conversation started with personal experiences that allowed us to situate ourselves as scholars who work in research and teaching. First, we centered on AI as a tool relating the reflections with similar moments when new technological tools or spaces were framed as dangerous, such as Photography or Wikipedia. An interesting point that emerged was how metacognition plays an important role in keeping our agency while using AI as a tool: thinking about how we think (and our processes and activities) makes it possible to use AI to simplify our work while maintaining the possibilities of moving forward with our work. (We compared this to the idea of using AI to be able to solve tasks, but in ways that we might not learn new skills, which goes into a possible discussion on labor issues). For research, we brought concerns on ethics and data practices, such as how to control protocols of data collection (e.g., confidentiality), where the information is stored, and our possibilities to choose not to feed the model with our research data. Another issue is questions on what data a model was trained with (can we have the information? How could that affect our research?) and the ethics behind the gathering of that data (was it publicly available information?). We moved to a question on examples of models where AI has been used in qualitative research, and we saw that several tools can do different parts of a process (e.g., using AI to get information, transcribe, do analysis, etc) and discussed how the different uses have diverse ethical implications. 

Digital Archives

In the “Digital Archives” roundtable we learned that some archivists use vibe coding to help them learn and work with museum APIs. In turn, we grappled with the archivist’s need to collect and record everything and then what to do with all that data! We also discussed the challenge of  defining identifiers and best practices when dealing with people as our archive “object.” We asked: do we ask for permission or do we use the opt-out method?  Another challenge we addressed is the labor in digitizing physical archives scattered across institutions and locations. We were privileged to be joined by Filipa Calado (former Digital Fellow) who gave us a quick workshop on how to scrape images from websites. All in all, we achieved our goal of skill sharing and building a community to return to and discuss with and collaborate with in the future. 

Educational Game Design

The Game Design roundtable was attended by gamers and non-gamers alike, each with compelling questions and ideas about incorporating game-based learning into their classrooms and their research. We discussed what makes a game compelling for students for the right reasons–how do we ensure that learning goals are baked into the game objectives and not just tacked on top? This led to a conversation on choosing the right game mechanic for the learning goal. Narrative-based, card driven, cooperative, and competitive games all have their place in pedagogy, and it’s important to build a game with a mechanic that coordinates well with what’s being taught. We shared examples of games we found inspiring or compellingly frustrating, and brainstormed solutions to in-progress work.  

 Open Pedagogy on Manifold

During the roundtable, participants explored how digital publishing can advance open pedagogy, collaborative scholarship, and creative teaching practices. Attendees shared their own experiments and interests in the platform, ranging from open textbooks and multimodal annotation to projects that emphasize oral communication and offer alternatives to proprietary systems like Blackboard.

The discussion covered project examples that demonstrate Manifold’s versatility as both a teaching tool and a platform for public scholarship. Participants shared inspiring projects on Manifold, such as projects that reimagine the textbook as a dynamic, participatory medium. Notable examples included We Eat, which frames food writing as community knowledge-making, and Poetry/Speech Database, which integrates text, sound, and metadata to support multimodal expression. Additional resources like Open Anthology of Earlier American Literature, Writing About Art and Digital Pedagogy in the Humanities offered further examples of inclusive, participatory learning approaches.

Our conversation also underscored a crucial tension: while faculty recognize the potentials of digital publishing, they encounter practical barriers such as institutional skepticism, limited training, and time constraints. The mention of departmental pushback and assessment concerns reflects deeper structural issues within academia that often prioritize traditional publishing models over digital scholarship. Participants concluded that with adequate institutional support, platforms like Manifold can foster more equitable, collaborative, and student-centered scholarship.

Working with Open Government Data 

With experts across a variety of subject areas, we explored the implications of the current administration on the access and quality of open government data. While it is not uncommon for certain government pages and initiatives to be removed when new administrations take office, both “the scale and speed of the Trump administration’s data manipulation–combined with buyouts, resignations, and other restructuring across government agencies–signal[s] a new phase in the war on public information.” The group discussed how the disappearance of previously-public data has impacted their own research, shared various data recovery efforts that have been taken up by universities and other NGOs, and brainstormed ways that we could keep these conversations going into the future, including suggesting some new potential GCDI offerings! We benefited greatly from the participation of Steve Romalewski, Director of the CUNY Mapping Service, who has a wealth of experience working with open government data and was able to share some helpful considerations and best practices with the rest of the group. This conversation was generative, insightful, and–in the opinion of all of our participants–incredibly necessary!