2015-2016 Sherman Graduate Fellowship

The Lewis & Ruth Sherman Centre for Digital Scholarship is soliciting applications for a 2015-2016 graduate fellowship in digital scholarship. As digital scholarship (DS) becomes more prominent in academic research, the Sherman Centre’s role is to support members of the McMaster community as they experiment and integrate DS tools and practices into both projects and teaching. The term “digital scholarship” encompasses a diverse set of practices throughout the humanities, social, and hard sciences — to learn more about our version of digital scholarship, see our statement on our site.

The ideal candidate for the fellowship will be a graduate student who seeks to help drive the evolution of their discipline by applying the tools and methodologies of digital scholarship to their research. Also critical is a willingness to learn about  the collaborative and multidisciplinary nature of digital scholarship and to engage others both within and without the discipline in their projects. In order to create a focused learning experience over the course of the fellowship, we ask applicants to propose a specific idea for a digital scholarship project that they will work on over the course of the year. This project could be part of a sandwich thesis or otherwise complementary to the student’s dissertation research.

To see current fellowship projects as well as other work happening around the Sherman Centre, please visit our project page. The 2014 fellows were Mark Belan, Chris Handy, and Jeremy Parsons.

The Sherman Centre for Digital Scholarship received designation as a McMaster University Research Centre in 2012. It is located on the first floor of Mills Library and includes a presentation space, three public high-powered workstations that provide access to a wide range of digital scholarship tools, and office space for researchers. Beyond space, the Sherman Centre offers a range of staff to support research projects, as well as a robust yet flexible technical infrastructure that fellows and other researchers may utilize.

The fellowship runs from September 1, 2015 until August 31, 2016 and offers these benefits:

• office space in the Lewis & Ruth Sherman Centre for Digital Scholarship
• technical and project consulting, both via its own staff, as well as from other Library units, e.g.- Lyons New Media Centre or Maps, Data, GIS
• technical infrastructure
• a $1,500 stipend

Expectations and deliverables:

• a presentation for the monthly Sherman Center Colloquium (20-30 minutes)
• posts on the Sherman Centre blog (minimum two per term) on project updates and/or related digital scholarship issues. These posts will be revised into a written report at the conclusion of the fellowship that details project outcomes, making specific reference to the role(s) played by the Sherman Centre
• creation of a visualization of an aspect of their work to display on the Sherman Centre multimedia entryway
• physical presence in the centre and participation in its activities

Eligibility:

• current or accepted graduate student at McMaster University (open to all faculties)
• not previously a Sherman fellow

Applicants should submit a letter of intent outlining their project and how it would benefit from the fellowship, along with a CV and a list of three references to Dale Askey, Administrative Director of the Sherman Centre (askeyd@mcmaster.ca).

We will be holding two information sessions for interested graduate students:

• Thursday, April 30, 1:30-2:00 (following the Sherman Colloquium from 12:30-1:30)
• Wednesday, May 13, 3:00-3:30

Deadline: Friday, May 22nd