Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences

The social sciences and the humanities taken together contain a heterogeneous range of research disciplines. Almost all existing methods of research can be found within these two domains. Data handling (collecting, processing, selecting, preserving) and publication methods differ greatly. Attitudes in the field towards Open Access of publications as well to research data vary as well. It is not possible to cover the total fullness, and complexity, of all the disciplines within these two domains. Our observations will therefore be based upon a number of case studies. Taken together these case studies give a fairly representative picture of the domains, at least of the most common research environments. The main dividing line is between those disciplines creating empirical data, such as survey data in the social sciences and those, especially in the humanities, using existing source material, such as history or text studies. This source material can either be of an analogous or a digital nature. As will be shown in the case studies in many disciplines a mix of created and existing is often combined.