Endings Principles applied to Research Projects

Endings Principles for Research Projects

Following the findings on project endingsCf. Holmes, Martin and Takeda, Joey (2023), this contribution aims to sum up the most relevant topics applied to research projects in general (not only web based projects) in a condensed form. Some parts are fully quoted from the original paper, some are extended and some are added.

Most research projects can be divided into five primary components:

• Data
• Documentation
• Processing
• Products
• Release Management

Data

Data expresses and refers to all source information, knowledge and expertise of researchers. These principles apply to data:

Data storage — Data ist stored in a way that conform to open standards and that are amenable to processing. For digital data, only use uncompressed and lossless formats (e.g. .wav for audio files, .txt for written text or acid free paper for print). It should be possible to make data accessible (also partially) for third parties.

Version Control — Whenever it is possible, data is subject to version control (e.g. Git for code or digital text).

Validation and Diagnosis — Data is continually subject to validation and diagnostic analysis. It should be possible to check, if data is complete, coherent or corrupted.

Documentation

Documentation expresses and refers to all kind of helpful and necessary additional information along data as described before.

Documentation along Data — Data content that needs further explanation or documentation is clearly documented in a static and accessible document or in another static and accessible form that suits specific needs. Documentation is maintained together with the data and forms part of the final products.

Rights, Intellectual Properties, Citation — All rights and intellectual property issues are clearly documented in an adequate form. References and quotes are cited in an appropriate way and following the best practice standards in the field of research. Wherever possible, open licenses should be chose (e.g. creative commons, GNU, MIT).

Processing data, text or assets

Processing data, text (like code) or assets of other form expresses and refers to all kind of material the goes along and completes data and documentation as described before. The principles described for data and documentation beforehand, apply to processing data.

Products

Products are all project outputs intended for end-users (e.g. a printed book, a website, etc.). Products should be accessible, free and open source. Producing products reflects on their ecological footprint, particularly regarding resource use.

No third party dependence — No dependencies on third parties and third party products or items. For digital web based products, this means for example: Only static websites, no databases, no server side dependencies, no PHP, no Python. If a proprietary system is inevitable, no external or third-party assets should be used or applied.

No boutique or fashionable technologies — Use established and proven standards with assured long-term viability. Focus for example on long lasting open source community driven projects. Choices for web based digital products should be: HTML5, plain JavaScript and CSS only. Especially for web based projects: No query strings, only plain sites with human readable URLs to complete static sites.

Inclusion of data in parts of the product — Every part of a product, should be completed with all necessary data to view the part independently from the whole product. In addition, this also aim for massive redundancy.

In case dependencies are necessary — If dependencies are necessary, focus on open source, established and widely used externals, that themselves must not have further dependencies.

Release Management

Release management refers to handling the public release of products.

Careful planning — Releases should be carefully planned. Versioned releases should be prioritized, while the use of rolling releases should be avoided.

Coherent, consistent and complete — Every release, also parts and versions, must be coherent, consistent and complete.

Release versioning — Like editions of printed works, each release of a digital or web resource should be clearly identified on every page by its build date and some kind of version number and a reference to the authors or content generators.

Citation suggestion included — Releases include detailed instructions for citation and referencing, so that end-users can unambiguously cite the whole product or a specific page or part from a specific edition.

Bibliography

• Holmes, Martin and Takeda, Joey (2023): »From Tamagotchis to Pet Rocks: On Learning to Love Simplicity through the Endings Principles«, in: DHG: Digital Humanities Quarterly, Volume 17, Number 1.

Cite as:
Hartmann, Tobias (2023): Endings Principles applied to Research Projects. URL: https://text.hartmanntobias.de/endingsPrinciplesAppliedToResearchProjects.