How to Organize Digital Tools to Help Scholars in Digital Humanities Research?

In recent years, Digital Humanities (DH) tools play a more and more important role in humanities research and education. But there is lack of well-developed classification system to organize these tools, which makes it difficult for humanities scholars to find suitable digital support at various stages of research work. An effective classification system for DH tools should be designed according to the process of humanities research, thus help humanities scholars to locate suitable tools accordingly. In this study, we interviewed 20 humanities scholars and analyzed 60 widely-used DH tools. We derived 9 research tasks (processing, exploration, collection, collation, analysis, interpretation, presentation, reading and communication) and 4 research stages of humanities research process from interviews, and 4 categories of research techniques (text analysis, network analysis, geospatial analysis, and temporal analysis) from analyzing DH tools. Thus, a two-dimensional classification system was developed based on the humanities research process and applied research techniques. Then the collected DH tools were organized into this classification system, and a navigation website was developed to enable humanities scholars to find digital humanities resources effectively and efficiently.