Why do we need an ontology of digital methods in the humanities?

Introduction by OpenMethods Editor (Delphine Montoliu): This post presents a reflexion on ontology in DH practices and methodologies.

In 2015, under the auspices of the ESF Research Network for Digital Methods in the Arts and Humanities (NeDiMAH.eu), the Digital Curation Unit at the Athena Research Institute, Greece, built an ontology of digital methods for humanities research, the NeDiMAH Methods Ontology (NeMO).

The ontology development incorporated existing research that had attempted to understand digital humanities projects, methods, or tools by expressing them through a series of taxonomies: analysis of these indicated an ontology, intellectually and technically, was a missing piece of the digital humanities research infrastructure.

This conclusion was reached through an assessment of the complexity of the multidisciplinary landscape of digital research in the humanities, involving a combination of digital content, tools, and methods and research practices from a range of disciplines and traditions.

Source: Why do we need an ontology of digital methods in the humanities? – Europeana Research