ACLS Digital Innovation Fellowship program

[Jesse Sheidlower]

[Forwarded -- JTS]

Dear Sir/Madam,

I write to you to let you know about a new fellowship program of the
American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), dedicated to supporting
digital scholarship in the humanities, which I believe is of great
interest to ADS-L subscribers.

I attach below further information about the new Digital Innovation
Fellowship program, and am happy to answer any questions you may have.

Best wishes,

Saul Fisher

*************************************
Saul Fisher
Director of Fellowship Programs
American Council of Learned Societies
633 Third Avenue
New York, NY 10017-6795
+1 212 697 1505 x124
sfisher at acls.org

***

ACLS OPENS COMPETITION FOR DIGITAL INNOVATION FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM

The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) is pleased to announce
its new Digital Innovation Fellowship program, in support of digitally
based research projects in the humanities and humanistic social
sciences.  These fellowships, created with the generous help of The
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, are intended to support an academic year
dedicated to work on a major scholarly project of a digital character
that advances humanistic studies and best exemplifies the integration of
such research with use of computing, networking, and other information
technology-based tools.  The online application for the fellowship
program is located at http://ofa.acls.org; applications must be
completed by November 10, 2005 (decisions to be announced in late March
2006).

This is the first national fellowship program to recognize and reward
humanistic scholarship in the digital sphere, and to help establish
standards for judging the quality, innovation, and utility of such
research.  Many scholars have been working in the humanities for years
with such tools as digital research archives, new media representations
of extant data, and innovative databases-and now the ACLS sees an
important opportunity to start identifying and providing incentive for
distinctive work, on a national basis.  "Information technology can be
the means for scholars to answer new and old questions that have so far
resisted our curiosity and our effort.  This program will support a
rising generation of scholars in making exactly that kind of progress,"
says James O'Donnell, provost of Georgetown University, Chair of the
ACLS Executive Committee of Delegates, and author of Avatars of the
Word:  From Papyrus to Cyberspace (1998).

Up to five Digital Innovation Fellowships will be awarded in this
competition year, for tenure beginning in 2006-2007.  As this program
aims to provide the means for pursuing digitally-based scholarly
projects, the fellowship includes a stipend of up to $55,000 to allow an
academic year's leave from teaching, as well as project funds of up to
$25,000 for purposes such as access to tools and personnel for digital
production, collaborative work with other scholars and with humanities
or computing research centers, and the dissemination and preservation of
projects.

The ACLS criteria for judging applications include the project's
intellectual ambitions and technological underpinnings, likely
contribution as a digital scholarly work to humanistic study,
satisfaction of technical requirements for a successful research
project, degree and significance of preliminary work; potential for
promoting teamwork and collaboration (where appropriate), and
articulation with local infrastructure at the applicant's home
institution.

Applicants must be citizens or permanent residents of the United States
as of the application deadline date and must hold a Ph.D. degree
conferred prior to the application deadline. However, established
scholars who can demonstrate the equivalent of the Ph.D. in publications
and professional experience may also qualify.

***
Applications for the 2005-06 ACLS Digital Innovation Fellowship Program
Deadline: November 10, 2005
Contact: American Council of Learned Societies, 633 Third Avenue, New
York, NY 10017
Phone: (212) 697-1505
E-mail: sfisher at acls.org
Web: www.acls.org/difguide.htm

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