Ball State’s Digital Scholarship Lab (DSL) originated out of the experiences of faculty engaged in research projects that employed digital tools or disseminated results in digital form. These were highly collaborative efforts, bringing together faculty from different departments, professional staff and students. The difficulty that project leaders had in discovering and assembling resources and expertise from across campus highlighted the need for a hub that fostered connections across units and disciplines.
The core mission of the Digital Scholarship Lab is to support BSU faculty and staff who undertake research projects that involve the use of digital technologies in areas such as text analysis, virtual and augmented reality, and GIS mapping. Since its inception, the DSL has supported more than 20 faculty-led investigations, generated more than $500,000 worth of grant funding from the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and private funders.
The DSL has organized events and activities designed to build an active scholarly community that produces high-quality, nationally and internationally competitive digital scholarship at Ball State. These have included public lectures, workshops, lunchtime talks, and video conference demonstrations. Its speakers have included Abby Smith Rumsey, the former director of the Scholarly Communication Institute at the University of Virginia and a leader of the Library of Congress’s National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program, and Bernie Frischer, Professor of Informatics at Indiana University and a leading virtual archeologist. The DSL recently supported the Ball State University and IDIA Lab hosting of the 7th Annual CAAV: Campus Alliance for Advanced Visualization international conference on immersive virtual reality For a list of past events, see the Events menu on this site.
The Digital Scholarship Lab is a collaboration of the Center for Middletown Studies (College of Sciences and Humanities) and the Institute for Intermedia Arts (College of Architecture and Planning). It has particular expertise in digital humanities and digital heritage projects, including virtual reconstructions of historical environments, the development of digital archives, spatial analysis, and computational humanities.
The lab has also worked with numerous students, whether as paid employees, interns, or on for-credit projects.
