I. Call for Grant Proposals
Lived Religion in the Digital Age is now seeking grant proposals (through 7/14/23) for collaborations to assist in the development and testing of our mobile and desktop application. The app, Where’s Religion? enables place-based research, ethnographic fieldwork, media sharing, and mapping. We anticipate making several awards of $2,500 – $10,000 to support a range of proposals. See our grant call and application here.
II. Overview
Where’s Religion? is a free and open-source tool for collection, discovery, and visualization. Our app enables scholars and students to gather, upload, analyze, and visualize ethnographic data on any location. To do this, the app collects fieldnotes, images, videos, and audio files, with customized interfaces and capabilities on the mobile app and desktop app. The present result is an ongoing collection of user entries on fieldwork experiences, locations, objects, and people, which are visualized in our scalable and interactive map.
Where’s Religion? is conceptualized and designed for diverse users with interests in sharing media and notes about their respective encounters with “religion” in everyday places. As a mobile and desktop application, the idea is not only to appeal to casual users and students with the mobile app, but also to mimic an ethnographic-style workflow from out-in-the-field data collection to at-home editing and data refinement. With this digital method, we combine the computational methods of qualitative research software with an attentiveness to the nuances of “lived” religious life and practice. Our aim is to provide a free, intuitive, and compatible tool for ongoing research as well as a user-friendly method for assembling and studying digital media that curates “lived religion” in a diversity of people, places, and things.
Upon launch, scholars, students, and public users can download and login to the Where’s Religion? app on any mobile device or device with a web browser. Therein, users can enter any form of ethnographic information and data they have collected from anywhere. On the desktop app, users are prompted by a simple series of dropdown menus and category selections for information on people, places, and things as well as the sights, sounds, and smells that they are seeking to record. Photos, videos, and audio files can be taken and uploaded directly from the user’s device into the app. Users can type their fieldnotes directly into the app’s fieldnote widget, or paste their notes into the widget from any word processor or text editor. User entries are then mapped – pinned – onto a searchable map feature along with other user entries.
III. Technicals
Where’s Religion? is custom built using the most rigorous standard for open web design and shared data – 5 Star Linked Data. This means that our app is available on the Web; it is machine readable structured data; it is non-proprietary; it is published using open standards from the World Wide Web Consortium; and it all links to other Linked Open Data.
As such, the app is scalable. It collects digital data on any location. The app is compatible. It can import and export data from other platforms and sources. And our app is researchable. Collected data can be queried and is visualized within an interactive map.
To aid front-end research, metadata is captured with each entry in the form of automatic geotagging and timestamping, as well as user-selected categorizations and typologies provided within the app. All of our taxonomic categories are chosen from industry standard controlled language vocabularies for better researchability and the prevention of information siloing.
Linked Data is a big part of this. Making the data Open (as in open access and open standards) is a step further. The Web Annotation W3C standard is not only adhered to, but automatically encoded as part of the data capture, so non-technical contributors can create good data. Our focus on reusing existing vocabularies and resistance to creating proprietary flavors of web ontologies makes the generated data more reusable and researchable. The user interfaces are coded as plainly as possible to avoid issues with longevity or dependencies on technologies or frameworks that may create security or maintenance issues. Data creation and exhibition is parameterized so the project can be easily reconfigured for different scopes, datasets, schemas. The moderation model creates tiers of data, welcoming contribution and tracking all assertions with attribution, but only elevating approved and polished records.
IV. Timeline
2018 – Lived Religion in the Digital Age is launched with generous support from the Henry Luce Foundation and the Saint Louis University College of Arts & Sciences. Initial app design is conceptualized in partnership with the Walter J. Ong, SJ Center on Digital Humanities at SLU.
2018-2021 – Digital architecture of the desktop app is developed between LRDA, the Ong Center, and the Research Computing Group (inclusive of development delays due to COVID-19). Protocols for human subject research are developed and implemented.
2021-2023 – Further development of desktop app features, navigation, and accessibility. A companion mobile app is conceptualized, designed, and developed in partnership a newly formed center for software development, Open Software with SLU. Additional grant from Luce Foundation and support from the SLU College of Arts & Sciences is awarded to pilot the desktop and mobile apps beyond SLU users.
2023-2024 – Pilot and Development Grant period.
Sep/Oct 2023: First colloquy of pilot grantees (virtual)
April 2024: Second colloquy of pilot grantees (in person)
October/November 2024: Lived Religion in the Digital Age conference and launch of website
V. Potential Collaborations and Future Development
As a generally applicable tool for notetaking, media sharing, and mapping, Where’s Religion? encapsulates manifold potential for test uses and research collaborations. As open software for mobile phones, tablets, laptops, and desktops, Where’s Religion? also has diverse potential for UI refinement, external project adoption, and plugin development.
Furthering Where’s Religion? we are interested in: expanding public use, classroom lesson, in-person research, ethnographic codebook development, text annotation, natural language processing, oral history, digital image collection and processing, documentary videography, GIS application, and UX design.
I. Call for Grant Proposals
Lived Religion in the Digital Age is now seeking grant proposals (through 7/1/23) for collaborations to assist in the development and testing of our mobile and desktop application. The app, Where’s Religion? enables place-based research, ethnographic fieldwork, media sharing, and mapping. We anticipate making several awards of $2,500 – $10,000 to support a range of proposals. See our grant call and application here.
II. Overview
Where’s Religion? is a free and open-source tool for collection, discovery, and visualization. Our app enables scholars and students to gather, upload, analyze, and visualize ethnographic data on any location. To do this, the app collects fieldnotes, images, videos, and audio files, with customized interfaces and capabilities on the mobile app and desktop app. The present result is an ongoing collection of user entries on fieldwork experiences, locations, objects, and people, which are visualized in our scalable and interactive map.
Where’s Religion? is conceptualized and designed for diverse users with interests in sharing media and notes about their respective encounters with “religion” in everyday places. As a mobile and desktop application, the idea is not only to appeal to casual users and students with the mobile app, but also to mimic an ethnographic-style workflow from out-in-the-field data collection to at-home editing and data refinement. With this digital method, we combine the computational methods of qualitative research software with an attentiveness to the nuances of “lived” religious life and practice. Our aim is to provide a free, intuitive, and compatible tool for ongoing research as well as a user-friendly method for assembling and studying digital media that curates “lived religion” in a diversity of people, places, and things.
Upon launch, scholars, students, and public users can download and login to the Where’s Religion? app on any mobile device or device with a web browser. Therein, users can enter any form of ethnographic information and data they have collected from anywhere. On the desktop app, users are prompted by a simple series of dropdown menus and category selections for information on people, places, and things as well as the sights, sounds, and smells that they are seeking to record. Photos, videos, and audio files can be taken and uploaded directly from the user’s device into the app. Users can type their fieldnotes directly into the app’s fieldnote widget, or paste their notes into the widget from any word processor or text editor. User entries are then mapped – pinned – onto a searchable map feature along with other user entries.
III. Technicals
Where’s Religion? is custom built using the most rigorous standard for open web design and shared data – 5 Star Linked Data. This means that our app is available on the Web; it is machine readable structured data; it is non-proprietary; it is published using open standards from the World Wide Web Consortium; and it all links to other Linked Open Data.
As such, the app is scalable. It collects digital data on any location. The app is compatible. It can import and export data from other platforms and sources. And our app is researchable. Collected data can be queried and is visualized within an interactive map.
To aid front-end research, metadata is captured with each entry in the form of automatic geotagging and timestamping, as well as user-selected categorizations and typologies provided within the app. All of our taxonomic categories are chosen from industry standard controlled language vocabularies for better researchability and the prevention of information siloing.
Linked Data is a big part of this. Making the data Open (as in open access and open standards) is a step further. The Web Annotation W3C standard is not only adhered to, but automatically encoded as part of the data capture, so non-technical contributors can create good data. Our focus on reusing existing vocabularies and resistance to creating proprietary flavors of web ontologies makes the generated data more reusable and researchable. The user interfaces are coded as plainly as possible to avoid issues with longevity or dependencies on technologies or frameworks that may create security or maintenance issues. Data creation and exhibition is parameterized so the project can be easily reconfigured for different scopes, datasets, schemas. The moderation model creates tiers of data, welcoming contribution and tracking all assertions with attribution, but only elevating approved and polished records.
IV. Timeline
2018 – Lived Religion in the Digital Age is launched with generous support from the Henry Luce Foundation and the Saint Louis University College of Arts & Sciences. Initial app design is conceptualized in partnership with the Walter J. Ong, SJ Center on Digital Humanities at SLU.
2018-2021 – Digital architecture of the desktop app is developed between LRDA, the Ong Center, and the Research Computing Group (inclusive of development delays due to COVID-19). Protocols for human subject research are developed and implemented.
2021-2023 – Further development of desktop app features, navigation, and accessibility. A companion mobile app is conceptualized, designed, and developed in partnership a newly formed center for software development, Open Software with SLU. Additional grant from Luce Foundation and support from the SLU College of Arts & Sciences is awarded to pilot the desktop and mobile apps beyond SLU users.
2023-2024 – Pilot and Development Grant period.
Sep/Oct 2023: First colloquy of pilot grantees (virtual)
April 2024: Second colloquy of pilot grantees (in person)
October/November 2024: Lived Religion in the Digital Age conference and launch of website
V. Potential Collaborations and Future Development
As a generally applicable tool for notetaking, media sharing, and mapping, Where’s Religion? encapsulates manifold potential for test uses and research collaborations. As open software for mobile phones, tablets, laptops, and desktops, Where’s Religion? also has diverse potential for UI refinement, external project adoption, and plugin development.
Furthering Where’s Religion? we are interested in: expanding public use, classroom lesson, in-person research, ethnographic codebook development, text annotation, natural language processing, oral history, digital image collection and processing, documentary videography, GIS application, and UX design.