IV International Summer School of Young Scientists in Historical Informatics: Data Science and Digital technologies in the service of a historian

Garskova Irina Markovna Doctor of History Associate Professor; Department of Historical Informatics; Lomonosov Moscow State University 119991, Russia, Moscow, Lomonosovsky ave., 27-4, Shuvalovsky building of Moscow State University, office G423 irina.garskova@gmail.com Other publications by this author     Volodin Andrei Yurievich PhD in History Associate Professor; Department of Historical Informatics; Lomonosov Moscow State University 119991, Russia, Moscow, Lomonosovsky ave., 27, room 4, office G-323 volodin@hist.msu.ru Other publications by this author

Vladimirov Vladimir Nikolayevich ORCID: 0000-0002-0555-4999 Doctor of History Professor; Department of National History; Altai State University 656049, Russia, Altai Territory, Barnaul, Lenin Ave., 61, room 312 vvladimirov@icloud.com Other publications by this author

The Faculty of History of Lomonosov Moscow State University and the Association "History and Computer" held an international summer school for young scientists "Historical Informatics – 2024" on June 27-30, 2024. The purpose of the school is to introduce students to the latest trends in the development of the field of application of information (digital) technologies and methods of Historical Data Science in historical research, to form a modern understanding of data and methods of their processing in the subject field of historical science. To participate in the school, school participants must have a computer with an Internet connection. This is the fourth school in a row, held annually at the end of June and attracting great attention from scientific historical youth ^[1].

The school was attended by students, postgraduates and young scientists representing universities and scientific institutions from Russia and neighboring countries. The Organizing Committee received more than 200 applications from potential participants of the school.

At the opening of the school, the Acting Dean of the Faculty of History of Lomonosov Moscow State University, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Professor L.S. Belousov, Vice-President of the AIK, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor V.N. Vladimirov (Altai State University) and Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Head of the Department of Historical Informatics, Faculty of History, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Chairman of the Organizing Committee of the School, Professor L.I. Borodkin.

The school's program included four full-time jobs.

On June 27, a lecture day was held, during which seven lectures were given on topical issues of historical informatics. The main lecturers were employees of the Department of Historical Informatics of the Faculty of History of Moscow State University: Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Head of the Department, Professor L.I. Borodkin; Doctor of Historical Sciences, Associate Professor I.M. Garskova; Candidate of Historical Sciences, Associate Professor T.Ya. Valetov; Candidate of Historical Sciences, Associate Professor A.Yu.Volodin; Candidate of Historical Sciences., senior lecturer D.I. Zherebyatev. Other well–known specialists participated in the lecture - Doctor of Economics Yu.Yu. Yumasheva (DIMI CENTER, Moscow) and Ph.D., Associate Professor O.V. Aliyeva (HSE).

Lectures

Some topics were presented at the school only by lectures, while other topics were presented by lectures and master classes. Lectures by L.I. Borodkin, A.Yu. Volodin and Yu.Yu. Yumasheva were devoted to methodological, historiographical and source studies, lectures by T.Ya. Valetov and D.I. Zherebyatyev continued in the following days in the format of master classes, topics on statistical methods and work in the R environment are planned to be supplemented with master classes in 2025.

In L.I. Borodkin's lecture "The current state of historical informatics", which opened the first day of the school, an analysis of new trends in the development of historical informatics, its role in the processes of the current transformation of historical science was given. The speaker spoke about the activities of the Association "History and Computer", the specialized journal "Historical Informatics", focused on the relationship of historical informatics, digital history and digital humanities, noting the differences between historical informatics, focused on the increment of historical knowledge, and digital history, focused mainly on the development of digital infrastructure and the use of digital media in historical applications. According to the speaker, such a division is to a certain extent conditional, and these two directions can be considered as complementary to each other.

Volodin's lecture "Digital Humanities: an epistemological Community" was devoted to aspects of the activity of the Digital Humanities community, mainly abroad. An overview of publications, conferences and discourses was given in search of common areas uniting members of this community. The speaker paid attention to the concept of Big Data, in particular the prospects of such resources as collections of digitized newspapers and multimedia discussion platforms, considered the differences between Digital Humanities as an "umbrella" term for humanities working with digital and Digital History. Drawing parallels between Digital and Data, on the one hand, and between Humanities and Hermeneutics, on the other, the author proposed his interpretation of digital humanities as a community of Data Hermeneutics.

The lecture "Internet resources for creating GIS on national history" was delivered by T.Ya. Valetov. It consisted of a brief introduction to geoinformation systems (including terminology related to drawing formats, tables and attributes of objects, open Internet services, geographical coordinates, projections and map linking) and a fairly detailed overview of Internet services and the Internet resource base for creating GIS applications. Collections of raster and vector maps, search capabilities were demonstrated, and the source problems of cartographic resources, both foreign and domestic, were characterized.

D.I. Zherebyatyev gave a lecture "3D modeling and virtual historical reconstructions", dedicated to the topic of preserving historical and cultural heritage. The lecturer gave an overview of such aspects as the assessment of the degree of preservation of the reconstruction object, methods of fixing space and their evolution. The stages of development of technologies for digitization and reconstruction of historical and cultural heritage sites over the past decade were highlighted in detail: from initial 3D reconstruction projects (CAD technology), laser scanning and photogrammetry technologies to the use of neural networks in solving various tasks - photo colorization, video quality improvement, photorealistic reconstruction, relief reconstruction or rendering. An idea is given about the possibilities of using virtual and augmented reality technologies.

In O.V. Aliyeva's lecture "The R language as a full–cycle tool", the R language and the development environment were presented as a universal tool for humanitarian research - from the preparation of material to the presentation of results. Initially, R was created for statistical calculations, but now it is actively used by the online community to solve a wider range of tasks, for which the module library is designed, consisting of thousands of packages (functions and datasets), offers many interactive applications and textbooks. An overview was given of the possibilities of presentations and publications, file export/import, working with graphics, maps, statistical analysis, text recognition and analysis, including thematic modeling.

The lecture "Statistical methods of historical data analysis", delivered by I.M. Garskova, was devoted to statistical methods representing the core of modern data science, as well as the problems of creating and using databases as an important element of information support for computerized historical research, providing a basis for further analysis, in particular, using statistical analysis. Both basic (descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, cross-tabulations) and "advanced" statistical methods (methods of dynamics analysis, methods of multidimensional classification) are considered. At the same time, special attention was paid to the correctness of the application of statistical methods.

Yu.Yu. Yumasheva's lecture "Electronic historical sources: definition, classification, physical essence, specific characteristics", which completed the work of the first day, related to the problems of theoretical source studies. The main unsolved problem, according to the lecturer, remains the definition of an electronic historical source (EII) and the multiplicity of its names existing in source studies, documentary and archival studies, the place of EII in the classification of historical sources. The author's definition of this concept and its specific properties were presented, to which the author refers metadata with information about document versions throughout its life cycle, the problems of file formats and obsolescence of software and media were considered.

Master classes

On June 28 and 29, classes were held in the format of master classes, where participants had the opportunity to learn practical skills of working with methods and software by choosing one or two of four topics ("Geoinformation technologies in historical research", "Methods of working with historical texts", "3D modeling and virtual historical reconstructions", "Network analysis of historical data"). The hosts of the master classes were employees of the Department of Historical Informatics - Doctor of Historical Sciences, Associate Professor I.M. Garskova, Ph.D., Associate Professor T.Ya. Valetov, Ph.D., senior lecturer D.I. Zherebyatyev, specialist in UMR M.S. Mironenko, as well as such well—known specialists as Ph.D., Associate Professor A.V. Smetanin (PSNIU, Perm), Ph.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor S.V. Shpirko (RSUH), Ph.D. N.V. Razdina (RANEPA).

The master class "3D modeling and virtual historical reconstructions" (teachers D.I. Zherebyatyev and M.S. Mironenko) consisted of three parts. The first part was devoted to the methodology of virtual historical reconstruction in the SketchUp program of the Smolensk Cathedral of the Ufa Fortress of the XVII century. The reconstruction is based on numerous historical sources. The participants were provided with a 3D model of the cathedral as a sample and a blank in which the cathedral was disassembled into composite structural elements (plinth, walls, apses, columns, arches, windows, decorative ornaments, cupolas, drums, domes and interior elements). Using the example of a ready-made sample, starting with the simplest elements, the participants of the master class learned how to assemble a model of the cathedral from its individual components.

In the second part, 3D visualization of the wooden fortress of Ufa of the XVII century is considered in the Twinmotion program (which allows you to create high-quality images, panoramas, videos, interactive presentations). To assemble the fortress model, the audience was provided with its plan and ready-made 3D models of elements: wooden walls, Mikhailovskaya, Nikolskaya and deaf towers, a number of wooden buildings. As a result, 3D reconstruction was assembled and visualization tools were mastered (rendering screenshots, panoramas, video and 360 video, creating an interactive application and online cloud reconstruction). The third part was devoted to the visualization and texturing of a 3D model in the Blender program. The focus was on tools for simplifying geometry and creating low-polygon (lowpoly) models from high-polygon (highpoly) models, using neural networks to solve these problems. The students were provided with detailed training materials.

The master class "Methods of working with historical texts" (teachers I.M. Garskova, N.V. Razdina, S.V. Shpirko) was focused on mastering a basic set of methods of text analysis using the MAXQDA computerized analysis program. The work consisted of three parts: an introductory part, training under the guidance of teachers and independent work with the selected text. The introductory part (common to all 38 participants) included familiarization of listeners with methods and technologies of working with historical texts, presentation of the program's capabilities and its installation on students' computers; acquaintance with information resources distributed in the cloud (texts, literature, links to Internet resources, thematic sites, videos with recordings of lectures from previous schools, etc.The second and third parts were conducted in three subgroups, depending on the level of training and research preferences (working with media materials or ego documents).

The second part, working with demo files under the guidance of teachers, included the following stages: data preparation (including preprocessing), file import into a computerized analysis program, working with a frequency dictionary of text, visualization (word clouds), formation of a system of semantic categories and indicators, lexical text markup and text auto-coding, construction and visualization of matrices the distribution of categories by text and matrices of the common occurrence of categories in the context, the use of variables (attributes) for the selection of texts, the export of results to spreadsheets. The third part consisted of independent work with the help of teachers discussing the results obtained.

The master class "Geoinformation technologies in historical research", conducted by T.Ya. Valetov, aroused great interest. This is not surprising, given the great popularity that the use of geoinformation systems and technologies has gained in modern historical research. The master class was divided into two parts. The first one showed the basics of working in the QGIS program: how to create a vector map (shapefile) based on an existing raster and attach meaningful data prepared in a tabular program (Excel) to it, and then create a thematic map. When analyzing the last task, in addition to the technical techniques of working with the program, substantive issues were also considered: how to set the boundaries of the ranges of thematic maps, how the type of thematic map depends on it and how the number of objects affects it, how the type of thematic maps is influenced by various options for their coloring. In the same part of the master class, the basics of working with the Google program were discussed.Earth and issues of compatibility of vector objects created there (in kml format) with projects in QGIS. In the second part of the master class, the problems that arise when creating maps based on real historical sources were considered. In particular, a number of factories were localized, the addresses of which are presented in the materials of the industrial census of 1908, as well as other historical sites. Various Internet services and programs discussed in the first part of the master class were used to search for historical sites.

The master class "Network analysis of historical data" (teachers I.M. Garskova and A.V. Smetanin), as well as the master class on working with texts, were not accompanied this year by a theoretical lecture on the opening day of the school. Therefore, the work of the master class opened with a theoretical introduction to the problems and historiography of network analysis in historical research and familiarization with the basics of network analysis techniques and characteristics of the capabilities of the UCINET and NETDRAW programs.

Thus, the work of the master class consisted of a general introductory part, which was listened to by all 23 participants, a workshop under the guidance of teachers (in subgroups depending on the level of familiarity with the topic) and independent work with selected tasks. The introductory part, in addition to familiarization with the methods and technologies of network analysis, included a presentation of the capabilities of the software and its installation on students' computers, familiarization with information resources distributed in the cloud (glossary, demo files, task files, literature, lecture presentations from previous schools, links to Internet resources, etc.). The second and third The parts were conducted in parallel in two subgroups. The second part, practical work under the guidance of teachers, included the following stages: data preparation (from cross–database queries, from spreadsheets), transformation of source data into network software format, visualization of network structure, transformation of two–modal networks into single-modal ones, creation of a file of network node attributes, network metrics and network analysis with calculation of centrality indices, building ego networks, classification and clustering. The third part was an independent work with the help of teachers and a discussion of the results obtained.

Plenary session, conference, round tables

June 30, the final day of the school, traditionally became the day of the plenary session, conference and round tables. The plenary report "Artificial Intelligence technologies in text analysis, information retrieval and socio-humanitarian research" was presented by PhD, Professor of the Russian Academy of Sciences K.V. Vorontsov (Head of the Laboratory of Machine Learning and Semantic Analysis of the Institute of Artificial Intelligence of Lomonosov Moscow State University). In the first section of the report, machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies were characterized, reviews of the history of ML/AI technologies and machine learning problem statements, as well as tasks of text analysis and large language models (LLM) were presented. In the second section, the Knowledge Workshop project was presented, which contains a large language model of scientific texts and technologies for analyzing collections of text documents. The third section of the report contained language models of text markup, including the tasks of automating content analysis, a methodology for evaluating text markup models and the task of detecting the values of the socio-cultural code.

After the plenary report by K.V. Vorontsov, a round table was held on the problems of artificial intelligence and the possibilities of its application by historians. The participants of the school asked a lot of questions, and a lively discussion arose. Separately, we note that the questions raised regarding the use of neural networks in the educational process revealed an ambiguous assessment of the prospects for such use (taking into account existing experiments with various versions of ChatGPT).

The next item on the program was a conference made up of reports from school participants. Such a conference is traditionally an important component of the program of the summer school of young scientists. The reports are selected by the organizing committee based on the preliminary applications of the participants. The conference was moderated by the Vice-presidents of the AIK – Doctor of Economics, Professor V.N. Vladimirov (AltSU) and Ph.D., Associate Professor A.Y. Volodin (Moscow State University, SibFU).

This year, 7 reports were presented in the program: "Studying the distribution of students by type of primary schools in the provinces of European Russia (rural areas) in 1880-1911 using GIS based on school censuses" by M.A. Boevoy (Moscow State University), "Complaints of peasants about incorrect elections in the Livonia province in the period from 1877 to 1917." E.P. Marmilova (HSE, St. Petersburg), "Boyar land ownership based on the materials of the Bezhetskaya Pyatina of the late XV – XVI centuries: visualization in GIS" P.V. Gavrilova (IVI RAS), "Determination of the territorial coverage of census books of Dorogobuzhsky district in the 1650s - 1670s using QGIS: the first results" A.A.Sorokina (Moscow State University), "The experience of cataloguing archaeological sites of the Altynsay district (based on geodata and research)" M.A. Tilovova (Termez State University, Uzbekistan), "Features of work in German virtual libraries" M.I. Diomidova (Moscow State University), "Virtual multi-user tour in the Borodino panorama" N.I.. Akhtamzyan (GAUGN).

All the reports made a positive impression on the audience, which included many teachers of the school. The discussion highlighted such points as a good level of research, the use of modern data processing technologies (database technologies, geoinformation technologies, virtual reconstructions, etc.), as well as a competent presentation of the results. All the comments made were rather recommendations for the future. The research of the school's participants is expected to be published in the AIC Newsletter and the journal Historical Informatics.

As part of the final event of the school, a round table, the results of the four–day work were summed up. The participants of the school – both teachers and students – noted, first of all, the usefulness of the lectures, master classes and discussions. In the course of the round table, an express survey was conducted regarding proposals on the topics of the master classes of the next school in historical informatics. Artificial intelligence has won here unconditionally: it is the use of neural networks in further research that the majority of participants in the current school want to improve. Many participants would also like to take master classes on learning the R programming language and environment, which is gaining increasing popularity among humanities, as well as working with databases using the SQL programming language. In conclusion, it should be noted the general positive attitude of all participants of the school, expressed in stating the great usefulness and effectiveness of the organization of training in the field of historical informatics.

The technical support of the school was at a high level. The digital infrastructure of the school and information support for the participants were provided by the Vice-president of the Association "History and Computer", Ph.D., Associate Professor A.Y. Volodin.

Application (feedback from school participants)

As an appendix to the article, participants' reviews of the IV International Summer School of young scientists "Historical Informatics – 2024" are published. The language and style of the review authors have been preserved.

Kovaleva Anna Anatolyevna, Center for Eurasian Studies, Moscow State University-SPI in Shenzhen

Thank you for the certificate of participation and I am sending you a review of the conference "Historical Informatics – 2024".

First of all, I would like to thank all the organizers and participants of the conference, this was my first experience of participating in the conference, and I am sure it will not be the last.

Among the lectures that made the strongest impression, I would note a lecture on the current state of historical informatics by L.I. Borodkin, especially coverage of the terminology issue; a lecture "Digital Humanities: an epistemological community" by A.Y. Volodin and, in particular, coverage of the discussion around Digital Humanities and an extensive list of recommended literature; a lecture by O.V. Aliyeva "R as a full-cycle tool", which inspired the study of programming in Python or in the R language.

Irina Markovna Garskova's master class on network data analysis was incredibly useful and allowed her to acquire specific skills in working with network data analysis.

The conference day was interesting both with the amazing lecture by K.V. Vorontsov and the reports of the participants.

It was a great honor for me to participate in the conference, I look forward to the conference in 2025. In addition, I plan to participate in the AIC conference.

In my dissertation, I plan to use the knowledge gained during the conference, thank you!

Elvira Espolova, State Museum – Center for the Rapprochement of Cultures, Kazakhstan

Dear members of the Organizing Committee of the IV International Summer School "Historical Informatics — 2024", let me sincerely express my gratitude for the opportunity to participate and learn a lot of useful information that I was able to share with the team.

I would like to note the high level of organization of the event, a professional approach to business, a very rich and interesting program! Thank you very much!

Bulatov Andrey Vitalievich, Kursk State University

The school was very interesting and informative! It's a pity, though, that I don't have enough strength to visit all the proposed sites

Kuznetsov Artyom Alekseevich, Institute of General History of the Russian Academy of Sciences

Thank you so much for the opportunity to participate in the summer school! From a practical point of view, the master classes presented at the event and the knowledge gained from the teachers will help in the preparation of historical scientific papers.

Zlobareva Ekaterina Vyacheslavovna, Ural Federal University

I took part in the summer school for the first time. I did not dare to take part earlier, because it seemed that I would not be able to assimilate the material, but it was quite the opposite. Many lectures and reports of the participants gave a greater understanding of the ways of working with data at the moment, it was possible to understand the main development trends.

As part of the school, she attended a master class on methods of working with historical texts. He was chosen because he wanted to learn more about content analysis and get some basic skills. I liked that there was both a theoretical and a practical part where it was possible to show the acquired skills. Special thanks to the organizers for all the additional materials sent, which can be accessed later. I also plan to take part in the school next year!

Mikhaleva Irina Dmitrievna, Udmurt State University

Thank you very much for the opportunity to participate in this event. The lectures and topics of the reports at the conference were very interesting and relevant, I found a lot of new information for myself. I was also pleased with the master class on 3D reconstructions, I wanted to study this area myself. The very organization of the school is at the level. The only thing I would like to improve feedback and communication with other participants in general: for example, during the event, create a telegram chat where everyone can simultaneously get to know each other, introduce themselves, find out the necessary information, share materials.

Next year I will be waiting for master classes on neural networks!

Kozan Elena Anatolyevna, Haji Bayram Veli Ankara University, Faculty of Humanities, Department of Slavic Languages, Turkey

Many thanks to the organizers and teachers of the school: everything was very interesting and useful! I would really like to take part in all the master classes, all the declared areas are very relevant. Most importantly, everything is applicable for interdisciplinary research. Thanks a lot again! I am looking forward to the announcements of new events.

Maria Ilyinichna Diomidova, Moscow State University

Thank you very much for organizing such an interesting and necessary event!

It was the first time I took part, I really liked it! The format of the school is convenient, the alternation of lectures and master classes was successful. The variety of topics made it possible to highlight a wide range of issues, even for those who had not previously dealt with them.

Many thanks to the organizers! Everything is clear, smooth from the technical side and generally good! The friendly atmosphere among like-minded people multiplied the meaningful effect of the school and enriched all participants. Thanks!

Voronkova Daria Sergeevna, Moscow State University

It is pleasant that the holding of the Summer School of Young Scientists in Historical Computer Science has become a tradition. This year I was not as active as before – unfortunately, I was ill and had a high fever. But even in this state, I listened to 5 out of 7 lectures, participated in a master class on 3D modeling and virtual historical reconstructions, in a round table, conference and discussion of the results of the school. As always, I'm interested in everything! In addition, this summer school is the first for me, the information support of which I provided as the editor of the community of the Association "History and Computer" in VK (if you want, join: we are waiting for everyone, here is the link https://m.vk.com/aiksng ). Most of the presentations at the conference were devoted to GIS. This shows that the direction is now developing successfully, attracting attention and is promising. Although, perhaps, due to such a thematic predominance, the impression of a certain bias is created. We were pleased with all the reports, the atmosphere at the school was excellent. Colleagues from Uzbekistan were interested in the project. And I also decided to sign up for a new virtual tour of the Borodino panorama https://образыэпохи .The Russian Federation is a fascinating story about her! I'm looking forward to our next, V Summer School! I wish you all success!

Zakaryan Susanna Andranikovna, Khakass State University named after N.F. Katanov

For the first time, she took part in the International Summer School of Young Scientists. For four days, the organizers of the School implemented a rich program: a lecture day, two days of master classes and a conference day. Despite the rather long-term format of everyday work, the assimilation of the material did not cause any particular difficulties, since it was presented in an adapted form and was extremely interesting and practice-oriented (from general theoretical problems of the development of historical informatics to the use of AI capabilities to solve specific research problems).

The format of the master classes deserves special attention. Due to the possibility of choosing not only the master class itself, but also the level of initial training (beginner/ advanced), each participant was able to master the skills necessary at the selected level.

As a wish: next year I would really like to have the opportunity to attend master classes on working with neural networks and gain skills in working with text recognition, as well as deepen my knowledge of data analysis in the framework of historical research.

And concluding the review, I would like to focus on people. Having found myself for the first time among high-level professionals, whose work I have been familiar with for a long time (primarily thanks to a scientific supervisor who is no longer with us ...), it is extremely pleasant to see such open people in front of me. The creation of an open dialogue format and an atmosphere of mutual assistance had a positive impact on the course of the school's work.

Ivan O. Marchenko, Gymnasium No. 120 Yekaterinburg

I would like to thank you for the opportunity to learn something new and unexplored (for me)! It was the first time I came into contact with such a field as historical computer science, it was very interesting to me. Especially the master class that I was able to attend on content analysis of texts. This is very valuable knowledge. In the future, I would like to get to know other areas of historical computer science a little more deeply in order to learn how to apply new methods for my research on historical memory.