ISC Digital Humanities
ISC Digital Humanities Laboratory
The ISC Digital Humanities Laboratory, established per the DH Lab Framework, is organized around four focal areas: History, Archives & Libraries; Data-Driven Humanities; GIS & Mapping; and Digital Exhibitions.
Hosted by Islamic World Science & Technology Monitoring and Citation Institute (ISC)
Documented in: DH Lab Framework
Focal areas
Four operational areas
The Lab is organized around four focal areas. Descriptions below outline the general remit of each area in Digital Humanities practice; they are not claims about specific completed output.
Digital Archives & Manuscripts
Digitization, cataloguing, and long-term stewardship of manuscripts, archival records, and library holdings — from image capture and metadata standards to OCR/HTR pipelines that make handwritten and printed sources searchable.
3 pilot projects
Text, Data & AI
Computational and AI-assisted methods for humanities sources — text analysis, natural-language processing, corpus linguistics, and machine-learning support for research questions across Persian, Arabic, and Islamicate scholarship.
2 pilot projects
Historical GIS & Spatial Humanities
Mapping historical places, routes, and spatial relationships — building and maintaining geographic datasets, gazetteers, and interactive maps that situate humanities sources in space and time.
No pilot projects yet linked
Digital Exhibitions & Experiences
Designing and building online exhibitions and public-facing digital experiences that present cultural heritage collections and research outcomes to wider audiences.
No pilot projects yet linked
Services
Services
An illustrative service catalog for Digital Humanities labs of this kind. It describes the kinds of requests the Lab is set up to receive — it is not a record of work already completed.
Digitize a Collection
OCR/HTR Evaluation
Metadata Standardization
Data Cleaning
Text Analysis
NLP Support
Historical GIS Support
Data Visualization
AI Research Support
Digital Exhibition Development
DH Pilot Development
Technology Testing
Illustrative
Pilot projects
Pilot projects
Research projects linked to the Lab in the database.
Digital Archives & Manuscripts
Cataloging manuscript bibliographic data in Miras-e Maktoob
Cataloging manuscript bibliographic data in the Miras-e Maktoob (میراث مکتوب) database.
Pilot projectsDH training courses
Five training courses, per the DH Lab Framework pilot project list.
Pilot projectsText, Data & AI
Digital Encyclopedia of Iran and the Islamic World
Phase 1: digitizing articles from the Encyclopedia of Islamic Rational Sciences research center.
Pilot projectsDigital Archives & Manuscripts
Digitizing British Library manuscript microfiches
Digitizing 1,000 of approximately 45,000 British Library manuscript microfiches.
Pilot projectsJoint DH cooperation program with Chinese institutions
A joint cooperation program with Chinese institutions on Digital Humanities.
Pilot projectsDigital Archives & Manuscripts
OCR development for Miras-e Maktoob manuscripts
Developing OCR for Miras-e Maktoob manuscripts, evaluating the Noor Computer Research Center tool.
Pilot projectsText, Data & AI
Persian ngram project
An ngram project over Ganjoor (گنجور), the Dehkhoda dictionary, and Miras-e Maktoob books.
Pilot projectsReviewing Noor Computer Research Center DH products
Reviewing Digital Humanities products/tools built by Noor Computer Research Center.
Pilot projectsGet in touch
Collaborate with the Lab
Request a service, propose a collaboration, or ask a question — the request goes to the Lab's contact point.