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Documentation, including information, instructions, and use cases, is key to reproducibility in Digital Humanities research and usability of resulting tools and resources. However, despite multiple studies that support this assertion, clear and comprehensive documentation is often lacking due to fundamental incompatibilities with existing funding models and the resulting prioritisation of project tasks. Through a user study of researchers involved in using and producing Linked Ancient World Data, supplemented by existing literature, I identified components for inclusion in documentation to facilitate use of these tools and resources, as well as the reproducibility of methods used in their pro- duction. At the same time, it became clear that producers would benefit from a solution to simplify the process of documentation creation. As a result, I assembled a documentation checklist whose scope for application reaches beyond Linked Ancient World Data to other Humanities disciplines and digital methods. This paper starts by discussing previous work, before providing an overview of my survey and interview methods. I then present my findings and discuss their implications for future research and development, including an introduction to the checklist and its implementation. To conclude, I draw together threads from the pre- ceding sections and suggest wider structural changes to further facilitate and promote transparency and reproducibility in Digital Humanities.

Art history research examines objects as embedded in a web of relationships, including multiple spatial dimensions (e.g. of the materials, of the artist, of the cultural influences, of the museum collection, and of the temporary exhibitions). However, this richness of nuances is not yet fully encompassed in Linked Open Data standards. This paper aims to examine how the multiplicity of places entangled in art objects can be represented within existing vocabularies (Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names, Geonames, Pleiades, Trismegistos), ontologies (CIDOC CRM, Europeana Data Model, Linked Ancient World Data, Wikidata, LIDO) and interconnection formats (Pelagios, World Historical Gazetteer, SENESCHAL, Linked Art). In doing so, this article raises a series of questions concerning the potential and limitation of current solutions for representing geographical information. It highlights the needs for inclusive, interoperable, open and accessible features in LOD systems in spatial humanities and it traces possible areas of inquiry for further research. The article argues that there is the need to develop more granular and comprehensive solutions for encompassing the multiplicity of places that can be enclosed in an art object, and its itineraries across time and space.

Linked Data technologies are used to describe and connect entities, based on features they have in common. Rich semantic descriptions, disambiguation capabilities, and interoperability allow investigation of new research questions and reveal previously undiscovered relationships. However, previous studies have shown that uptake of Linked Data among Humanities researchers has, thus far, been low, partly due to usability issues with the resulting tools and resources. I therefore set out to investigate how their usability might be improved, and how Linked Data technologies might most effectively be integrated with existing research methods. My study focused on the Ancient World, where Linked Data implementation seems to be higher than in other Humanities disciplines, and involved a survey and interviews to elicit user and producer needs from researchers in this subject area. I start this thesis by introducing and contextualising my research topic in Chapter 1. In Chapter 2, I consult existing literature and datasets to discuss Linked Humanities Data implementation, its advantages, and current barriers. Chapter 3 provides an outline of my survey and interview methodologies, while Chapter 4 presents initial survey analysis and identifies themes for discussion in the subsequent chapters. Chapter 5 focuses on five research methods already embedded in the practices of Ancient World researchers, where Linked Data could effectively be integrated: Discovering, Gathering, Data Recognition, Annotating, and Visualization. In Chapter 6, I explore the user experience more broadly, including aspects such as interface design, reliability, and data quality. Chapter 7 then discusses areas of the production process that affect Linked Data usability: training, collaboration, user-centred design, documentation, access, and sustainability. My findings form the basis of a series of recommendations in Chapter 8, which focus on teamwork, openness and transpare