Infrastructure Manifest (v. 1.0)—Jing Chen—Chapter 11—“Connecting Digital Systems by Whom and for Whom? Taking Stock of the Digital Humanities Infrastructures in China”
Infrastructure Type Descriptiona

Control point for access to or useb

For example, identify the owner, regulator, manager, etc. as appropriate

Open Source, Open Access, or Public Resource/Utilityc Proprietaryc How heavily used?d Reliabilityd Satisfaction for Userd Ethical concerns (known or possible) Comments

Land infrastructure

For example, properties ceded, unceded, public, private, etc.

Include only principal land infrastructures.

I am work flexibly. Most of my teaching is done at three campuses of Nanjing University in Nanjing, three pieces of lands owned by the government. I do not read or write at my office because it is shared with another associate professor. I have my own working studio near the main campus, which was rented from its owner during the Covid quarantine period as the campus was closed and I had to meet with my collaborators from time to time. I also work at home, a property owned by myself. I finished the revision of this paper at a King’s College London dormitory on Great Dover street when I was a visiting scholar of King’s College London.
  • University property

    Nanjing University as the state owned institute controls and uses the land of three campuses.

  • Personal real estate

    Personal control with 70 years use right.

Yes Yes 10 10 7 Ethical considerations are the legitimacy of issues raised by the use of school assets, such as laptops and projectors, in different locations, and cross-disciplinary collaboration.

Materials infrastructure

For example, notable common or rare extracted or other materials used in research, production, and communication.

Break down by notable materials used in devices or tools if appropriate.

Major parts of my car, laptop, and mobile phones are manufactured in China but labeled with foreign brands. Not Applicable Yes 10 8 8 The main ethical concern is environmental impact.

Energy infrastructure

For example, principal energy sources and infrastructure used in research, production, and communication

  • Gasoline for automobile transportation in a car to teach at another two campuses since I live near the main campus. I teach four days a week so 13 gallon for 560 miles per month at 42 miles per gallon is needed.
  • The average price for electricity in Nanjing is 0.09 USD (0.6 RMB)/kilowatt-hour. 6 computers and laptop owned by my team members and me plus two air conditioners use 667 kilowatt-hour per month.
Yes Yes 10 8 7 The main ethical concern is environmental impact.

Transportation infrastructure

For example, private or public transportation needed for daily or research trips

  • I walk to work on a daily basis, except when I have to teach.
  • High speed train is my choice for most of my academic activities in the country.
  • Various aircraft for my international business trips.
The high speed train is owned by the state. Yes Yes 10 9 9 High speed train speeds up our daily life.

Architectural infrastructure

For example, buildings, labs, rooms

  • A office room at the building of School of Arts at Gulou campus of Nanjing University
  • An innovation laboratory at the Innovation and Entrepreneurship center at Xialin campus
  • A three-room studio for my team at the residency building near the Gulou campus
  • University
  • Personal real estate
Yes Not Applicable 10 9 7 How to evaluate the activities conducted at the different locations.

Civic, community, national, or regional infrastructure

For example, provided by cities, communities, governments, etc.

  • Roads and airports used for transportation
  • Mixed public/private energy utility infrastructure
Yes Not Applicable 10 10 0

Institutional infrastructure

For example, equipment, services, and “overhead” or “indirect cost recovery” items for grants to universities

My iMac computer is sponsored by school. There is no specific labor support from my institutes. University Yes Not Applicable 10 8 6

Labor infrastructure

For example, type and amount of labor from collaborators, staff, research assistants; include any attributes that seem important, such as unrecognized, unpaid, low-paid, outsourced, or other attributes of labor

I deeply appreciate my co-author and book editors for their efforts and time. Not Applicable Not Applicable 10 10 10

Research-content infrastructure

For example, physical libraries and archives, online research materials, shadow libraries, etc.

I stopped visiting the university libraries a couple of years ago because the books and artworks I require cannot be found at the NJU libraries. I mostly rely on my own book collection and online resources.

  • Personal book collection in physical and digital formats

    I use e-books for close reading and making notes and the printed books for browsing and changing mind.

  • Online book and journal databases, such as CNKI, JStor, Project MUSE for research papers
  • Search engines (primarily Google, sometimes Bing) for information acquisition
  • Wikipedia for preliminary information
  • Social media, Wechat, for article reading and academic communication
  • Shadow libraries such as Zlibrary and Library Genesis

    I used to pay for the Amazon ebooks but it exited from China’s market in 2023.

  • BBS (Bulletin Board System)

    I used to be one of the administrators of a BBS site on humanities and philosophy. We share academic opinions, papers, and ebooks in that small community.

The most of them are owned by the commercial company or NGO and vendor of internet services. Not Applicable Not Applicable 10 10 8 Shadow library has ethical and legal issues, as does VPN software.

Tools infrastructure

For example, principal analog tools and digital tools, scripts, or protocols used for research, writing, communication, production (excluding high-performance computing, for which see below)

Analog tools (for team discussion)
  • waste paper
  • white board
  • pen
Computers
  • Personal Laptop
    • Use level: 10
    • Reliability: 9
    • Satisfaction: 7
Operating system
  • Mac OS
    • Use level: 10
    • Reliability: 8
    • Satisfaction: 7
Principal software tool
  • V2Ray

    Based on the personal online server for visiting some websites

    • Use level: 10
    • Reliability: 7
    • Satisfaction: 6
Bibliography tool
  • Zotero
    • Use level: 8
    • Reliability: 10
    • Satisfaction:8
Notes tool
  • Evernote
    • Use level:9
    • Reliability:10
    • Satisfaction: 7
Word processors (from most to least used)
  • Word
  • Page
  • Google Doc
  • MS Word
    • Use level: 10
    • Reliability: 9
    • Satisfaction: 5
Spreadsheet tools
  • Excel
  • Numbers
    • Use level: 10
    • Reliability: 9
    • Satisfaction: 6
Image and graphics editing/creation tools
  • Keynote
  • Preview
  • PowerPoint
    • Use level: 9
    • Reliability: 7
    • Satisfaction: 5
Email tool
  • Tencent email (university email with unlimited storage)
  • Gmail
    • Use level: 10
    • Reliability: 9
    • Satisfaction:5
Collaboration platform/chat tool
  • Lark Suite and the customized local storage for team work (co-editors)
    • Use level: 8
    • Reliability: 9
    • Satisfaction: 8
Writing aids tools
  • Grammarly for English grammar checking
  • DeepL for translation help
  • ChatGPT for writing help
    • Use level: 7
    • Reliability: 7
    • Satisfaction:6
Coding tools
  • Github for coding searching and data sharing
  • DocuSky and Markus for text analysis and markup
  • Gephi for data visulization, but not used for this work
    • Use level: 7
    • Reliability:8
    • Satisfaction:7
Yes Yes 10 9 8 The copyright issue of open source code.

Networked Platforms infrastructure

For example, major networked or cloud platforms used for research, storage, analysis, sharing, communication, publication—Google Drive, Dropbox, AWS, etc. (excluding high-performance computing, for which see below)

Storage
  • Local networked storage

    Personally customized for internal sharing and exchange

    • Use level: 9
    • Reliability: 10
    • Satisfaction: 8
  • Baidu Netdisk for external file sharing
    • Use level: 8
    • Reliability: 10
    • Satisfaction: 9
  • Goolge Drive for international file sharing (personal accouint)
    • Use level: 5
    • Reliability: 5
    • Satisfaction:5
Productivity software in cloud
  • Evernote
    • Use level:9
    • Reliability:10
    • Satisfaction: 7
Collaboration platforms and services
  • Lark Suite (institutional account)
    • Use level: 8
    • Reliability:6
    • Satisfaction: 8
Social media
  • Wechat
    • Use level for this project: 10
    • Reliability: 5
    • Satisfaction: 5
Yes Yes 10 8 7 Privacy of the data uploaded to cloud storage and social media, especially when social media became the primary platform for working information exchange.

High-performance computing infrastructure

Here defined expansively to include the use not just of supercomputers and computer clusters or grids but any high-performance computing infrastructure or special GPU and other processors exceeding the capabilities of an individual workstation, laptop, or server.

Not Applicable Not Applicable
Other infrastructure Not Applicable Not Applicable

This infrastructure manifest was completed by Jing Chen and reports on Chapter 11, “Connecting Digital Systems by Whom and for Whom? Taking Stock of the Digital Humanities Infrastructures in China.”