In the 2015-16, the NEH Advanced Topics in the Digital Humanities Summer Institute Advanced Challenges in Theory and Practice in 3D Modeling of Cultural Heritage Sites was held jointly at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and University of California, Los Angeles. A group of 35 national and international scholars came together to discuss what they saw as key issues facing those working with 3D content in the digital humanities (http://advancedchallenges.com.) This roundtable seeks to bring together faculty from that NEH Institute and join them to the larger CAA community to encourage a robust discussion of the key issues facing scholars working in 3D. We seek short (5 minute) papers from the CAA community on one of the following topics: (1) Metadata, (2) Publishing in 3D, Sustainability, Preservation, and Forward Migration or (3) Technology Learning Curve/Infrastructure Collaboration. A roundtable discussion with audience and panel members will follow each discussion topic. Papers could address the following questions or others…•Metadata-- What information needs to be associated with 3D content to make it usable by secondary scholars? How does the standard for data collection about a research object differ across disciplines? How could metadata for one discipline be made nimble enough to be useful for others? Considering the speed at which technology changes are operating principles more feasible than standards? • Publishing 3D Work- What does it actually mean to publish 3D work? Are we giving primacy to 3D models? What kinds of annotations do we need to support? What kinds of interactions would we want to support? How to support visual/spatial/kinetic/sequential argumentation within 3D space? How to track and support different versions of a published model or database? How to track use statistics? How does one peer review digital work that challenges the prevailing print traditions? How does the user experience impact peer review? • Sustainability, Preservation, and Forward Migration- How does 3D content stand in terms of library collection development? What kinds of 3D content are most likely to be addressed by repositories in the near future? How might scholars working with 3D artifacts influence decisions that will shape collection policies relating to this content? What does it mean to archive a 3D project? What files should be preserved? How long should content be archived? Short-term or long-term? When can archived material be de-accessioned? How do we address situations where proprietary software/platforms used for a given project is no longer available or supported by its creator? And what can we do immediately to begin preserving our own work? • Technology Learning Curve/Infrastructure for Collaboration- How to address the technology learning curve? What information can be generated/shared with subsequent scholars to encourage 3D research? Is there a standard 3D toolkit? Would it help if recommendations for project development were posted online? How to support scholars working at institutions without the infrastructure for 3D work? How to build a community of scholars working with 3D? How can we easily connect scholars across disciplinary boundaries?
