Nominations for inclusion in MDR will be assessed according to the following:

  1. Scholarly quality
    1. Quality of research, analysis, and writing should meet prevailing academic standards.
    2. Projects should state and meet goals and methods; edited or archival projects should justify selection of materials, standards for selection, and parameters of collection.
    3. Project should make a substantial and/or innovative scholarly contribution to Medieval Studies.
      Note: Projects that consist solely of a digitized monograph are not suitable for MDR; however, born-digital research projects will be considered for inclusion.
  2. Access & Design
    1. The project’s design, metadata, and accessibility features should meet prevailing standards of digital scholarship, e.g. Examples of relevant standards include, but are not limited to:
      1. National Information Standards Organization (NISO) Framework of Guidance for Building Good Digital Collections ((3rd edn, 2007) at http://www.niso.org/publications/rp/framework3.pdf
      2. Dublin Core Metadata Initiative, Metadata Basics, at http://dublincore.org/specifications/
      3. The International Image Interoperability Framework (http://iiif.io) for image repositories, at http://iiif.io
      4. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2, at https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/quickref/
    2. The use of metadata that supports the community’s research practices and needs should also be considered. Projects should be well-maintained in content, interface, and platform. Recent and ongoing projects should be up to date and forward compatible. (Older projects and websites are not expected to meet all of these standards.)
    3. Image quality should meet prevailing standards for digital publication (see 2.1, above).
    4. The project/site should be widely available and easy to access and navigate. Useful resources for accessible design (see 2.1.4 above) include WebAIM and the 18F Accessibility Guide
    5. Publication, copyright, creator, and editorial credentials should be obvious. Projects should provide metadata or captions for images that include where the image is located, as well as permissions for all images or confirmation that no permissions were required.  Projects/sites that use materials in violation of copyright laws will not be considered for inclusion in MDR.
  1. Status of Projects/Site
    All projects/sites selected for inclusion in MDR will be classified as follows:

    1. Complete projects—collectively, serially, or individually authored—of high scholarly value which are fully realized, but still maintained, e.g. completed single-author website, a thematic bibliography comparable to a published volume, or a curated collection of images or texts, etc.
    2. Ongoing projects – projects or sites consistently monitored and updated at least several times a year, e.g., portals, databases, source collections. etc.
    3. Pending projects of scholarly importance, including projects/sites that are new and incomplete, that have become unstable (e.g. out of date, contain minimal content, have only sporadic maintenance), or that are longer publicly available.  Projects/sites classified as Pending will be reviewed annually and project status adjusted appropriately, including removal from MDR.
  2. Workflow
    MDR is a collaborative effort dependent on the contributions of the scholarly community. Anyone may nominate a digital project/website for peer approval and inclusion in MDR.

    1. Nominations may be made using the online form.
    2. The Executive Director of the Medieval Academy of America will forward recommended resources to the MAA’s Medieval DigitalbResources Committee for review.
    3. Reviewers from the MDR Committee are asked to submit their completed review forms within three months.
    4. If both reviewers approve the resource, it will be added to the MDR as soon as possible.  If one reviewer rejects the resource, it will be reviewed by the Executive Director to break the tie.
    5. The Executive Director will notify resource administrators of the final decision.