Advanced TEI Seminar at University at Buffalo: Schedule

Schemas, etc.

The schemas we will use can be found (among other things) on the handouts page

Monday, October 4 (830 Clemens)

08:30 Breakfast available

09:00–09:30 Welcome and introductions

09:30–12:00 Establishing common practice (presentations and discussion)

In this opening session we'll consider the basics of good manuscript encoding practice, using examples and use cases from participant projects as the jumping-off point. We'll discuss questions including:

• What information does a reader need to receive from the encoded representation in order to usefully study the text in basic ways?
• What are the basic, essential features of a good manuscript encoding?
• What features are still challenging to encode in TEI? where are the greatest encoding difficulties and what strategies have been developed for addressing them?
• Is it possible to envision a shared set of "best practices" for manuscript encoding, and if not, why not?

Slides: HTML, TEI

Lunch

13:30–15:00 Project Presentations

Presentations from:

• Tammy Gaskell and Dana Dorman, Historical Society of Pennsylvania
• Nancy Heywood, Massachusetts Historical Society

15:30–17:00 Hands-on practice

Group dinner, details to follow

Tuesday, October 5

09:00–12:00 Representing authorship, editorial position, and documentary materiality (slides, toy “manuscript” image, genetic test case image)

In this session we'll consider some more specialized encoding to handle details of authoring and revision processes, as well as ways of representing the material aspects of the manuscript document. The TEI is now considering a new module to support genetic editing, which includes a number of features that will be useful to many of us who are interested in revision processes and documentary materiality. We'll take a look at these new features and then examine some further use cases from participant projects. Important questions for this session include:

• What aspects of editorial position and debate do readers need to receive from the encoding, in order to work with the text effectively? What aspects of editorial practice need to be reflected in the encoding?
• What editorial assumptions are embedded tacitly in our markup?
• Are there areas where our markup expresses conflicting editorial assumptions?
• What features are still challenging to encode in TEI? where are the greatest encoding difficulties and what strategies have been developed for addressing them?
• What encoding features in this area are most useful to readers, most worth the effort of encoding?

Lunch

13:30–15:00 Project presentations

Presentations from:

• Heyward Ehrlich, Rutgers University
• Rose Marie Walter, Willamette University
• Ronan Crowley, University at Buffalo

15:30–17:00 Hands-on practice

During this hands-on session participants will have an opportunity to work with the new TEI module if they choose, or on developing or refining a TEI customization for their project, using Roma or (for the more adventurous) by editing the ODD file directly. Participants can also work on extending their encoding.

Wednesday, October 6

09:00–12:00 A comparative look at other projects (slides)

In this morning's session we'll look at some other manuscript-focused projects and (where possible) their markup, and consider their practices in light of our discussions. We'll also discuss the publication tools these projects are using and those used in participants' projects. Some questions to consider for discussion:

• How do these interfaces support different kinds of textual and historical research?
• What kinds of information are needed to drive these interfaces? How do we need to shape our encoding to support the research tools we want to build?
• What are the different models of usage represented by participants' projects? How do the encoding models differ as a result?

Lunch

13:30–16:00 Special topics

We'll finish up by addressing whatever special topics seem most appropriate, given the discussion so far. Some options include:

• Customization and manuscript encoding
• Metadata for manuscript projects
• Work flow and transcription practices

Wrap-up (slides)

Readings

• TEI Guidelines, Chapter 11: Representation of Primary Sources
• An Encoding Model for Genetic Editions: Draft documentation for a new TEI module on genetic editing
• Alois Pichler, Transcriptions, Texts and Interpretation, in Culture and Value. International Wittgenstein Symposium 18. Edited by Kjell S. Johannessen and Tore Nordenstam. pp. 690-695.
• Jerome McGann, "Marking Texts of Many Dimensions", in A Companion to Digital Humanities, ed. Susan Schreibman, Ray Siemens, John Unsworth. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004.
• Optional: Alois Pichler, "Encoding Wittgenstein" (easier-to-read version)
• Project descriptions and materials from WWP TEI wiki