Workspace for Collaborative Editing
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Birmingham
Department Name: School of Philosophy Theology & Religion
Abstract
This project will establish a shared Workspace for Collaborative Editing based on digital technology. Scholars will execute the entire editing process within the Workspace. The Workspace will be based on the editorial tools developed by the Text Grid project and partners in the COST-ESF Inter Edition project. The Kompetenzzentrum für elektronische Erschließungs- und Publikationsverfahren in den Geisteswissenschaften, Universität Trier (hereafter Kompetenzzentrum), are members of the Text Grid consortium and are leading the development of the respective Text Grid tools.
Through an essential collaboration with them, the Workspace project will refine and elaborate these tools to meet the demanding requirements of the two leading groups of scholars involved in editing the Greek New Testament. These are the Institute for New Testament Textual Research at the University of Münster (INTF) and the International Greek New Testament Project (IGNTP). The Workspace will support the full range of functionality needed by two partners: for transcription of texts from many languages, in many different writing systems; for precise scholarly comparison of the texts; for comprehensive analysis of the relations between the texts; and for full print and online publication. The Workspace will fulfil these needs for the New Testament texts. Other texts edited by the Birmingham partner will also move into the Workspace.
Through an essential collaboration with them, the Workspace project will refine and elaborate these tools to meet the demanding requirements of the two leading groups of scholars involved in editing the Greek New Testament. These are the Institute for New Testament Textual Research at the University of Münster (INTF) and the International Greek New Testament Project (IGNTP). The Workspace will support the full range of functionality needed by two partners: for transcription of texts from many languages, in many different writing systems; for precise scholarly comparison of the texts; for comprehensive analysis of the relations between the texts; and for full print and online publication. The Workspace will fulfil these needs for the New Testament texts. Other texts edited by the Birmingham partner will also move into the Workspace.
Organisations
- University of Birmingham (Lead Research Organisation)
- Abilene Christian University (Collaboration)
- European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) (Collaboration)
- University of Trier (Collaboration)
- University of Leuven (Collaboration)
- School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London) (Collaboration)
Publications
Houghton H
(2011)
Recent Developments in New Testament Textual Criticism
in Early Christianity
Houghton, H.A.G.
(2014)
The Workspace for Collaborative Editing
in Abstracts
Houghton, H.A.G.
(2013)
IGNTP guidelines for XML transcriptions of New Testament manuscripts (version 1.4)
Houghton, H.A.G.
(2012)
IGNTP guidelines for XML transcriptions of New Testament manuscripts (version 1.3)
Houghton, H.A.G.
(2011)
IGNTP guidelines for XML transcriptions of New Testament manuscripts (version 1.1)
Parker, D.C.
(2012)
Textual Scholarship and the Making of the New Testament
| Description | The Workspace for Collaborative Editing provides an online environment to support the creation of an edition of the Greek New Testament, the Novum Testamentum Graecum Editio Critica Maior. The applications created by the project include an online transcription editor, producing TEI P5 XML transcriptions in a what-you-see-is-what-you-get environment, and interactive tools for producing and editing a collation of witnesses using the CollateX collation algorithm. For further information about the project, please contact the principal investigator, Dr Hugh Houghton at ITSEE in the University of Birmingham and visit the project homepage at http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/workspace. |
| Exploitation Route | The platform and its tools are being used by teams in Birmingham, Münster and Wuppertal to edit the Editio Critica Maior; in 2017 it is expected that a project based in North Carolina will also use the same platform. The software has also been incorporated into the New Testament Virtual Manuscript Room (http://ntvmr.uni-muenster.de/) and the VMR-CRE platform (http://vmrcre.org/), where it is being used for editing projects on other texts in Göttingen, Thessaloniki and the USA. After several years of interest and joint applications, the members of the Workspace Project have been brought together by Prof. Almut Hintze to develop and customise the tools created by the project for her ERC Advanced Grant Project on the Multimedia Yasna (MUYA, 2016-21; see http://multimediayasna.wixsite.com/muya). |
| Sectors | Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| URL | http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/workspace |
| Description | The results of this project are (1) an online platform for editing textual traditions; (2) individual software applications for different stages of this process; (3) standards for data files. The individual applications, in addition to being available on the Workspace's own platform, have also been integrated into the NT.VMR (http://ntvmr.uni-muenster.de) and the VMR.CRE (http://vmrcre.org/) a downloadable platform for making Collaborative Digital Editions. The encoding of XML transcription files has been adopted by the International Greek New Testament project for its work on John and Paul and related projects on Coptic and Latin manuscripts of these books, and the Münster Institut für neutestamentliche Textforschung for all its transcriptions. It was also used for the Cambridge University Digital Library's edition of Codex Bezae, published in 2012. The main outputs of the Workspace Project, the Online Transcription Editor and Collation Editor, have also been incorporated into the Multimedia Yasna project, an ERC Advanced Grant project led by Prof. Almut Hinte from 2016-2021. This project will involve their further development to handle different texts and writing systems. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2014 |
| Sector | Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| Impact Types | Cultural |
| Description | ERC Advanced Grant (PI Dr Almut Hintze) |
| Amount | € 2,500,000 (EUR) |
| Funding ID | 694612 |
| Organisation | European Research Council (ERC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | Belgium |
| Start | 10/2016 |
| End | 09/2021 |
| Description | GALaCSy: The Earliest Translations of the Pauline Epistles |
| Amount | £284,584 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | AH/W010577/1 |
| Organisation | Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 02/2022 |
| End | 01/2025 |
| Description | Optimizing the Apparatus Construction of the Editio Critica Maior |
| Amount | £10,222 (GBP) |
| Organisation | University of Münster |
| Department | Institute for New Testament Textual Research |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | Germany |
| Start | 10/2016 |
| End | 09/2017 |
| Title | 248 transcriptions of manuscripts of the Gospel according to John in Greek |
| Description | These 248 transcriptions, made by the AHRC-funded Principio Project and International Greek New Testament project, have been converted to the XML specifications developed by the Workspace and made available on the website http://www.iohannes.com/XML |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2013 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | The encoding has been used as a standard for other projects, e.g. the Codex Bezae Transcription in the Cambridge University Digital Library. |
| URL | http://www.iohannes.com/XML |
| Title | 36 XML transcriptions of the Gospel According to John in Latin |
| Description | Conversion to XML format of the transcriptions of Latin Gospel manuscripts made by the AHRC-funded Verbum project between 2002 and 2005. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2011 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Publication of edition in Vetus Latina series. |
| URL | http://www.iohannes.com/XML |
| Title | Conversion to XML of 14 Coptic manuscripts |
| Description | Transcriptions of the 14 manuscripts of John comprising the non-Sahidic Coptic versions made by Christian Askeland. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2011 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Askeland published a book in 2012 (The Coptic Translations of its Greek Text, 2012, ISBN 978-3-11-028138-5 (ANTF 44)) and adopted this electronic format for his subsequent work on Revelation. |
| URL | http://www.iohannes.com/XML/ |
| Title | Database of citations of John in Greek writers before 500 CE |
| Description | This dataset, listed by Prof. Parker in 2014, has now been migrated to a new server. See the URL below. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2014 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Citational data for the ECM of John, which is being added in preparation for the printed edition. |
| URL | https://itsee-wce.birmingham.ac.uk/citations/search |
| Description | Abilene Christian University: Colossians Project |
| Organisation | Abilene Christian University |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Support for using software, workflow management, expert advice |
| Collaborator Contribution | Transcriptions, project management |
| Impact | Transcription fo Colossians leading to an online apparatus and, eventually, the Editio Critica Maior of this Epistle. |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | Birmingham Bootcamp on CollateX |
| Organisation | European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) |
| Department | An Interoperable Supranational Infrastructure for Digital Editions (Interedition) |
| Country | European Union (EU) |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | Three-day meeting for INTEREDITION programmers and participants in the WORKSPACE project to develop CollateX use cases for New Testament manuscripts |
| Collaborator Contribution | INTEREDITION developed the CollateX algorithm used for the automatic file comparison in the Workspace's Collation Editor. |
| Impact | The Collation Editor from the Workspace is an outcome of this partnership. A follow-up meeting took place in October 2014, the "Collation Summit" hosted by the University of Münster. This is multidisciplinary, in that computer programmers and textual scholars from different fields were involved. |
| Start Year | 2011 |
| Description | Collaboration with Trier Kompetenzzentrum für elektronische Erschließungs- und Publikationsverfahren in den Geisteswissenschaften |
| Organisation | University of Trier |
| Department | Competence Centre for Electronic Processing and Publication in the Humanities |
| Country | Germany |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Participants in the project funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Trier were responsible for the development of the online Transcription Editor. |
| Impact | An application was made to the AHRC Digital Transformations Amplification Awards in February 2014 with Trier as co-investigators to adapt the editor for different textual traditions. The Online Transcription Editor has also been incorporated into the NTVMR. |
| Start Year | 2010 |
| Description | Partnership with Christina Kreinecker (1COR) |
| Organisation | University of Leuven |
| Country | Belgium |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | We provided data in the form of manuscript transcriptions and biblical citations, along with training in digital editing software used and developed in Birmingham, and shared expertise through regular meetings in work towards critical editions of the Latin and Greek New Testament. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The team at Leuven refined and improved the data gathered in Birmingham, and used it to prepare critical editions of 1 Corinthians. The regular meetings between the two teams also permitted the sharing of expertise and approaches, informing Birmingham's own work on Galatians. |
| Impact | 30 published and proofread transcriptions of Greek manuscripts of 1 Corinthians 20 published and proofread transcriptions of Latin manuscripts of 1 Corinthians 10 transcriptions of Vulgate manuscripts of 1 Corinthians 34,000 Latin quotations of 1 Corinthians 15,000 Greek quotations of 1 Corinthians |
| Start Year | 2022 |
| Description | Partnership with Prof. Almut Hintze at SOAS |
| Organisation | School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London) |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Prof. Hintze contacted Dr Houghton and Prof. Parker at ITSEE to ask them to advise on an electronic edition of the Yasna using tools developed as part of the Workspace. This led to a funding bid in February 2014 (recorded separately). In 2016, ITSEE became a formal partner in the ERC-funded Multimedia Yasna (MUYA) project led by Prof. Hintze. |
| Collaborator Contribution | They provided specialist knowledge of a new field of study to which this software could be applied. |
| Impact | Collaborative bid to AHRC Digital transformations Amplification Awards, February 2014. European Research Council Advanced Grant of (€2.5M) awarded to Prof. Hintze in March 2016: formal partnership with ITSEE and Trier to develop software. Ongoing informal links between Avestan scholars and programmers associated with the Workspace. |
| Start Year | 2012 |
| Title | Collation Editor |
| Description | An interface for CollateX enabling textual scholars to regularise the results of a collation, set the length of variant units and order the readings within a collation. Output as a critical apparatus in XML, JSON, or plain text |
| Type Of Technology | Webtool/Application |
| Year Produced | 2015 |
| Impact | This software has been used to edit the collation of the Gospel according to John for the Novum Testamentum Graecum Editio Critica Maior, and will also be used for Mark and other New Testament books. It is also planned to use it for the Multimedia Yasna Project. |
| URL | https://github.com/itsee-birmingham/collation_editor |
| Title | Collation Editor Core |
| Description | Core software for collation editor |
| Type Of Technology | Webtool/Application |
| Year Produced | 2018 |
| Open Source License? | Yes |
| Impact | Creation of Editio Critica Maior, Digital Yasna edition and other electronic and printed scholarly editions |
| URL | https://itsee-wce.birmingham.ac.uk/ |
| Title | MAGPY |
| Description | MAGPY is the framework on which the Workspace for Collaborative Editing runs. It is available from https://github.com/zeth/magpy where it is described as "a web application framework designed to help you write rich HTML5 applications based on a fast asynchronous RESTful document-centric approach". Documentation may be found at: http://zeth.github.io/magpy/index.html |
| Type Of Technology | Software |
| Year Produced | 2013 |
| Open Source License? | Yes |
| Impact | Creation of the rest of the Workspace from which digital editions are being produced. |
| URL | https://github.com/zeth/magpy |
| Title | OTE |
| Description | Online Transcription Editor producing HTML/XML transcriptions in a What-you-see-is-what-you-get interface. |
| Type Of Technology | Webtool/Application |
| Year Produced | 2013 |
| Impact | The tool has been integrated into the Workspace for Collaborative Editing (http://www.itsee.birmingham.ac.uk/ote/) and the NTVMR (http://ntvmr.uni-muenster.de/manuscript-workspace/). In the latter interface, it is being used by a US-based project to transcribe the manuscripts of 1 Timothy (http://ntvmr.uni-muenster.de/web/gsi-greek-paul-project/welcome). It is also currently being adapted for use by a project editing Zoroastrian texts in London and Salamanca and a Coptic Old Testament project in Göttingen. |
| URL | http://sourceforge.net/projects/wfce-ote/ |
| Title | Standalone Collation Editor |
| Description | Editing interface for automated collation of multiple electronic transcriptions |
| Type Of Technology | Webtool/Application |
| Year Produced | 2018 |
| Open Source License? | Yes |
| Impact | Creation of Editio Critica Maior and other scholarly editions |
| URL | https://itsee-wce.birmingham.ac.uk/ |
| Title | Transcription Reconciler |
| Description | Offline tool to compare two electronic transcriptions |
| Type Of Technology | Webtool/Application |
| Year Produced | 2018 |
| Open Source License? | Yes |
| Impact | Assistance with creation of electronic editions |
| URL | https://github.com/itsee-birmingham/transcription_reconciler |
| Description | Digital Editing and the Greek New Testament (Oxford, 2014) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Invited presentation to Lincoln College Oxford Greek Palaeography Summer School. The talk was reported on a blog. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| URL | http://evangelicaltextualcriticism.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/greek-palaeography-in-oxford.html |
| Description | Dr. Basudev Kar Memorial Oration in the Humanities |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Inaugural Lecture, Dr. Basudev Kar Memorial Oration in the Humanities, Centre for Translation and Digital Humanities, Ravenshaw University, Cuttack, India. Livestreamed to India with around 100 present in the audience. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Durham NT Seminar |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Presentation to Durham University New Testament Seminar on 14.2.2022 "Towards a New Text of the Pauline Epistles: Editing the New Testament in the Digital Age" |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Editing the Greek and Latin New Testament in a Digital Age (Cardiff 2012) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Lecture given to Cardiff University Religious Studies and Theology Research Seminar, which included an introduction to the Workspace. Support from a member of staff at Cardiff for another research project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2012 |
| Description | Invited Lecture, DHOxSS |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Invited presentation at Oxford Digital Humanities Summer School, 23rd July 2019 |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Invited Presentation (Virtual Research Environments, Lausanne) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Online conference on Virtual Research environments: presentation given by Houghton and Smith on 11th Sept 2020, "Codex Zacynthius: Editing a Virtual Manuscript in the Digital Research Environment" |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://mark16.sib.swiss/conference |
| Description | Public Lecture (Paris) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Lecture: Éditer la Bible à l'ère numérique (Sorbonne University, Paris, 11.4.2019) |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Technical Developments: The Workspace for Collaborative Editing |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | Presentation by Houghton and Smith as part of the "Editio Critica Maior" session in the SBL Annual Meeting, Baltimore 2013. Enthusiastic response from audience. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013 |
| Description | Update on the Workspace for Collaborative Editing - blog post |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Blog post reporting progress on project. No feedback. In fact, I think there were no further posts on this blog! |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2011 |
| URL | http://www.vmr.birmingham.ac.uk/itsee/2011/07/09/workspace-update/ |
| Description | Website connected with the project |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Website created to summarise project outputs |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | http://birmingham.ac.uk/workspace |
| Description | Website presenting project tools |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Tools put online to enable them to be used by various data-gathering projects |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016,2017 |
| URL | http://www.itsee.birmingham.ac.uk/ |
| Description | Workshop on using and installing CollateX (Trier 2013) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Afternoon workshop by Houghton, Smith and Green for German computer scientists interested in using CollateX. Followed up by enquiries by email afterwards. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013 |