B33080 Humanities Computing: Electronic Text
University of Antwerp, Campus Drie Eiken
Second Term 2006
Edward Vanhoutte
edward.vanhoutte@kantl.be
http://www.edwardvanhoutte.org
B33080 Humanities Computing: Electronic Text
Week 1: Introduction to this course - Humanities Computing - History of the Internet - Hypertext.
University of Antwerp, Campus Drie Eiken
Monday 13 February
Edward Vanhoutte
- I.1. Congratulations
- I.2. Congratulations
- I.3. University Courses (a.o.)
- I.4. Short courses and summer/winter schools
- I.5. Monday 13 February
- II.1. 1.1.a. Explicit Objectives of this Course
- II.2. 1.1.a. Implicit Objectives of this Course
- II.3. 1.1.a. Contents of this Course
- II.4. 1.1.a. Humanities Computing
- II.5. 1.1.a. Digitization of Texts and Images
- II.6. 1.1.a. XML: eXtensible Markup Language
- II.7. 1.1.a. XSL: eXtensible Stylesheet Language
- II.8. 1.1.a. Not covered in the course
- II.9. 1.1.b. Assumptions
- II.10. 1.1.b. Non-Assumptions
- II.11. 1.1.c. The Lecturer: Edward Vanhoutte
- II.12. 1.1.c. You
- II.13. 1.1.d. Housekeeping Rules
- II.14. 1.1.d. Communication
- II.15. 1.1.d. What I Need Now
- II.16. 1.1.e. Overview of the course
- II.17. 1.1.f. Test Elementary Computer Skills
- II.18. Possible problems
- III.1. 1.2. Introduction to Humanities Computing
- III.2. 1.2.a. Humanities Computing: definitions
- III.3. 1.2.a. Humanities Computing: definitions
- III.4. 1.2.a. Humanities Computing: definitions
- III.5. 1.2.a. Humanities Computing: definitions
- III.6. 1.2.b. Humanities Computing: a field, a discipline?
- III.7. 1.2.b.a. Associations: A Selection
- III.8. 1.2.b.b. Journals (Print): A Selection
- III.9. 1.2.b.b. Journals (on-line): A Selection
- III.10. 1.2.b.c. Mailing Lists: A Selection
- III.11. 1.2.b.d. Publications: A Selection
- III.12. 1.2.b.e. Institutions
- III.13. 1.2.c. Humanities Computing: short history
I. Monday 13 February Introductions
Congratulations |    1 of 5 [36] |
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Congratulations | 2 of 5 [36] |
- Unique in Belgium
- Of direct relevance to the job market
- You managed to find this course
University Courses (a.o.) | 3 of 5 [36] |
- Australia
- Belgium
- Denmark
- Finland
- France
- Germany
- Italy
- Netherlands
- Norway
- Spain
- Sweden
- Czech Republic
- UK
- US
Short courses and summer/winter schools | 4 of 5 [36] |
- ESSLI, European Summer School in Logic, Language and Information, Edinburgh, UK
- Digital Humanities / Humanities Computing Summer Institute, University of Victoria, Canada
- Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH) University of Maryland; USA
- Manuscript & Elektronische Tekst Academie META04 The Centre for Scholarly Editing and Document Studies of the Royal Academy of Dutch Language and Literature, Gent, Belgium
- Book & Text Studies: Humanities Computing, Rhodes University, South Africa
- → http://www.tei-c.org/Activities/SIG/Training/short_courses.html
Monday 13 February | 5 of 5 [36] |
- Introduction to this course
- Objectives of this course
- (Non-)Assumptions
- Me & You
- Housekeeping Rules
- Overview of the Course
- Test Elementary Computer Skills
- Introduction to Humanities Computing
- Humanities Computing: definitions
- Humanities Computing: a field, a discipline
- Associations involved
- Journals and mailinglists
- Publications
- Institutions
- Humanities Computing: short history
- Computing
- Hardware
- Graphical Interface
1.1.a. Explicit Objectives of this Course | 1 of 18 [36] |
- Digitization
- XML
- XSL
- Project management
1.1.a. Implicit Objectives of this Course | 2 of 18 [36] |
- Team work
- Project management
- Problem solving thinking
1.1.a. Contents of this Course | 3 of 18 [36] |
- Humanities Computing
- Digitization of text and images
- XML
- XSL
1.1.a. Humanities Computing | 4 of 18 [36] |
After this course, you should be aware of:
- what humanities computing is
- why it matters
- what it can do for us
- what it can do for the humanities
1.1.a. Digitization of Texts and Images | 5 of 18 [36] |
After this course, you should be aware of:
- what a digital image is
- what a digital text is
- what digitization is
- why you would digitize an object
- ways of obtaining texts
- how digitization works
- tools, techniques, and standards
- files and formats
1.1.a. XML: eXtensible Markup Language | 6 of 18 [36] |
XML is a metalanguage by which one can create separate markup languages for seperate purposes. After this course you should know how to:
- analyse a document
- create a well formed XML document
- create a valid XML document
- parse an XML document for validation
- read and interpret an XML document
- create and read small DTDs
- use and understand TEI-Lite
- use and understand DALF
1.1.a. XSL: eXtensible Stylesheet Language | 7 of 18 [36] |
XSLT is a tool for processing XML documents. After this course, you should know how to:
- transform XML from one datatype to another
- style XML for display in off-the-shelf Web browsers
- use XPath to denote specific parts of a document
- use XSLT as a search engine
- segment your data
- retag your data
- express recursive algorithms in XSLT
1.1.a. Not covered in the course | 8 of 18 [36] |
- (X)HTML, CSS
- ECDL
- Web design, page design, typography
- XSL formatting objects
- Tricks of the trade (production use)
- Digital audio and video
- Three dimensional digitization
1.1.b. Assumptions | 9 of 18 [36] |
I assume that:
- You have elementary computer skills:
- know how to work with multiple windows
- work with the mouse
- create folders and files
- download files from the internet
- You are interested in literary and historical texts, databases, and images.
- You expect to work with XML data, and need to:
- markup texts
- display information
- extract information
- reformat information
- You expect to work with digitized texts and images
- Understand English
- (and a little bit of Scottish and Dutch)
1.1.b. Non-Assumptions | 10 of 18 [36] |
I do not assume that:
- You know something about programming
- You know something about markup, transformations, and digitization
- You know XML and can edit XML documents
- You have used XSLT
- You are a programmer
1.1.c. The Lecturer: Edward Vanhoutte | 11 of 18 [36] |
- Director of research, Centre for Scholarly Editing and Document Studies of the Royal Academy of Dutch Language and Literature (CTB-KANTL)
- Associate University Teacher in Humanities Computing, University of Antwerp
- Associate Editor Literary and Linguistic Computing
- Degrees in Germanic Languages and Literature, Mediaeval Studies, Education
- email: edward.vanhoutte@kantl.be
- http://www.kantl.be/ctb/vanhoutte/
- http://www.kantl.be/ctb/staff/edward.htm
- http://www.edwardvanhoutte.org
1.1.c. You | 12 of 18 [36] |
I want to know:
- Who you are (name)
- What you do
- What you study
- Why you're here
- What you expect of this course
1.1.d. Housekeeping Rules | 13 of 18 [36] |
- Marking:
- Permanent Evaluation: presence and participation in the weekly lectures
- Weekly Assignments
- Group Assignment: electronic edition of the correspondence of John T. Whalen and Theodore Bissell
- Lectures:
- Academic 15 min for checking email
- Always bring a disk
- Preparation & exercises
- Required readings
- Suggested readings
- → Reader
- Course website:
- http://www.kantl.be/ctb/vanhoutte/teach/hc2006.htm
- Check it regularily
- No "I-didn't-know-it"s
- Updated every Wednesday noon
1.1.d. Communication | 14 of 18 [36] |
- A1.13
- Communication is via email
- I can be reached at all times (and I mean at all times) at edward.vanhoutte@kantl.be
1.1.d. What I Need Now | 15 of 18 [36] |
- → A copy of your student card
- → A mail with your email address to edward.vanhoutte@kantl.be
1.1.e. Overview of the course | 16 of 18 [36] |
- Monday 13 February: 1. Introduction to this course - Humanities Computing - History of modern computing
- Monday 20 February: 2.
- History of the Internet - Hypertext
- XML theory and practice: Text & Computers - Text Encoding & Markup - Document Analysis - DTD
- Monday 27 February : 3. XML theory and practice: HTML - SGML/XML - TEI - well formed XML - DTD - Schema
- Monday 6 March: 4. XML theory and practice: Valid XML - Parsing/Validating - TeixLite
- Monday 13 March: 5. XML theory and practice: TEI - DALF
- Monday 20 March: 6. XSL theory and practice: basics, XPath, function
- Monday 27 March: 7. XSL theory and practice: Real XSLT
- Monday 17 April: 8 Easter Monday - No Class
- Monday 24 April: 9. Guest Lecture Dr. Melissa Terras
- Monday 1 May.: 10. 1 May - No Class
- Group Project - Documentary "Into the Future"
1.1.f. Test Elementary Computer Skills | 17 of 18 [36] |
- Make three folders on your C drive, name them "Man", "Woman", "Baby".
- Download the following files from http://www.kantl.be/ctb/vanhoutte/teach/hc2006.htm
- Week 1 > The Field of Humanistic Informatics and its Relation to the Humanities (HI.html): put HI.html in folder "Man"
- Week 4 > teixlite.dtd: put teixlite.dtd in folder "Woman"
- Bottom > XHTML 1.0 logo (valid-xhtml10.png): put valid-xhtml10.png in folder "Baby"
- Put the contents of "Baby" in "Woman" and delete "Baby"
- Copy the contents of "Woman" to "Man"
- Save the remaining folders to a disk
- Pass the disk on to your right hand neighbour
- Explore the contents of the disk and show me
Possible problems | 18 of 18 [36] |
- Your webbrowser doesn't know files with extensions .dtd / .xml / etc.
→ save as "all files" and add extension yourself
→ don't follow the link but use right click to "save target as"
1.2. Introduction to Humanities Computing | 1 of 13 [36] |
- a. Humanities Computing: definitions
- b. Humanities Computing: a field, a discipline
- a. Associations
- b. Journals
- c. Mailinglists
- d. Publications
- e. Institutions
- c. Humanities Computing: short history
1.2.a. Humanities Computing: definitions | 2 of 13 [36] |
Humanities Computing is an academic field concerned with the application of computing tools to arts and humanities data or their use in the creation of these data.
Willard McCarty
1.2.a. Humanities Computing: definitions | 3 of 13 [36] |
To apply Computing solutions to valid, and generally complex, Humanities based problems to provide access and answers that otherwise would have been impossible.
Melissa Terras
1.2.a. Humanities Computing: definitions | 4 of 13 [36] |
Humanities Computing or Digital Humanities is an interesting field at the intersection of a wide array of disciplines which can be roughly identified as belonging to either the Humanities or to Computer Science (Informatics).
Edward Vanhoutte
Wen wir die Sache so verstehen, so leuchtet sofort ein, dass die geisteswissenschaftliche Informationsverarbeitung keine eigenständige Wissenschaft ist und unmöglich eine werden kann. Den jedes Problem, das wir haben, ist entweder mit einem Problem der Informatik oder mit einem Problem der Geisteswissenschaften vermunden, jede Methode gleichfalls.
Michael Sperberg-McQueen
1.2.a. Humanities Computing: definitions | 5 of 13 [36] |
Required reading:
- Willard McCarty (2002). Humanities Computing (Preliminary draft entry for The Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science, New York: Dekker, 2003.)
→ http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/wlm/essays/encyc/
1.2.b. Humanities Computing: a field, a discipline? | 6 of 13 [36] |
Required reading
- Marilyn Deegan (2000). "Introduction." Frances Condron, Michael Fraser & Stuart Sutherland (eds.), Guide to Digital Resources for the Humanities 2000. Oxford: CTI.
Further reading
- Michael Sperberg-McQueen (2002). "Geisteswissenschaften und Informatik. Zur aktuellen Situation und zu künftigen Aufgaben." In Thomas Burch, Johannes Fournier, Kurt Gärtner and Andrea Rapp (eds.), Standards und Methoden der Volltextdigitalisierung. Mainz/Stuttgart: Akedemie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur/Franz Steiner Verlag. 27-37.
- Willard McCarty (25 November 2005). Tree, Turf, Centre, Archipelago--or Wild Acre? Metaphors and Stories for Humanities Computing. Literary and Linguistic Computing, doi:10.1093/llc/fqi066 http://llc.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/fqi066v1
1.2.b.a. Associations: A Selection | 7 of 13 [36] |
- Association for Literary and Linguistic Computing (ALLC)
→ http://www.allc.org - Association for Computers and the Humanities (ACH)
→ http://www.ach.org - Alliance of Digital Humanities Organisations (ADHO)
→ http://www.digitalhumanities.org - Text Encoding Initiative Consortium (TEI)
→ http://www.tei-c.org
1.2.b.b. Journals (Print): A Selection | 8 of 13 [36] |
- Literary & Linguistic Computing
- Computers and the Humanities [discontinued]
- Human IT
- Markup Languages: Theory and Practice [discontinued]
- Computers and Texts
- Revue. Informatique et Statistiques dans les Sciences Humaines.
- Text Technology. The Journal of Computer Text Processing.
- Cultural & Heritage Informatics Quarterly
Institutional models for humanities computing
→ http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/allc/imhc/
→ http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/allc/imhc/
1.2.b.b. Journals (on-line): A Selection | 9 of 13 [36] |
- Digital Humanities Quarterly
→ http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/ - Digital Medievalist
→ http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/ - DigiNews (RLG)
→ http://www.thames.rlg.org/preserv/diginews/ - D-Lib Magazine
→ http://www.dlib.org/dlib/ - Journal of Digital Information
→ http://jodi.ecs.soton.ac.uk/ - Journal of Electronic Publishing
→ http://www.press.umich.edu/jep/ - Ariadne
→ http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/
Institutional models for humanities computing
→ http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/allc/imhc/
→ http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/allc/imhc/
1.2.b.c. Mailing Lists: A Selection | 10 of 13 [36] |
- Humanist
an international electronic seminar on the application of computers to the humanities whose primary aim is to provide a forum for discussion of intellectual, scholarly, pedagogical, and social issues and for exchange of information among members.
→ http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/ - TEI-L
a discussion for newbies and advanced users of the TEI. → http://listserv.brown.edu/archives/tei-l.html
- E-DOCS
a discussion list and website for professionals involved in the production, distribution, and organization of historical documents on the Internet. Offers an index of "Best Practices and Exemplary Sites."
→ http://history.furman.edu/edocs/
1.2.b.d. Publications: A Selection | 11 of 13 [36] |
- Susan Hockey (2000). Electronic Texts in the Humanities. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Jahrbuch für Computerphilologie - print (München, Germany) & online
→ http://computerphilologie.uni-muenchen.de/ejournal.html - Teresa Numerico and Arturo Vespignani (eds.) (2003). Informatica per le scienze umanistiche. Bologna: Il Mulino.
- Office for Humanities Communication Publications (King's College London, currently 16 titles in print)
- Susan Schreibman, Ray Siemens and John Unsworth (eds.) (2004). A Companion to Digital Humanities. Malden, MA/Oxford/Carlton: Blackwell Publishing.
- Willard McCarty (2005). Humanities Computing. London: Palgrave.
1.2.b.e. Institutions | 12 of 13 [36] |
Institutional models for humanities computing
→ http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/allc/imhc/
→ http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/allc/imhc/
1.2.c. Humanities Computing: short history | 13 of 13 [36] |
Required reading
- Susan Hockey (2004). 'The History of Humanities Computing.' in Susan Schreibman, Ray Siemens and John Unsworth (eds.), A Companion to Digital Humanities. Malden, MA/Oxford/Carlton: Blackwell Publishing.
Further reading:
- Michael Fraser (1996). A Hypertextual History of Humanities Computing
→ http://info.ox.ac.uk/ctitext/history/intro.html - Joseph Raben, "Humanities Computing 25 Years Later" Computers and the Humanities 25 (December, 1991): 341-350