MS. Arch. Selden B. 26, 10r

What: Encoding Music and Text: an exploration

When: 09:00–13:00, Wednesday 11 January 2017

Where: Centre for Digital Scholarship, Weston Library (map)

Access: open to all

Admission: free

Booking is required: to reserve a place on this workshop, please email Pip Willcox, pip.willcox@bodleian.ox.ac.uk

You are invited to join us for a multidisciplinary workshop exploring and articulating the current state of digital encoding for music and text, and where we might go next.

Creating digital editions of text and of music is well understood. Two established XML-based standards in common use are the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) and the Music Encoding Initiative (MEI). Both TEI and MEI are used to signify the encoding standard and the governing community that creates and uses it.

The TEI was founded in 1987 and is a mature and still developing standard with a large and lively international community. The MEI, founded in 1999, has been inspired by the TEI, and is equally the focus of an international, growing community.

While the two encoding initiatives are not formally related, they share many common characteristics and development practices. A TEI-encoded text can be embedded in an MEI-encoded document and vice versa. There has been work in this field already, including through the TEI Music Special Interest Group, and a repository of associated files is available online.

This workshop will explore how well this is working, and where there are spaces for improvement in documentation or in coding. Discussions will focus around case studies and will be generalizable.

Objectives

This workshop will bring together colleagues with a range of subject and disciplinary interests both to understand the scope of the current knowledge of the music- and text-encoding landscapes and to articulate fields for potential development. Our discussions will grow from questions such as:

• What are our preferred methodologies and tools for encoding music and text in one document?
• Is greater interoperability desirable?
• What features of MEI and TEI do not currently interoperate happily?
• How do we deal with competing hierarchies?
• What tools and technologies are currently in use to work with, interrogate, and present music- and text-encoded documents?
• How can we move seamlessly between music and text views, depending on a particular encoder’s or reader’s interests?
• How might these tools be developed further to improve our understanding and facilitate our use of these documents?
• What new tools do we need?

Schedule

• 09.00 Coffee
• 09.30 Welcome and introductions
• 09.45 The view from here: MEI
• 10.15 The view from here: TEI
• 10.30 Reflections/discussion
• 10.45 Case study
• 10.30 Facilitated break-out groups (facilitated by organizers; designated reporters)
• 11:30 Break for refreshments
• 11:50 Facilitated break-out groups, continuation
• 12:20 Reporting back (5 minutes per group)
• 12:35 Responses and discussion
• 12:50 Next steps
• 13.00 Close

This workshop is organized by:

• Xavier Bach, Queen’s College, University of Oxford
• James Cummings, IT Services, University of Oxford
• Andrew Hankinson, Faculty of Music/Oxford e-Research Centre, University of Oxford
• Raffaele Viglianti, Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities
• Pip Willcox, Head of the Centre for Digital Scholarship, Bodleian Libraries/Oxford e-Research Centre, University of Oxford

Image: James Cummings

By popular demand after the workshop in Michaelmas term, we are delighted to offer another opportunity to learn about digital editing and the Text Encoding Initiative.

“a clear overview in a short amount of time” —workshop participant, October 2016

Research Technology Consultation, IT Services and the Centre for Digital Scholarship offer a course introducing the Guidelines of the Text Encoding Initiative for creating digital texts. The workshop uses materials developed for the Digital Humanities at Oxford Summer School.

If you’re interested in learning about markup and encoding digital editions, this course is for you!

“[I particularly enjoyed the] practicality of the workshop, which made us able to use at least a simple TEI architecture straight away” —workshop participant, October 2016

What: How to make a digital edition: an introduction to the Text Encoding Initiative

Who: James Cummings and Pip Willcox

When: 09:30–16:30, Thursday 16 and Friday 17 February 2017

Where: Centre for Digital Scholarship, Weston Library (map)

Access: open to members of the University of Oxford

Admission: free

Booking is required: to reserve a place on this workshop, please email Pip Willcox, pip.willcox@bodleian.ox.ac.uk

This two-day workshop balances introductory-level lectures with hands-on practical sessions to introduce and survey the recommendations of the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) for creation of digital text.

“a great class” —workshop participant, October 2016

You don’t need any previous experience with digital text or markup: we provide introductions to markup, XML, and the infrastructure of the TEI P5 Guidelines. The TEI Guidelines are suitable for encoding any sort of text, in any language or writing system, but examples will mostly been drawn from projects the tutors have worked on.

The workshop covers general metadata, the transcription and description of manuscripts, and metadata concerning the names of people, places, and organizations. This is aimed at beginners, and the workshop alternates between lectures surveying a topic and hands-on practicals giving you a chance to practise what you have learned. There will also be time for discussion of participants’ own projects.

“The instructors were both clearly not merely experts, but indeed recognized authorities in the field of TEI. Their level of knowledge was incredibly reassuring and that benefited us as students in innumerable ways.” —workshop participant, October 2016

Equipment

Participants are requested to bring a laptop with the latest version of oXygen XML Editor. As a member of the University, using your Single Sign On you can download this software and the required licence free of charge, via IT Services’ Software Registration and Download. If you cannot bring a laptop with you, please let us know before the day.

James Cummings is a Senior Academic Research Technology Specialist for IT Services at the University of Oxford. James is founding Director of the annual Digital Humanities at Oxford Summer School and is an elected member (and previously chair) of the TEI Consortium’s Technical Council. His PhD was in Medieval Studies from the University of Leeds and he was Director of Digital Medievalist (2009–2012).

Pip Willcox is the Head of the Centre for Digital Scholarship at the Bodleian Libraries, and a Senior Researcher at the University of Oxford e-Research Centre. With a background in scholarly editing and book history, she has sixteen years’ experience working on TEI-compliant editing projects, including Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership, the Shakespeare Quartos Archive, the Stationers’ Register Online, and the Bodleian First Folio. She serves on the Text Encoding Initiative Consortium Board of Directors and the Advisory Board for Digital Renaissance Editions.