Tools for Building CTS Projects: CTS-IT and NeT-CEE

For building both text editions and image-based editions, we have extended the CTS reference
implementation [http://chs75.harvard.edu/projects/
diginc/code/ctswebapp] to create the CTS Implementation
Tool (CTS-IT). CTS-IT works with TEI files stored in an eXist XML database, providing a user-friendly interface through which an editor can upload TEI-encoded files, sort the files into groups and build a citation scheme to enable CTS querying of the data. As described in the CTS specification [http://chs75.harvard.edu/projects/
diginc/specs/cts], information about the edition files is stored in the CTS Text Inventory file (TextInventory.xml), which provides an index of the files housed in the server, along with important metadata about those files.
The CTS-IT Upload function incorporates CTS metadata into the eXist upload capabilities, creating the relevant sections of the Text Inventory when storing documents
in the database. CTS-IT uses the eXist API, the CTS
library [http://chs75.harvard.edu/projects/diginc/code/ctslib], and the file upload functionality from Apache Commons. Functionality includes:
· Create a new textgroup in eXist and assign the
textgroup a unique ID. Both the textgroup name and ID can be updated (changed) later.
· Add new texts to the textgroup
· Separate IDs for editions and translations
· Automatically validates the TEI files against DTDs or Schemas that are stored online, if they are declared in the file.
· Automatically names the uploaded file as an online node, named according to : textgroupID_projectName_projectID
· During upload, given input from the editor, CTS-IT assigns a citation scheme based on the structure of the individual files.
· Cross-check – make sure that there is a file for
everything in the Text Inventory, and that every
listing in the Inventory has a match in the database.
· Set eXist as a block inside the Cocoon publishing framework, so we can build on-the-fly pages based on the information stored in the database.
However, the CTS-IT provides only basic support for text-only editions. Though it is a good start, we have started development of a new tool, the Network Tool for Collaborative Electronic Editing over the Internet (NeT-CEE), which will vastly expand the functionality of CTS, allowing an editor to relate XML text files with digital images of the physical objects on which the texts
are founded. NeT-CEE will allow scholars to build
editions encompassing text, images, and annotations using the Extensible Markup Language (XML), the de facto standard for encoding electronic editions in the humanities, complying with the Text Encoding Initiative
(TEI) standards for markup. NeT-CEE will also support overlapping XML markup, which will occur when (for example) an edition includes markup to describe a word in a text, and that word on the page is broken between two lines.
NeT-CEE will be oriented towards collaborative
electronic edition projects that bring together a number of scholars with diverse skills and interests. NeT-CEE will implement a distributed editing framework, with access
control and version management systems which will allow several different editors to collaborate on an
edition with different levels of access, and without fear that one editor might inadvertently overwrite another's work. Finally, since NeT-CEE will be accessible through a regular web browser it will encourage collaborative work among individuals who are geographically dispersed,
and may encourage electronic editing by those many
accomplished humanities scholars who are familiar with a browser view but who may be put off by regular XML
editing software.Software that enables image-based
collaborative editing will be applicable to countless
manuscripts and papyri that have their own complex textual organizations. We will provide the means to cite not only the primary text of a document, but also the
array of marginal notes and annotations that accompany it (as in Venetus A). Likewise, manuscripts of Euclid and Plato include not only marginal commentaries but tables and figures to which we wish to provide access. In
addition, many historical scientific texts are already available though the CTS protocol and collaborative image-based editions could be compiled by importing new manuscript images into the existing CTS compliant texts.
We anticipate that NeT-CEE will foster the creation of scholarly works by forging partnerships between individuals and institutions, enabling them to share resources, both physical resources (in the form of texts and images) and intellectual (in the form of subject knowledge and editing experience). Because we will release NeT-CEE under an Open-Source license, it will especially promote cooperation
among smaller institutions that might not have the
resources to purchase expensive software. NeT-CEE will be a significant resource for scholars, but also for
teachers and students, potentially encouraging collaborative
projects between K-12 schools in different regions of the United States (or, indeed, around the World).
In this presentation, we will demonstrate the functionality
of the CTS-IT and the prototype NeT-CEE.
[Allen] T. W. Allen. “On the Composition of Some Greek Manuscripts.” Journal of Philology, vol. XXVI, pp. 161-181, 1898.
[CTS] Classical Text Services Protocol. <http://chs75.harvard.edu/projects/diginc/techpub/cts>
[METS] Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard <http://www.loc.gov/standards/mets/>
[TEI] TEI P5 Guidelines for Electronic Text Encoding
and Interchange, edited by C.M. Sperberg-
McQueen and Lou Burnard. Revised and re-
edited by Syd Bauman and Lou Burnard. January
2005.