TEI and DARIAH - Current Activities and Future Work

Vortrag / conférence

  • Christof Schöch & A. Volkmann: "TEI & DARIAH. Current Activities and Future Work". TEI Members' Meeting and Conference 2011, Universität Würzburg.

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the relation between the TEI and DARIAH (Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities). These two endeavors are not only based on partially overlapping research communities, they are also acting in a shared context of the digital humanities, where they are participating in some of the major trends and issues. Therefore, analyzing the current areas of overlap and the potential for future interaction may prove to be of interest for the development of both DARIAH and the TEI.

In order to provide some context, we start by laying out the general aims and tasks as well as the organizational, disciplinary and thematic structure of DARIAH. This EU-funded, large-scale project is an international consortium “aiming to enhance and support digitally-enabled research across the humanities and arts” (DARIAH Mission Statement). This aim is pursued in four virtual competency centers which are concerned, respectively, with building domain-specific research infrastructures, fostering digital humanities research and education, developing standards and recommendations for research data, and developing strategies in the area of advocacy and outreach for digital humanities. 

It is against this background that the relationship between the TEI and DARIAH will be considered, the TEI being viewed not only as a (de facto) standard for textual data, but also as an institution and a community. When looking at TEI and DARIAH in this way, the number of issues at hand is obviously vast. In the main part of the paper, we would like to focus on three issues that seem particularly relevant: standards and metadata, tool development, and community building. For practical reasons, we will focus on examples from the German contribution to DARIAH, but many of the issues concern DARIAH more generally. 

Our analysis is careful to consider, at this still relatively early stage of the DARIAH project, the role the TEI is already playing in DARIAH as well as the future perspectives for the TEI in this project. At the same time, we look not only at areas in which the TEI can serve as a model to the DARIAH project, but also and quite specifically at ways in which DARIAH can contribute impulses to the further development and dynamics of the TEI. In this way, we hope to offer some insight into existing areas of common ground, but also to reflect on further areas of possible cooperation, the consideration of which may help foster the development of both TEI and DARIAH.

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