Challenging the Myth of Presentation in Digital Editions

Are the data of an edition means to a particular and privileged presentation, or is the presentation a side effect? Because of the changing nature of computer systems, with constant progression in hardware and software, the encoded texts are the most important long-term outcome of the project—the re...

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Main Authors: Magdalena Turska, James Cummings, Sebastian Rahtz
Format: Article
Language:deu
Published: Text Encoding Initiative Consortium 2016-09-01
Series:Journal of the Text Encoding Initiative
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/jtei/1453
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author Magdalena Turska
James Cummings
Sebastian Rahtz
author_facet Magdalena Turska
James Cummings
Sebastian Rahtz
author_sort Magdalena Turska
collection DOAJ
description Are the data of an edition means to a particular and privileged presentation, or is the presentation a side effect? Because of the changing nature of computer systems, with constant progression in hardware and software, the encoded texts are the most important long-term outcome of the project—the representation of the knowledge— and presentation within a particular application is destined to become obsolete relatively quickly. However, it is most often the presentation output, rather than the source data, which is published and shared. We believe this is largely because there is currently no way of expressing, in the source encoding, aspects of presentation which are seen by editors as a crucial part of their work. Given a framework for encoding processing expectations for a variety of output formats, editors would be much more inclined to share the encoded files as their prime output, and intentions for presentation would be much more likely to survive repeated technology transitions as processing tools develop and change. We believe the collision between the individuality of research and the quest for common tools that aid in the creation of digital editions will be solved not by creating another piece of specialized publishing software but rather by creating a general framework for processing TEI documents and similar, modular solutions for other tasks in the publishing workflow. Such an abstraction layer admittedly still requires some fluency in computer technologies, but far less than for setting up a publication system from scratch in a general-purpose programming language.
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spelling doaj-art-f64754139b644c30a45eb823a91140a12025-01-30T13:56:26ZdeuText Encoding Initiative ConsortiumJournal of the Text Encoding Initiative2162-56032016-09-01910.4000/jtei.1453Challenging the Myth of Presentation in Digital EditionsMagdalena TurskaJames CummingsSebastian RahtzAre the data of an edition means to a particular and privileged presentation, or is the presentation a side effect? Because of the changing nature of computer systems, with constant progression in hardware and software, the encoded texts are the most important long-term outcome of the project—the representation of the knowledge— and presentation within a particular application is destined to become obsolete relatively quickly. However, it is most often the presentation output, rather than the source data, which is published and shared. We believe this is largely because there is currently no way of expressing, in the source encoding, aspects of presentation which are seen by editors as a crucial part of their work. Given a framework for encoding processing expectations for a variety of output formats, editors would be much more inclined to share the encoded files as their prime output, and intentions for presentation would be much more likely to survive repeated technology transitions as processing tools develop and change. We believe the collision between the individuality of research and the quest for common tools that aid in the creation of digital editions will be solved not by creating another piece of specialized publishing software but rather by creating a general framework for processing TEI documents and similar, modular solutions for other tasks in the publishing workflow. Such an abstraction layer admittedly still requires some fluency in computer technologies, but far less than for setting up a publication system from scratch in a general-purpose programming language.https://journals.openedition.org/jtei/1453TEIdigital editionpublication frameworkprocessingTEI Simple
spellingShingle Magdalena Turska
James Cummings
Sebastian Rahtz
Challenging the Myth of Presentation in Digital Editions
Journal of the Text Encoding Initiative
TEI
digital edition
publication framework
processing
TEI Simple
title Challenging the Myth of Presentation in Digital Editions
title_full Challenging the Myth of Presentation in Digital Editions
title_fullStr Challenging the Myth of Presentation in Digital Editions
title_full_unstemmed Challenging the Myth of Presentation in Digital Editions
title_short Challenging the Myth of Presentation in Digital Editions
title_sort challenging the myth of presentation in digital editions
topic TEI
digital edition
publication framework
processing
TEI Simple
url https://journals.openedition.org/jtei/1453
work_keys_str_mv AT magdalenaturska challengingthemythofpresentationindigitaleditions
AT jamescummings challengingthemythofpresentationindigitaleditions
AT sebastianrahtz challengingthemythofpresentationindigitaleditions