This session will introduce participants to the Canadian Writing Research Collaboratory (CWRC), significantly its innovative and user-friendly in-house system for TEI mark-up. Using semantic web protocol CWRC will enable scholars to explore digitally the intricate connections between data—people, places, organizations, cultural works, concepts, and events—across a multitude of scholarly projects. In order to facilitate contribution by users of all levels of ability within the Digital Humanities, CWRC has developed CWRC Writer, a unique system for semantic web mark-up of texts. Presently, a common application used for TEI mark-up is OxygenXML; CWRC Writer has been designed to simplify the mark-up process for users who do not want to climb up the XML learning curve. (Although, if you want an introduction to TEI today, you might want to take part in Connie Crompton’s session…)

Our session will compare the data import and mark-up process in Oxygen with that of CWRC Writer. Participants will be able to use the CWRC Writer beta version to discover its possibilities (so do bring your laptop).

I like to think of NVivo as a digital kaleidoscope. Much like the cherished toy, this computing technology enables scholars to view, decode and capture different facets of various kinds of digital objects. I would be happy to facilitate a teaching session about the nature and applications of NVivo, as well as how you can use it to examine various objects in a digital environment. At its core NVivo is a tool that aids with qualitative data analysis, but it  is also embedded in an environment of creating, sharing and disseminating digital social science. My personal exploration of this user-driven computing technology introduced to me to a vast spectrum of uses in the social sciences. If the session goes ahead I will share what I know and hopefully you will share too.

Tentative topics could be:

• What is NVivo
• Working with texts
• Working with pictures
• Working with sound
• Working with video
• Telling a story / visualize your data

I should start with a special thanks to Rebecca for suggesting this session — if folks are interested, I would be happy to facilitate a discussion about what TEI is and why you might want to use it to represent research objects in a digital environment.  TEI is the digital archival standard markup language in the Digital Humanities, and a very intellectually satisfying markup language to boot.
If the session goes ahead we will want to have some resources to hand. At the risk of jumping the gun, I am going to go ahead and start a list below.

Learn TEI
What is TEI? (a very gentle intro, if a bit dated)
TEI by Example
TEI Guidelines
TEI-encoded Projects
TEI listserv
Digital Humanities Summer Institute, University of Victoria
Women Writers Project Encoding Workshops, Brown University/ Northeastern University

Publish Your TEI
TEI Archiving Publishing and Access Service (TAPAS), set for public release in spring 2014.