#cidocCRM SIG Members, I have proposed that the #cidocCRM SIG adopt TEI P5 (or something equally capable/expressive) as the 'format of record' for the official #cidocCRM Definition document that is currently supplied in MS-Word and PDF formats.
In summarizing my dense posting of initial self-introduction, Dominic Oldman (a valued member of my #cidocCRM/#TEI Personal Learning Network) parenthetically asked "Why TEI?" to which this is a reply. First, IANAMIP -- I am not a museum informatics professional -- so my opinions and rationale are subject to first, _exposure_ (what I've heard/read about which is limited), and second, to what would be useful to me in terms of my anticipated FactMiners Fact Cloud design and development. A quick run-down of the problem and proposed rationale for a solution is as follows: PROBLEM: The proprietary formats of MS-Word and PDF are an issue for access and maintenance of the #cidocCRM Definition document itself and these existing formats provide no leverage in maintaining the official cidoc-crm.org website. In addition to these issues, neither of the existing official Definition document formats is directly machine readable which is desirable for developer tool and resource support. Why TEI P5 as the "format of record" for the #cidocCRM Definition document? 1. There is an existing, active harmonization and cross-pollinating activity between the #cidocCRM and #TEI communities as evidenced by the work of two of the five members of my #cidocCRM/#TEI Personal Learning Network (Oyvind Eide and C.E.S. Ore) among others. C.f. Oyvind and Christian's papers detailing this relationship: http://www.edd.uio.no/artiklar/tekstkoding/poster_156_eide.html and http://llc.oxfordjournals.org/content/24/2/161.abstract 2. For legacy support purposes, a clean #cidocCRM Definition document in TEI P5 format could be used to quickly and painlessly generate the prior MS-Word and PDF formats via OxGarage: http://www.tei-c.org/oxgarage/# (Note, too, that given a TEI P5 official format-of-record for the #cidocCRM Definition document, OxGarage could provide convenient generation of formats beyond the two legacy formats.) 3. A TEI P5 #cidocCRM Definition document could serve as the all-important first step in a new cidoc-crm.org website maintenance pipeline. Indeed, it may be that the new website will simply be a "view and controller" on the #TEI-encoded Definition document -- the "model" in other words of a model-view-controller style website design. 4. As #cidocCRM applied research delves into the use of the #cidocCRM as an executable metamodel as well as it being the basis for Domain-Specific Language (DSL) extensions in support of fine-grained document structure and content depiction modeling, the TEI P5 Header will be an appropriate and convenient place to open up what Michael Witmore has called "Text: A Massively Addressable Object" (http://winedarksea.org/?p=926). For example and getting to the "scratching my itch" aspect of why I recommend #TEI, we'll be investigating the use of the TEI Header to "freeze-dry" FactMiners' Fact Cloud 'facts' within the page-segment files generated by our version of Softalk magazine as a "massively addressable object." As a Content Partner of the Internet Archive, we have the interest and cooperation of the Archive.org folks in exploring this approach to a human- and machine-readable version of the magazine offering unparalleled richness in document structure and content depiction modeling. A "deeper dive" into this aspect of my applied research interests is found here: https://goo.gl/3Vb0lO. I believe these points provide reasonable justification for the recommendation of adopting TEI P5 as the "format of record" for the #cidocCRM Definition document. This said, if there are better or preferred format, I am eager and willing to consider alternatives providing advantages similar to those I have outlined. -: Jim :-
