Fwd: Preliminary Report

John Unsworth jmu2m at virginia.edu
Fri May 3 18:34:48 EDT 2002 


Geoff Rockwell's preliminary report on the TEI Council's Training 
subcommittee.  Thanks very much for your work so far, Geoff (and Julia 
Flanders, Perry Willett, Stuart Brown, and Sebastian Rahtz).

John

>X-Sender: gmr3f at g.mail.virginia.edu (Unverified)
>Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 17:05:07 -0400
>To: TEI Training Group: ;, John Unsworth <jmu2m at virginia.edu>
>From: Geoffrey Rockwell <grockwel at mcmaster.ca>
>Subject: Preliminary Report
>
>Dear John,
>
>Below is the preliminary report of the TEI Training subcommittee.
>
>Yours,
>
>Geoffrey Rockwell
>____________________________
>TEI Training Subcommittee
>Preliminary Report, May 3rd, 2002, v1.0
>Prepared by Geoffrey Rockwell
>
>A. Introduction
>
>At the January 2002 TEI Council meeting in London a subcommittee on 
>Training was formed. The mandate was described thus in the minutes of the 
>meeting,
>
><quote url="http://www.tei-c.org/Drafts/tcm01.html">
>6.1 Training
>
>We discussed training and whether TEI should certify training or develop 
>training. We decided to form a committee made up of Geoffrey Rockwell, 
>Julia Flanders, Perry Willett, and Sebastian Rahtz. The committee should 
>look at existing training and develop a training strategy for the 
>TEI.  The committee should consider the question of what people are 
>willing to pay? <action n="20"><who>Training Comm = GR, JF, PW, 
>SR</who><what>Review TEI training and report back with 
>strategy.</what></action>
></quote>
>
>Stuart Brown was subsequently added to the subcommittee. Our preliminary 
>sense of what we should do was:
>
><quote>
>i. We should come up with a list of training materials (online and in 
>print) that we want to look at.
>
>ii. We agree on criteria for evaluating the materials. (I would say we 
>want to know the author, title, extent, accuracy, and publication info for 
>each item. Notes about the extent - what it trains you in would be the 
>most useful.)
>
>iii. We divide them up, review them, and compile a list of materials with 
>evaluation information.
>
>iv. We come up with a list of people we know are regularly providing 
>training to others on the TEI (training outside of a project.)
>
>v. We contact these people and see if they are willing to answer some 
>questions about the training they provide and their experience. This gets 
>compiled.
>
>vi. We look at what we have and decide the strategy we want to recommend 
>to the Council. The strategy may be just to publish some form of our list 
>of materials and trainers along with a process for updating the 
>information. Or the strategy might be to design a certification process.
>
>vii. We write up our proposed strategy and submit it at the Oct meeting. 
>(And promptly dissolve the subcommittee.)
></quote>
>
>B. Status
>
>We have completed i and iv (see Appendix A.) We discussed ii, but it did 
>not make sense to develop recommendations on criteria unless the TEI 
>decided to go forward with a review process. We have started contacting 
>trainers, surveying materials, but the process is not complete. In order 
>to present a preliminary report for the May meeting we had a discussion 
>about options (vi) and present a preliminary list of options below. These 
>will be developed further in the final report.
>
>Due to time constraints, this preliminary report has not been reviewed by 
>all the members of the subcommittee in its present form. We expect to 
>return a final report in October.
>
>___________________________________________________________
>
>C. Strategic Options
>
>Here are some of the considerations that guided out deliberations.
>
>i. The primary goal of a Training Strategy is to encourage access to 
>quality training in the appropriate use of the TEI guidelines for all. A 
>secondary goal is to develop activities for members or activities which 
>would reward membership. A third goal is to develop activities that would 
>help fund the other activities of the TEI.
>
>ii. We wanted to avoid presenting options that would make significant 
>demands on the TEI budget or need significant volunteer support. We assume 
>that the priority for the TEI budget is the development of the guidelines 
>and that training should, wherever possible, be self-funding or raise money.
>
>iii. We felt it would be useful to look at some of the materials out there 
>and talk with trainers, something we are still doing. Appendix A lists the 
>materials and trainers we identified for our survey.
>
>iv. We felt the most useful way to return a strategy to the TEI would be 
>to present the TEI with a number of possible activities - options that can 
>be developed into recommendations.
>
>Some of the options the TEI should consider are:
>
>1. Extend the Existing List of Tutorials
>
>The TEI currently has a good list of links to training materials on its 
>WWW site. The present site (http://www.tei-c.org/Tutorials/index.html) 
>includes an e-mail address for people to alert the site editors to new 
>materials.
>
>This useful starting point could be extended. For example, the list could 
>be supplemented with information about trainers (see 7. below) and a 
>bibliography of print resources.
>
>A bibliography of print resources could be implemented as a database that 
>members could add to. This online database could be usefully supplemented 
>with an Amazon.com-like review tool so that members could write 
>evaluations of the works listed. (The same facility could be added to the 
>list of tutorials for that matter.)
>
>2. Materials RFP
>
>The TEI prepare a request for proposals (RFP) to develop TEI training 
>materials. The RFP would encourage members or other organizations to 
>propose a process whereby TEI sponsored tutorial materials would be 
>prepared. The proposals would be reviewed by the TEI-Training subcommittee 
>and a recommendation presented to the Council. One or more proposals would 
>be accepted. The types of proposals we would solicit would be proposals 
>that aimed at published tutorials that could be distributed as the 
>Guidelines are (free on the WWW and for a fee through a distribution 
>agency.) We would accept proposals that included in the final cost a fee 
>to be returned to the author(s) to subsidize the cost of creating and 
>maintaining the tutorial. Some of the issues we would expect proposals to 
>cover would be:
>
>2.1 Audience for the materials.
>
>2.2 Scope of the materials (what would they cover?) [We would not expect 
>proposals to necessarily all of the TEI, rather we would encourage focused 
>proposals.]
>
>2.3 Preparation process (how would they be prepared?)
>
>2.4 Financial model (what would be charged for the printed copy and what 
>would the member discount be?)
>
>2.5 Maintenance model (how would they be maintained?)
>
>2.6 Copyright
>
>3. Training RFP
>
>The TEI prepare a request for proposals (RFP) to develop TEI training 
>courses. The RFP would encourage members or other organizations to propose 
>a process whereby TEI sponsored training courses would be prepared and 
>delivered. One or more proposals would be accepted as long as they did not 
>compete directly with each other (a decision to be based on scope and 
>geographic location.) The aim of this would be to encourage the regular 
>delivery of quality training courses in different geographic locations and 
>to different audiences. Some of the issues we would expect proposals to 
>cover would be:
>
>3.1 Audience and location for the training.
>
>3.2 Scope/level of the training (what would it cover and at what level?) 
>and coordination with other training (what related training would be 
>available?)
>
>3.3 Preparation process (how would the training course be prepared?)
>
>3.4 Financial model (what would be charged for the training and would 
>members get a discount?)
>
>3.5 Availability (how often would the training be available?)
>
>This may be too ambitious.
>
>4. TEI Training
>
>An alternative to 2. and 3. would be for the TEI to develop materials and 
>a course without issuing an RFP. The TEI-Training subcommittee would 
>prepare a proposal for the Council and supervise the development and 
>delivery. The course would be similar to that provided by the Society of 
>American Archivists and EAD. That course costs $7,000 US for two trainers 
>for two days. Our course would be priced so that trainers would be 
>adequately compensated and the TEI could recover the costs of development 
>over a reasonable number of iterations (at which point the profit would go 
>to updating the course and other TEI activities.) Members would, of 
>course, get a discount. Such a model means that the TEI would borrow 
>against anticipated future profits in order to pay for the development.
>
>In general we consider this option less attractive than 2. and 3.
>
>5. Training Grants
>
>The TEI would develop a protocol for entering into a Training Sponsorship 
>Agreement with organizations that wished to pursue grants/funding to 
>develop and deliver training. Where we are given sufficient time to review 
>grant/funding proposals the President would be empowered to write a Letter 
>of Support or a Letter of Agreement. In situations where the organization 
>wanted the TEI to be a co-applicant and therefore a co-developer we would 
>expect input on the proposal and a financial model that compensated the 
>TEI for the work of its designated members. The idea is to encourage 
>people pursuing funding possibilities for the development and delivery of 
>training to work with us to ensure that the training is of the highest 
>quality. What we can offer is the official support of the TEI and in 
>selected situations the TEI as a co-applicant. Some of the issues that 
>would need to be addressed in the protocol would be:
>
>5.1 Timing of TEI feedback (how much time do we need to review a proposal 
>and write a letter?)
>
>5.2 Review criteria (who would review proposals and what criteria would 
>they use for deciding if the TEI should endorse the proposal?)
>
>5.3 Financial model (if the TEI is a co-author how would resulting funds 
>be distributed? How would the TEI productively contribute to the project 
>and how would that contribution be compensated?)
>
>6. Training Review
>
>The TEI develop a protocol and financial model for reviewing materials and 
>training courses. Where the developers of materials or courses wished to 
>have TEI Certification they would submit the materials or course for 
>review and the TEI-Training subcommittee would commission a review. As a 
>thorough review usually involves a significant investment in time on the 
>part of the reviewers the TEI would charge for such reviews. (Members 
>would get a discount.) We would encourage developers of materials and 
>courses to build the review charge into funding proposals.
>
>7. Trainer Database
>
>The TEI develop an online database of trainers to supplement the list of 
>tutorials. Trainers could fill out an online form listing their 
>qualifications, experience, special training expertise, contact 
>information, and so on.
>
>The database could be extended to include review tools that would allow 
>students to submit comments about trainers. If trainers were willing to be 
>assessed the review tools would become available. A mechanism for removing 
>inappropriate comments would have to be included should the system be abused.
>
>In general, assessment of trainers by participants would help people make 
>informed decisions regarding training and help trainers improve their 
>training. The TEI doesn't need a critical evaluation process; what we need 
>is a system that efficiently gathers information about the strengths of 
>trainers in a form that others can use to find the right trainer. We are 
>not confident yet that we have a model that would do this, but will pursue 
>the idea.
>
>Geoffrey Rockwell grockwel at mcmaster.ca
>Julia Flanders Julia_Flanders at brown.edu
>Sebastian Rahtz sebastian.rahtz at computing-services.oxford.ac.uk
>Perry Willett pwillett at indiana.edu
>Stuart Brown Stuart.Brown at oucs.ox.ac.uk
>
>End
>
>___________________________________________________________________________
>
>Appendix A. List of Materials, Opportunities and Trainers
>
>TEI training task force website:
>http://www.tei-c.org/Activities/com-train.html
>
>
>I. TEI Training on the web:
>------------------------------------
>1. Women Writers Project
>http://www.wwp.brown.edu/encoding/training/
>There are four basic categories of materials here (conveniently
>color-coded):
>1. Encoding and Proofreading [materials to support these activities]
>2. Quick how-tos [documents little tools that we've developed for
>specific tasks]
>3. Tutorials
>4. List archives
>------------------------------------
>2. Burnard, Lou
>    Text Encoding for Information Interchange:
>    http://www.hcu.ox.ac.uk/TEI/Papers/J31/
>
>    TEI Extended Pointers: a Brief Tutorial
>    http://users.ox.ac.uk/~lou/papers/XR/
>------------------------------------
>
>3. Sperberg-McQueen, Michael
>    What TEI Means for Your Project
>
>http://www.ceth.rutgers.edu/programs/TEI97/SESSIONS/MICHAEL/project.sgm.html
>------------------------------------
>4. Curriculum of TEI/SGML training at CETH:
>http://www.ceth.rutgers.edu/programs/TEI97/schedule.htm
>
>------------------------------------
>5. The TEI has a page on "Teach Yourself TEI" at
>http://www.tei-c.org/Tutorials/index.html -
>we need to follow up on these.
>------------------------------------
>6. The E-Text Centre at U of Virginia has a Intro to TEI and Guide
>at http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/tei/uvatei.html . They also have the
>TEI P3 online with a search interface and quick tag lookup. See
>http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/tei/
>------------------------------------
>7. The OTA has a Guide to Good Practice 1 : Creating & Documenting
>Electronic Texts at
>http://ota.ahds.ac.uk/publications/ID_AHDS-Publications-g2gp1.html
>
>------------------------------------
>8. "It's all in the Head(er)" at
>http://www.etcl.nl/teiguide/headerproposal.htm is both a proposal for
>the TEI Header and an introduction to it.
>
>------------------------------------
>9."Linking with TEI P3" is a tutorial on just that - see
>http://hagen.let.rug.nl/hypertext/teip3.html
>
>------------------------------------
>10. "Markup Guidelines for Documentary Editions" by Hockey and
>Chesnutt is for the Model Editions Partnership. See
>http://mep.cla.sc.edu/MepGuide.html
>
>------------------------------------
>11. TEILite tutorial at Univ of New Brunswick:
>http://www.lib.unb.ca/Texts/guidelines/text_guide2.htm
>
>------------------------------------
>12. MITH runs an XML TEI workshop. See
>http://www.mith.umd.edu/outreach/xml_workshop.html
>
>
>II. Software for using TEI
>------------------------------------
>1. Kevin Russell at the U of Manitoba has a "Ebenezer's software for
>the TEI" which has links to free software and a tutorial on using
>EMACS for TEI. See
>http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/linguistics/russell/ebenezer.htm
>
>------------------------------------
>
>
>
>III. General SGML/XML/Markup training
>
>1. At the same site I found an XML course by Delphine Khanna. See
>http://www.ceth.rutgers.edu/intromat/xml/index.htm -
>
>------------------------------------
>2.Burnard, Lou
>    What is SGML and How Does It Help?
>    http://www.hcu.ox.ac.uk/TEI/Papers/EDW25/
>
>------------------------------------
>3. "A Gentle Introduction to SGML" from M S-MQ is at
>http://www-tei.uic.edu/orgs/tei/sgml/teip3sg/index.html
>
>------------------------------------
>4. A general online article on "Markup Systems and the Future of
>Scholarly Text Processing" from Coombs is at
>http://xml.coverpages.org/coombs.html
>
>------------------------------------
>5. SGML: A Textual Representation for Information Structure
>by Robin Cover
>http://www.sil.org/computing/noc/156ac.htm
>------------------------------------
>
>
>
>IV. Trainers
>------------------------------------
>1. Elizabeth Hodder
>See http://xml-sgml-coach.com/p/Liz_Hodder_Resume.pdf - she also has
>a www site at http://xml-sgml-coach.com/index.html which lists
>training she has done and materials created.
>
>------------------------------------
>2. Sydney Bauman at:
>http://www.stg.brown.edu/~syd/rescmp22.pdf which mentions that he has
>conducted TEI training.
>
>------------------------------------
>3. In his online cv Wendell Piez also says he has experience with
>TEI training. See
>http://www.mulberrytech.com/people/piez/wapresume.html
>------------------------------------
>4. David Seaman
>5. Lou Burnard
>6. Sebastian Ratz
>7. Julia Flanders
>8. Paul Caton
>9. Peter Robinson
>------------------------------------
>
>
>V. Training opportunities
>
>
>1. ELSNET Summer School on Language and Speech Communication
>http://www.hcu.ox.ac.uk/TEI/Talks/ESS2001/
>
>-----------------------------------
>2. 2002 Summer Institute at the University of New Brunswick
>http://www.hil.unb.ca/Texts/
>
>------------------------------------
>3. Rare Book Summer School at University of Virginia
>http://www.virginia.edu/oldbooks/
>
>------------------------------------
>4. 2002 ALLC/ACH Conference Tutorial on XSLT
>http://www.uni-tuebingen.de/allcach2002?sflag=workshop
>

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