Fwd: TEI Training Proposal

[John Unsworth]

Council members,

Please read through the following and vote up or down on the proposed 
training session.  Votes should be cast by the end of this week (Friday, 
December 6th).

John

>X-Sender: grockwel at univmail.cis.mcmaster.ca (Unverified)
>Date: Mon, 2 Dec 2002 12:38:29 -0500
>To: John Unsworth <jmu2m at virginia.edu>
>From: Geoffrey Rockwell <grockwel at mcmaster.ca>
>Subject: TEI Training Proposal
>Cc: TEI Training Group: ;
>
>Dear John,
>
>Below is a proposal from Julia Flanders that went to the TEI training 
>committee for review. We decided (without Julia's participation - she 
>recused herself) that this was a good proposal worthy of TEI approval. We 
>are recommending to the TEI Council that they approve this as an official 
>TEI training session to be held in conjunction with the ACH/ALLC. Julia is 
>already in communication with Bill. My understanding is that the proposal 
>needs to be circulated by you to the TEI Council for approval. It would 
>help Julia and Bill if this could be done sooner rather than later.
>
>Yours,
>
>Geoffrey Rockwell on behalf of the TEI Training Committee (Sebastian and 
>Perry)
>_______________________
>RATIONALE
>This training session is aimed at people who are either in the process of 
>designing an encoding system for a project engaged in capturing literary 
>texts, or are already working on such a project. In designing this 
>session, we assume that for such people, what is most urgently needed is 
>the opportunity to focus on specific encoding problems they have 
>encountered: while they can read TEI for themselves and get general advice 
>from TEI-L, it is more difficult for them to get sustained attention and 
>dynamic feedback. This session will provide a valuable opportunity to take 
>a focused look at a particular problem or set of problems, in a group of 
>knowledgeable peers guided by a TEI expert. Rather than providing training 
>on a predetermined set of topics, this session will respond to the actual 
>needs and interests of its participants, acting rather like an intensive 
>consulting session.
>
>Participants in the first day are not expected to have familiarity with 
>the TEI, although some basic and general understanding of how markup 
>lanuages work will be helpful. Participants in the second day are expected 
>to have some familiarity with the TEI, so as to be able to participate 
>meaningfully in discussions of encoding strategies and to be able to 
>understand and apply the advice they may receive. They are not expected to 
>be experts, or to be widely familiar with the TEI; indeed, it is expected 
>that they will have encountered an encoding challenge which they don't 
>feel they can solve unassisted.
>
>DESCRIPTION
>The proposed course would be organized as a two-part seminar. The first 
>day would be an introductory session aimed at beginners, to introduce them 
>to the TEI through document analysis and problem-solving. This first 
>session would use case studies developed by the organizers which will give 
>the participants the opportunity to address encoding problems in a 
>real-world setting.
>
>The second day of the course would be aimed at an audience already 
>familiar with the TEI (which could include participants from the first 
>day, since the topics are conceptual rather than technical). It would 
>focus on case studies brought to the session by the participants. Each 
>participant will be asked to bring (and to submit in advance) a specific 
>encoding problem or set of problems to the session. During the course of 
>the session, each participant will receive focused attention from the 
>instructor and the other session participants, with the goal of answering 
>the participant's questions and resolving whatever problems they have to 
>present. The session will also include time for a more general discussion 
>of the shared problems and issues that the case studies illustrate, and 
>for a comparison of the different projects and their goals. While 
>participants are encouraged to submit a case study, those with a general 
>interest and no specific problem may also attend.
>
>There will be four instructors for this course. For the first day, the 
>course will be limited to a maximum of 18 participants. For the second 
>day, the course will be limited to a maximum of 12 projects, with up to 
>two participants from each project. On both days, the participants will be 
>divided into two groups with two instructors leading each group.
>
>The course will have several pedagogical goals:
>
>To answer specific questions about how to encode literary texts using TEI
>To expose participants to a broader range of materials from projects other 
>than their own
>To enable participants to practice problem-solving and document analysis 
>skills by examining real-world encoding challenges, with guidance from experts
>To help participants address encoding problems in the context of important 
>constraints and considerations such as audience, available resources, need 
>to repurpose the data, etc. (in other words, to contextualize the encoding 
>decisions rather than presenting them as having a single right answer)
>
>LOGISTICS AND FACILITIES
>Each day's session will begin at 9:30 pm and will last until 6:00 pm, with 
>a one-hour break for lunch at 1:00 and two coffee breaks (at 11:30 and 3:30).
>
>Each of the two groups will focus on each of its case studies in turn, 
>spending about an hour on each project (more if there are fewer participants).
>
>Following the session, if there are any questions which for reasons of 
>time have not been satisfactorily resolved, the instructors will follow up 
>via email with the participants for a reasonable interval to attempt to 
>come up with a solution.
>
>The participants can meet in two adjacent classrooms. No special 
>facilities are needed for this session; the only equipment required is a 
>whiteboard and a projector for a laptop in each room. The instructor will 
>bring a computer on which examples can be tested for validity, and a copy 
>of P4 for reference.
>
>RATES AND FINANCING
>The fee to attend both days will be $225 per person for TEI members and 
>$275 for non-members. The fee for attending only one day will be $150 per 
>person for TEI members and $200 for non-members. 15% of the fees will be 
>paid to the TEI Consortium and the remainder (after paying for room and 
>food) will be divided among the instructors.
>
>OUTREACH
>The session will be advertised through the TEI web site, through the 
>publicity for the TEI members' meeting, and also in email sent to TEI-L, 
>Humanist, AHDS-L, ninch-announce, and other relevant lists.
>Applications will be sent by email to the instructors, who will accept 
>them on a first-come, first-served basis. The only exception will be 
>applications which are obviously inappropriate (for instance, projects 
>whose needs are widely different from the scope of the session, such as 
>scientific data, or applicants who have no experience with text encoding). 
>In such cases the instructors will contact the applicant and discuss the 
>application with him/her. Final decisions about the appropriateness of a 
>given application will be made by the instructors.
>
>INSTRUCTORS
>The instructors will be Julia Flanders, Terry Catapano, Syd Bauman, and 
>Brett Barney.
>
>Julia Flanders is the Director of the Women Writers Project. She has 8 
>years of experience working with TEI at the WWP, a project which practices 
>intensive TEI encoding research on problems of encoding literary and 
>historical documents and early printed books. She designed the WWP's 
>training materials and documentation, and has trained the WWP's encoders 
>for 6 years. She also consults as a TEI specialist and has conducted 
>seminars on TEI encoding.
>
>Terry Catapano has several years experience working with TEI, and 
>currently is a markup consultant with the Pierpont Morgan Library and The 
>New York Botanical Garden. Previously he was Electronic Text Manager at 
>the New York Public Library and has worked at the Center for Electronic 
>Texts in the Humanities (CETH) and The Papers of Thomas A. Edison at 
>Rutgers University. He also is using TEI to support study of late 17th 
>century British and American printing, preparing TEI-based transcriptions 
>of a number of works by Cotton Mather.
>
>Syd Bauman is the North American Editor of the TEI and also works at the 
>Women Writers Project, where he has over 10 years of experience working 
>with the TEI, training encoders, and solving encoding problems. He has 
>also conducted TEI training sessions.
>
>Brett Barney is TEI Library Specialist at the University of 
>Nebraska-Lincoln, where he designs markup practices, trains encoders, 
>writes documentation, and conducts training sessions for several large 
>encoding projects. In his work on the Walt Whitman Archive, the Letters of 
>Henry James Project, the Willa Cather Electronic Archive, and the Journals 
>of the Lewis and Clark Expedition Online he has several years' experience 
>in applying the TEI to the electronic capture of a range of manuscript and 
>print materials.