Voluntary Associations

This is the main page for organizing the Fall 2011/Winter 2012 CSCI403: Automatically Gathering Inscriptions from Multiple Online Sources

• David Margolies, Winter 2012 Lead Developer
• Riley Jordan, Fall 2011 Lead Developer

Many DBs with inscriptions, but they're not centralized and easily searchable

• Automatically collect data from multiple online sources
• Create a DB for the inscriptions
• Create an interface to make data easily editable, exportable

Collegium Project Proposal - a vision for the project

Fall 2011 Schedule

• Familiarize yourself with project
• Read the project proposal (under Specifications)
  • Mostly for motivation and problem; Loose description of project
• Go to Epigraphische Datenbank Heidelberg
  • Click Search under Epigraphic Text Database
  • Click Simple-search
  • Enter “collegi” under “String 1” in part D
    • You'll get all inscriptions that contain “collegi”

• Learn Python: (First 4-5 weeks of CSCI 111 - I/O, basic assignments, arithmetic, using OO, for loops, if statements, conditionals, string operations)

• Setting the locale for extracting data
• DB: Postgres 8.2 or 8.4 –> Does that matter?
• Creating a Postgresql DB
  • Connecting to DB using Python
• Encoding
• Learn Python: Next 4-5 weeks of CSCI111
  • Lists
  • Files
  • Defining Functions, modules
  • while loops
  • dictionaries

• Learn Python: Defining classes

• Extracting data from Heidelberg
• Possible to simplify script?
• Get data in English?

• Storing data
  • Create DB

• Learn new web framework

• Create prototype of web interface
  • Allow users to edit data? Annotate data?
  • Extract data?
  • Allow users to mine data?
• Maintain application code in a version control system

• Refine interface
• Use Ajax, JQuery to

• Deploy application; test

• Modify based on feedback
• More testing

• Finalize implementation

• Submit code
• Documentation for how to run, maintain code

• Professor Bond's links page
• Text Encoding Initiative
• EpiDoc
• Pleiades - inspiration for map

• Epigraphische Datenbank Heidelberg
• Epigraphische Datenbank Clauss

• Search in Heidelberg DB for “collegi”
• Search in Clauss DB for “societ”

• Ottoman Inscriptions

• Can we automatically classify any of the inscriptions with their trades, deities, types of association?
• Can we automatically generate any of the drop down lists?

Participants: Professor Bond, David Margolies, Professor Sprenkle

Top Priority

• Get data in English
• Complete database schema
  • Person info is unique to inscription – don't try to match up yet
  • Add fields to DB for Trade, Deity, associative unit, imperial house (selection fields) and translation of inscription
  • Connections - should be empty (don't use what's on the web page
  • Add field for link to original web page? (Or, just display on the web interface

Next Steps

• Design web interface for admin and other users