Portal a gateway for computing humanists

[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/rockwell2.jpg” caption=”Geoffrey Rockwell”]Humanities researchers at McMaster have released the first version of their text analysis portal for researchers (TAPoR). The alpha version of the portal was announced at a text symposium held at and sponsored by McMaster University Nov. 19-21.

The release of the alpha version of the TAPoR portal brings the researchers in McMaster's Faculty of Humanities one step closer to their goal of providing humanists in Canada with an open gateway to access tools and services to study electronic texts. The need for such a portal and tools continues to grow as more information and scholarly text and material is located online.

“We're pleased with the progress that we've made on the portal and we are eager to have computing humanists test this inaugural version and provide feedback on how to further develop the portal and improve and expand the tools and services that will be available within it,” says Geoffrey Rockwell, associate professor in the School of the Arts and the project lead for the Text Analysis Portal (TAPoR) project.

The portal is being developed by and will be maintained at McMaster as part of a $6-million initiative funded through the Canada Foundation for Innovation. McMaster is one of six Canadian institutions that comprise the TAPoR project. Other university partners are: University of Victoria, University of Alberta, University of Toronto, Universiti de Montrial and University of New Brunswick.

Rockwell, assistant professor Stifan Sinclair and computing analyst Lian Yan are working with James Chartrand and associates at Open Sky Solutions, a Hamilton-based software company. Together they are developing software tools and services that will provide humanists across Canada with a central place to bring text and utensils together.

Each partner university is developing tools, services and laboratory facilities to support the portal. The project also brings together a large network of academics who are studying online texts, both old and new, and who specialize in computing in the humanities.

Humanities researchers from more than 20 universities across Canada, the United States Australia and Europe attended the third annual Canadian Symposium for Text Analysis (titled The Face of Text), which provided an inside look at current academic work in humanities computing. Keynote speaker Jerome McGann, University of Virginia, spoke of the challenges facing scholars of humanities computing. These include what he described as social and institutional problems such as enormous gaps between traditional and computing humanists to issues relating to accessing and publishing online scholarly work. Selected talks were videotaped and will be streamed off the TAPoR Web site along with slides and papers from the site.

Humanities dean Nasrin Rahimieh welcomed the participants to McMaster and spoke of the intersection of arts and technology at the University. “Our researchers are doing fabulous work in the area of computing in humanities and we are expanding and developing new intersections with our Faculties of Engineering and Social Sciences.” Rahimieh spoke of new initiatives in engineering and game design, the development of an interdisciplinary Master of Arts Program in Digital Society, the proposal for an arts and technology campus in Burlington, and the intersection of existing McMaster programs in multimedia and communications studies.

McMaster conference presenters, in addition to Rockwell and Sinclair, included Jenna Wells and Madeleine Jeay (French), Will Coleman (Political Science) and Andrew Mactavish (School of the Arts), and Nicholas Griffin (Philosophy).

The conference was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council through the Text, Sound and Technology Program.