Researchers release prototypes of tools for analyzing electronic texts

Humanists studying electronic texts now have some new tools to assist them in their research.

Computing researchers in McMaster University's Faculty of Humanities, with colleagues at New York University (NYU), have just released TAPoRware 1.0 which contains three sets of tools that can be used for the analysis of text in three specific file formats: xml, html and plain text.

“These are prototypes of the tools and services that will be available to researchers in Canada and around the world through the open portal that we are developing,” says Geoffrey Rockwell, associate professor in the School of the Arts. “This is our second release of the tools. We have fixed some bugs found in the earlier release and we have updated our interface for the tools. We think researchers will find these tools useful.”

Rockwell and computing analyst and tool developer Lian Yan are looking for interested researchers to test the prototype tools and provide feedback to improve what's been developed to date and to also expand the toolbench that is being developed for users to access from a portal. (The inaugural version of the portal, which is also being developed by McMaster researchers, was released last month. See www.tapor.ca for more information.

Among the tools that have been developed for each of the various file formats are: list words, co-occurrences, collocation and tokenize tools. These tools allow researchers to manipulate, extract, and parse words and portions to examine language and word patterns, styles, forms as well as other elements of language and literature.

The development of the tools and portal is part of a larger research project, the Text Analysis Portal for Research (TAPoR), funded by the Canada Foundation for Innovation. McMaster is the lead institution for the project which includes partners from five other universities in Canada with leading humanities computing centres: University of Victoria, University of Alberta, University of Toronto, Universiti de Montrial and University of New Brunswick. The Information Technology Services, NYU, also contributed to the TAPoRware Tools.

Individuals interested in working with Rockwell and Yan to improve and expand the tools should e-mail Yan at lyan@mcmaster.ca. The tools can be accessed from http://strange.mcmaster.ca/~taporware/.

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Humanists studying electronic texts now have some new tools to assist them in their research.<p><br />
<br />
Computing researchers in McMaster University&#039;s Faculty of Humanities, with colleagues at New York University (NYU), have just released TAPoRware 1.0 which contains three sets of tools that can be used for the analysis of text in three specific file formats: xml, html and plain text.<p><br />
<br />
"These are prototypes of the tools and services that will be available to researchers in Canada and around the world through the open portal that we are developing," says Geoffrey Rockwell, associate professor in the School of the Arts. "This is our second release of the tools. We have fixed some bugs found in the earlier release and we have updated our interface for the tools. We think researchers will find these tools useful." <p><br />
<br />
Rockwell and computing analyst and tool developer Lian Yan are looking for interested researchers to test the prototype tools and provide feedback to improve what&#039;s been developed to date and to also expand the toolbench that is being developed for users to access from a portal.  (The inaugural version of the portal, which is also being developed by McMaster researchers, was released last month. See <a href="http://www.tapor.ca">www.tapor.ca</a> for more information.<p><br />
<br />
Among the tools that have been developed for each of the various file formats are: list words, co-occurrences, collocation and tokenize tools.  These tools allow researchers to manipulate, extract, and parse words and portions to examine language and word patterns, styles, forms as well as other elements of language and literature.<p><br />
<br />
The development of the tools and portal is part of a larger research project, the Text Analysis Portal for Research (TAPoR), funded by the Canada Foundation for Innovation. McMaster is the lead institution for the project which includes partners from five other universities in Canada with leading humanities computing centres:  University of Victoria, University of Alberta, University of Toronto, Universiti de Montrial and University of New Brunswick. The Information Technology Services, NYU, also contributed to the TAPoRware Tools.<p><br />
<br />
Individuals interested in working with Rockwell and Yan to improve and expand the tools should e-mail Yan at <a href="mailto:lyan@mcmaster.ca">lyan@mcmaster.ca</a>. The tools can be accessed from <a href="http://strange.mcmaster.ca/~taporware/">http://strange.mcmaster.ca/~taporware/</a>.

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