Compatible Database Initiative: Fostering Interoperable Data for Network Mapping and Visualization

FAIN: HD-51329-11

Fordham University (Bronx, NY 10458-9993)
Micki McGee (Project Director: October 2010 to August 2013)

Workshops and the development of a consortium to generate standards for shared, interoperable data sets for humanities-based network analysis projects.

The Compatible Database Initiative requests Level I Digital Start-Up support to convene a two-day conference and several tele-conferenced planning meetings to foster interoperable person-centric data standards for network analysis and visualization. Numerous humanities scholars are engaged in building relational databases for historical and cultural research. Such network mapping and visualization projects include The Crowded Page, Phylo, Yaddo Archive Project, and Explore Thomas Cole. But these topical projects have developed separately with unique database structures. The field-wide problem is that diverse data structures lack interoperability: data collected for one project is incompatible with data from another. This initiative will spur a conversation among these projects’ architects and leading figures in database architecture and data visualization. Our goal is to create the first open source data design standards for interoperability in database mapping and visualization.