Developing a User Experience for TAPAS (the TEI Archiving, Publishing, and Access Service)

FAIN: HD-51403-11

Wheaton College (Norton, MA 02766-2322)
Scott Hamlin (Project Director: March 2011 to May 2016)

A series of workshops to develop and test a prototype interface for the TAPAS (TEI Archiving, Publishing, and Access Service) Project, an online service that allows for the storage, sharing, and analysis of TEI-encoded texts.

Many scholars, archivists, librarians, technologists, and students working with TEI at smaller institutions often do so without peer or technical support. Having completed the considerable task of encoding their text, they often ask: now that I have my document encoded, what do I do with it? TEI has huge potential for multimedia presentation, data mashups, visualizations, or sophisticated print layout. However, without knowledge of XSLT and other XML technologies, the options are either inaccessible or difficult to learn and use. The TEI Archiving, Publishing, and Access Service (TAPAS) Project seeks to build a service that will allow users with TEI-encoded texts to store, share, and discuss their materials, and transform them into forms appropriate for reading, visualizing, and participating in the web ecosystem. We will design and develop the User Interface and User Experience for this service and create an intuitive and simple-to-use environment for working with TEI-encoded data.