Berkeley Prosopography Services: Implementing the Tool-kit

FAIN: HK-50161-14

University of California, Berkeley (Berkeley, CA 94704-5940)
Niek C. Veldhuis (Project Director: February 2014 to April 2022)
Laurie E. Pearce (Co Project Director: July 2014 to April 2022)

The enhancement of the Berkeley Prosopography Services platform and toolkit to extend its capabilities for social network analysis and improve its user interface for scholars.

The project is designed to extend the functionality of Berkeley Prosopography Services (BPS), an interactive tool-kit for analyzing and visualizing datasets, and to expand its accessibility and utility to researchers working with data across diverse disciplines. BPS streamlines prosopography and social network analysis (SNA) by offering an integrated and customizable out-of-the-box digital analysis tool-kit and work environment that facilitate the dynamic recovery and exploration of the connections between individuals and activities in all areas and ages of human endeavor. The tool-kit includes: (1) a corpus input and management tool, (2) a probabilistic disambiguator, (3) support for assertions, (4) an SNA engine, (5) a visualization module, and (6) workspace support. The implementation phase of BPS will build on its existing software base, its sound conceptual and architectural structure and will focus on these areas of technical development and increased user functionality.

Associated Products

Humanist-centric Tools for Big Data: Berkeley Prosopography Services (Book Section)
Title: Humanist-centric Tools for Big Data: Berkeley Prosopography Services
Author: Laurie Pearce
Author: Patrick Schmitz
Abstract: In this paper, we describe Berkeley Prosopography Services (BPS), a new set of tools for prosopography - the identification of individuals and study of their interactions - in support of humanities research. Prosopography is an example of "big data" in the humanities, characterized not by the size of the datasets, but by the way that computational and data-driven methods can transform scholarly workflows. BPS is based upon re-usable infrastructure, supporting generalized web services for corpus management, social network analysis, and visualization. The BPS disambiguation model is a formal implementation of the traditional heuristics used by humanists, and supports plug-in rules for adaptation to a wide range of domain corpora. A workspace model supports exploratory research and collaboration. We contrast the BPS model of configurable heuristic rules to other approaches for automated text analysis, and explain how our model facilitates interpretation by humanist researchers. We describe the significance of the BPS assertion model in which researchers assert conclusions or possibilities, allowing them to override automated inference, to explore ideas in what-if scenarios, and to formally publish and subscribe-to asserted annotations among colleagues, and/or with students. We present an initial evaluation of researchers' experience using the tools to study corpora of cuneiform tablets, and describe plans to expand the application of the tools to a broader range of corpora.
Year: 2014
Primary URL: https://doi.org/10.1145/2644866.2644870
Primary URL Description: doi of book chapter
Secondary URL: http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/2650000/2644870/p179-schmitz.pdf?ip=136.152.142.90&id=2644870&acc=ACTIVE%20SERVICE&key=CA367851C7E3CE77%2E3158474DDFAA3F10%2E4D4702B0C3E38B35%2E4D4702B0C3E38B35&CFID=830687926&CFTOKEN=73752272&__acm__=1510951732_1224945e4cb
Secondary URL Description: PDF of book chapter
Access Model: open access
Publisher: ACM
Book Title: DocEng '14. Proceedings of the 2014 ACM Symposium on Document Engineering
ISBN: 978-1-4503-294

Berkeley Prosopography Services (Article)
Title: Berkeley Prosopography Services
Author: Patrick Schmitz
Author: Laurie Pearce
Abstract: Berkeley Prosopography Services (BPS, berkeleyprosopography.org) is a complete package, an interactive tool-kit for analyzing and visualizing prosopographical datasets, available to researchers working in diverse disciplines and operating on data that derive from a variety of text sources and formats. BPS developed as a collaboration between University of California Berkeley researchers in Near Eastern Studies eager for digital tools to facilitate prosopographical research, and a central Research IT team working to develop digital resources that served actual research needs.
Year: 2014
Primary URL: http://dlib.nyu.edu/awdl/isaw/isaw-papers/7/pearce-Schmitz/
Primary URL Description: access to article
Access Model: open access
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: ISAW Papers
Publisher: ISAW

Berkeley Prosopography Services: Ancient Families, Modern Tools (Book Section)
Title: Berkeley Prosopography Services: Ancient Families, Modern Tools
Author: Laurie Pearce
Author: Patrick Schmitz
Abstract: In this paper, we describe Berkeley Prosopography Services(BPS), a new set of tools for prosopography - the identification of individuals and study of their interactions - in support of humanities research. The BPS tools include 1) functionality to import TEI documents and convert to our data model, 2) a disambiguation engine to associate names to persons based upon configurable heuristic rules, 3) an assertion model that supports flexible researcher curation and tracks provenance, 4) social network analysis and 5) graph visualization tools to analyze and understand social relations, and 6) a workspace model supporting exploratory research and collaboration. We contrast the BPS model that uses configurable heuristic rules to other approaches for automated text analysis, and explain how our model facilitates interpretation by humanist researchers. We describe the significance of our curation model that improves upon traditional curation and annotation as a fact-based model by adding a more flexible model in which researchers assert conclusions or possibilities, allowing them to override automated inference, to explore ideas in what-if scenarios, and to formally publish and subscribe-to asserted annotations among colleagues, and/or with students. We detail the architecture and our implementation of the tools as a set of reusable web services and web application UI. We present an initial evaluation of researchers’ experience using the tools to study corpora of cuneiform tablets, and describe plans to expand the application of the tools to a broader range of corpora.
Year: 2013
Primary URL: https://www.academia.edu/4131241/_2013_Berkeley_Prosopography_Services_Ancient_Families_Modern_Tools
Primary URL Description: PDF of article
Access Model: open access
Publisher: ACM
Book Title: DocEng '13. ACM Symposium on Document Engineering 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4503-178

Historical Texts, Modern Tools: Berkeley Prosopography Services (Blog Post)
Title: Historical Texts, Modern Tools: Berkeley Prosopography Services
Author: Patrick Schmitz
Author: Laurie Pearce
Abstract: Berkeley Prosopography Services (BPS) is a customizable, out-of-the-box toolkit and environment that supports prosopographical research. It is designed to solve a problem — a complex research methodology — and is not a problem or algorithm in search of a problem to which it may be applied. Prosopography is the process of discovering, through references to personal names, familial relationships, professional designations, as well as other attributes, pictures of the social, economic, intellectual activities and connections that link them. As the foundational task of prosopography is the collecting of name instances and attributes, it is hardly surprising that prosopographers were early adopters of digital tools, especially databases, which facilitated sorting, searching, and storage.
Date: 05/19/2015
Primary URL: http://llibredigital.blogs.uoc.edu/es/?s=Berkeley#
Primary URL Description: link to blog post
Blog Title: Libre Digital
Website: Libre Digital

Ancient Families, Modern Tools: Berkeley Prosopography Services (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: Ancient Families, Modern Tools: Berkeley Prosopography Services
Abstract: Berkeley Prosopography Services (BPS) is a customizable, out-of-the-box toolkit and environment that supports prosopographical research. It is designed to solve a problem — a complex research methodology — and is not a problem or algorithm in search of a problem to which it may be applied. Prosopography is the process of discovering, through references to personal names, familial relationships, professional designations, as well as other attributes, pictures of the social, economic, intellectual activities and connections that link them. As the foundational task of prosopography is the collecting of name instances and attributes, it is hardly surprising that prosopographers were early adopters of digital tools, especially databases, which facilitated sorting, searching, and storage.
Author: Davide Semenzin
Author: Laurie Pearce
Author: Patrick Schmitz
Author: Niek Veldhuis
Date: 11/13/2012
Location: UC Berkeley
Primary URL: http://berkeleyprosop.digitalhumanities.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Townsend-Humanities-Fair-2012.pptx
Primary URL Description: Slides from the presentation

Social Networks and Ancient Texts (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: Social Networks and Ancient Texts
Abstract: Berkeley Prosopography Services (BPS) is a customizable, out-of-the-box toolkit and environment that supports prosopographical research. It is designed to solve a problem — a complex research methodology — and is not a problem or algorithm in search of a problem to which it may be applied. Prosopography is the process of discovering, through references to personal names, familial relationships, professional designations, as well as other attributes, pictures of the social, economic, intellectual activities and connections that link them. As the foundational task of prosopography is the collecting of name instances and attributes, it is hardly surprising that prosopographers were early adopters of digital tools, especially databases, which facilitated sorting, searching, and storage.
Author: Eduardo Escobar
Author: Laurie Pearce
Date: 11/21/2016
Location: UC Berkeley
Primary URL: http://live-berkeleyprosopographyservices.pantheon.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/2016-Data-Connector-pptx.pdf
Primary URL Description: PDF of the slides for the presentation

Berkeley Prosopography Services (BPS): A Toolkit Supporting Humanities Research (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: Berkeley Prosopography Services (BPS): A Toolkit Supporting Humanities Research
Abstract: Berkeley Prosopography Services (BPS) is a customizable, out-of-the-box toolkit and environment that supports prosopographical research. It is designed to solve a problem — a complex research methodology — and is not a problem or algorithm in search of a problem to which it may be applied. Prosopography is the process of discovering, through references to personal names, familial relationships, professional designations, as well as other attributes, pictures of the social, economic, intellectual activities and connections that link them. As the foundational task of prosopography is the collecting of name instances and attributes, it is hardly surprising that prosopographers were early adopters of digital tools, especially databases, which facilitated sorting, searching, and storage.
Author: Patrick Schmitz
Author: Laurie Pearce
Date: 04/14/2017
Location: I-School, UC Berkeley
Primary URL: http://live-berkeleyprosopographyservices.pantheon.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/2017-ISchool-Friday-PM-Seminar-April.pdf
Primary URL Description: PDF of slides of the presentation

Digital Tools Supporting Prosopographical Research in Texts and Manuscripts (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Digital Tools Supporting Prosopographical Research in Texts and Manuscripts
Author: Laurie Pearce
Abstract: Berkeley Prosopography Services (BPS) is a digital toolkit that facilitates and supports prosopographical research, including the disambiguation of namesakes and the generation of social network visualizations. Although BPS originated in support for research in a corpus of cuneiform legal documents of the Hellenistic period, its corpus agnostic architecture supports investigation of the names and individuals in text corpora regardless of their time periods, languages, content, or media. It applies heuristics familiar to the humanities researcher, including the application of probabilistic reasoning in the disambiguation of namesakes and the positing and exploration of “what if” scenarios that invite the formation of new research agendas. This paper outlines the conceptual framework of BPS and will demonstrate the functionality of BPS and its potential to support prosopographical research in papyrology, drawing on text subsets from the Center for the Tebtunis Papyri, and will suggest its applicability to research in Biblical, Early Jewish, and Christian Studies.
Date: 11/23/2015
Primary URL: http://sbl-site.org/meetings/abstract.aspx?id=34824
Primary URL Description: Link to abstract
Conference Name: Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting

They All Have the Same Name: Taming the Hellenistic Uruk Onomasticon with Berkeley Prosopography Services (BPS) (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: They All Have the Same Name: Taming the Hellenistic Uruk Onomasticon with Berkeley Prosopography Services (BPS)
Author: Laurie Pearce
Abstract: This paper considers another way in which social network analysis and visualization may augment the exploration of text corpora in service of reconstructing social or economic history, as well as a perspective on the conceptual framework in which digital tools could serve humanities research.
Date: 03/18/2017
Primary URL: http://live-berkeleyprosopographyservices.pantheon.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/2017-AOS-All-have-same-name.pdf
Primary URL Description: PDF of slides from presentation
Conference Name: American Oriental Society Meeting

bps: berkeley prosopography services (Web Resource)
Title: bps: berkeley prosopography services
Author: Terri Tanaka
Author: Laurie Pearce
Abstract: Berkeley Prosopography Services (BPS) is an open-source digital toolkit that supports prosopographical research and generates interactive visualizations of the biological and social connections that link documented individuals. It provides a dynamic and heuristic tool for researching historical communities documented in legal and administrative archives.
Year: 2013
Primary URL: http://berkeleyprosop.digitalhumanities.berkeley.edu/
Primary URL Description: Link to BPS website

CH-CASE II Workshop (Conference/Institute/Seminar)
Title: CH-CASE II Workshop
Author: Quinn Dombrowski
Author: Patrick Schmitz
Author: Laurie Pearce
Abstract: The 2nd international workshop, Collaborative Annotations in Shared Environments: Metadata, Tools, and Techniques in the Digital Humanities (DH-CASE II), which took place in Fort Collins, CO as part of the 2014 DocEng conference, was organized by Patrick Schmitz, Laurie Pearce, and Quinn Dombrowski.
Date Range: 09/16/2014
Location: Fort Collins, CO
Primary URL: http://live-berkeleyprosopographyservices.pantheon.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/DH-CASE_II_Collaborative_Annotations_on.pdf
Primary URL Description: PDF of preface to the Proceedings of the Workshop

BPS Matrix Workshop (Conference/Institute/Seminar)
Title: BPS Matrix Workshop
Author: Laurie Pearce
Author: Patrick Schmitz
Abstract: The BPS Matrix Workshop, generously funded by the UC Berkeley Social Science Matrix, focused on the integration of Social Network Analysis (SNA) visualization tools into partner projects and the transformation of data sets (in csv format) into TEI for use in BPS.
Date Range: April 28-29, 2016
Location: UC Berkeley

UCB-LMU Workshop (Conference/Institute/Seminar)
Title: UCB-LMU Workshop
Author: Niek Veldhuis
Author: Laurie Pearce
Author: Patrick Schmitz
Abstract: This workshop, which brought together researchers from Berkeley and LMU, centered around the potential for BPS to be used in Neo-Assyrian prosopography. This has set the stage for future collaborations.
Date Range: September 9-11, 2017
Location: UC Berkeley
Primary URL: http://live-berkeleyprosopographyservices.pantheon.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/2017UCB-LMU-Workshop.pptx
Primary URL Description: A PDF of slides of the presentation by Laurie Pearce.

Digital Humanities Faire 2015 (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: Digital Humanities Faire 2015
Abstract: BPS was presented to the Digital Humanities community at UC Berkeley as part of the Digital Humanities Faire.
Author: Laurie Pearce
Author: Patrick Schmitz
Date: 04/08/2015
Location: UC Berkeley
Primary URL: http://live-berkeleyprosopographyservices.pantheon.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/DHFAIRE-2015-poster-FINAL.jpg
Primary URL Description: poster from DH Faire

Visualizing Networks of Knowledge in Ancient Babylon (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: Visualizing Networks of Knowledge in Ancient Babylon
Abstract: Semantic Network Analysis (SNA) can be used to analyze both social and semantic networks in ancient Babylonia.
Author: Eduardo Escobar
Date: 04/13/2016
Location: UC Berkeley
Primary URL: http://live-berkeleyprosopographyservices.pantheon.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Escobar-PearceDHFaire2016poster_FINAL.pdf
Primary URL Description: pdf of poster from presentation

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