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Editors' Page

Editorial history

08/08/12, CSG: Created page

Draft Project Manual Plan

Project Plan: Version One: August 5th 2012

(1) Project goals, incl. possible conference in January

(2) Project schedule

   (2.1) News page - to update with results of meetings and so on.
   (2.2) Schedule week by week (using the one Colin sent to the new member yesterday     as it is up to date)
- Include info about kick off meeting here/perhaps an agenda of things to be discussed

(3) Team structure & vacancies (how many facilitators and associates are we still looking for)

(4) Short team bios, concentrating on real demonstrated skills of individuals (e.g. Latin, German, Italian reading ability; SW skills; Palaeography...) Include contact email address and possibly phone numbers for those mentioned (even Skype? Although not sure about that one). (We could email around and ask for a short bio + contact details from each person with a maximum word limit)
Split into advisors, facilitators, associates.

(5) Training

(5.1)- Palaeography of HCA legal records

         (5.1.1) - Palaeography general resources + links (some on wiki, some extra I've found)
         (5.1.2) - Terms and dictionaries of relevant words. (I think we can take most of this from     Colin's wiki subject to his approval?
       (5.1.2.1) Legal
       (5.1.2.2) Geographical/Alphabet of places
       (5.1.2.3) Marine
       (5.1.2.4) Alphabet of Ships
   (5.1.3) - Challenges + postings go here. (Individual pages for each one)
   (5.1.4) - List of broad themes (like those in the challenges and on Colin's wiki) to look     out for in initial transcription so people can mark them briefly.
   (5.1.5) Links to useful articles/secondary material online for those who don't     necessarily have 17thC marine life as the main focus of their research.(Colin/Richard     to provide links perhaps? Although I don't mind hunting things down myself!)

(5.2) - Creating a wiki page and editing a wiki page

   (5.2.1) - Creating a wiki page
   (5.2.2) - Editing a wiki page
       (5.2.2.1) - Inserting and editing text
       (5.2.2.2) - Cropping and inserting images

(6) Possibly a forum, people may just email each other anyway at first but as the project grows I think it would certainly be something to think about. Or we could have a page with a box where associates could post messages that would then go to facilitators or something akin to that. A suggestion box might be useful as well?

Project Plan: Version One: Colin's Comments: August 5th 2012

Feedback on your project plans

2.1 News page - good idea (I think that can also be set up as an RSS feed, so if project team members subscribe that teh nerws page gets pushed to their email)

2.2 Project schedule. Should be regularly updated. Suggest we have a text version, with dot points on key actions and key targeted achievements (essentially interim process goals), and also a very simpla gantt chart (can be done in Excel, and easily updated - I'll send you an example from one of my Concordas consulting projects)

Suggest a specific page about kickoff meeting, including a preliminary agenda, with a comments box at the bottom, and ask people to comment on that page about the agenda with improvement ideas. This will help encourage people to start using the project wiki regularly. Learn about inserting comment boxes in wiki by going to:

Help with Editing (you see help with editing at the bottom of every Wikispot wiki page when you are in wiki edit mode)

Specifically see: http://wikispot.org/Comments

(3) Team structure, including names and roles , yes, and vacacies - very good idea

Suggest don't use a pyramid chart (suggesting rigid reporting hierachy), but instead concentric circle chart, with me and advisors and facilitators in a middle ring, with the ring boundary a dotted line not a heavy line, then associates in next concentric ring, then a final ring (all separated by dotted lines) showing academics, school students and teachers, and public historians. If you draw it clevely, you position the facilitators in the inner ring with "their" associates near them in the next ring, then draw a venn diagram like oval, also with dotted line to embrace a named facilitator and "their" associates. I bet you Patrizia (who likes this sort of thing) or Giovanni Colavizza (our most expert IT web coding guy) could qrite some HTML code, so that you click on a name on the diagram and it goes to the short bio/skills description. But this is nice to have only, and not exactly a priority

(4) Team bios. May want to put on one page, and do alphabetically. You can create links at the top of a page from a name, which will then take you to the correct bio on that page

(5.1.1) Palaeography. Yes, but we need to get more specific. What are the sort of palaeographical problems we will have with HCA documents. e.g. punctuation, capitalisation, distinguishing vowels. Take a look at: Policy issues in the Transcription page under Admiralty court cases in bron.wikispot.org

(5.1.2) Welcome to use my draft dictionaries. I think they can probably be extended prior to 3rd Sep., and we should get them into the new project wiki, and also all my HCA content, then encourage everyone to search the HCA content and play with adding stuff to these dictionaries. Get's people trained in wiki use without them realising. Content can simply be copied in edit mode from one wiki to another.

See Commodities
See Geography
See Shipping terminology

5.1.3-1.15 I like all of these

5.2 Like 5.2.1 and 5.2.3, but think you need 5.2.3 = searching the wiki. Probably enough simply to copy from my wiki into new project wiki the page: Searching the wiki

6. Forum page is good on wiki. Someone should host that forum page and activley manage it. Let's get as much shared on the forum as possible, rather than emails, since so much good stuff in email gets lost. Topics on a forum can be reorganised very easily by any contrinutor in edit mode, and all associates, facilitators and advisors should have edit privileges

I look forward to seeing a revised draft once you have incorporated relevant feedback from associates (?and advisors if possible)

On palaeography I will let you know as soon as I have spoken with Charlene Eske, since I think she will have good thoughts on palaeography training. Also Jo Pugh at TNA can put you in touch with TNA palaorgaphy expert, who I am hoping will come to our kickoff, and perhaps co-run a training session with a team member, using HCA examples

William Tullett suggestions, August 7th 2012

(In email to Colin, cc Sarah)

Dear Colin,

Thank you for the details regarding all of the individuals on the project. I haven't had any replies from the associates, all of whom we have emailed asking about their ideas on training provision on the wiki but hopefully we will get some input soon as it's only been a few days.

I think, although I have not asked Sarah on this yet, that the project wiki and the wiki for the input of transcribed content should be separate but perhaps have them linked by a tab on each of them so it's easy to get between them. Me and Sarah have yet to produce a more detailed plan but below are some thoughts.

A few things I wanted to ask:

1) Have you set up the project training wiki and therefore would you be able to provide I and Sarah with the details for it? Sarah and I have talked about the possibility of using Wordpress for the project training site, with which Sarah has experience and the possibility of using Scripto for transcription. Do you have any opinions on this and is the preferred option to use a wiki?

2) In terms of copy for the wiki could you provide a blurb for the project goals page? I was going to cobble together a project goals section from the 'Project high level description' you sent me on the 14th July and the various call for papers/history today article but I felt perhaps it would be better for you to prepare this as it is, of course, your entrepreneurial spirit which started and continues to feed the project and I wouldn't want to put words in your mouth about the end goals!

I will try and put together a list of useful secondary resources for the training pages but if you have suggestions that would be great. I wonder what, since I should imagine the training wiki would be privately accessed by password (?) the policy on putting up some pdfs of journal articles would be. Obviously if the wiki were public I understand this would not be allowed. Perhaps links to wikipedia pages would suffice but this is entirely at your discretion and is something I will ask associates about.

3) In terms of schedule me and Sarah currently have this from an earlier email

"August 1st to August 31st

• Train facilitators online
• Work with facilitators to prepare online training material for associates
• Face-to face one day meeting at TNA (August 20th) to look and feel the documents we will be working on, to meet TNA staff, and to practice technical and palaeographical skills. This meeting to consist of project facilitators & project experts
• Project leaders & facilitators to create a digital backbone for the project, with all images checked for quality and readability, and meta data created and input into wiki

September 3rd to December 14th

• Allocation of facilitators to project associates
• Training of project associates directed and supported by facilitators
• Kick off transcription (plus linkage and enrichment) work
• Monthly on line review conferences using e-conferencing"

Is this detailed enough or do you feel that this could be further supplemented?

In addition do we yet have an agenda for the kick off meeting? I currently have this from emails:

"'I'm thinking a morning (9.00 a.m.-12.30 p.m.) plus lunch (12.30-13.30) together might be ideal. For facilitators who are interested we might put a couple of the volumes of the HCA records, including the records we are going to work on, in the conference room, or in a side room, which we could then examine after lunch, and I might run a palaeography teach-in from 14.00 through to 16.00 for any of the facilitators who are interested (if TNA has a palaeography expert who could join us all the better)."

I would suggest key parts of the day to be:
Establishing and confirming end goals of the project.

Running through the schedule and establishing/confirming targets.

Perhaps going through the training wiki and some examples using a projector so we can discuss pros and cons.

Possibly dividing up associates amongst facilitators.

Some time spent addressing Palaeography policy. (I wonder whether this is something we need to have quite an in depth conversation about and that the meeting at TNA might be a good forum for it)

Some hands on time with the HCA records and some palaeography teaching. This could be linked to the above.

Simply getting to know each other!

What is your current position on the agenda for that meeting?

I must admit in IT terms I am not particularly proficient but I have spent a little bit of time today looking at how to set up an RSS feed, a calendar which we could put on the wiki which we could all edit and a forum. I'm still a bit mystified but I should imagine this will be easier once I have access to the wiki so that I can get working on it and trying things.

I completely agree re: the concentric circle style with links for displaying the team structure, I will send an email to Giovanni Colavizza and Patrizia to talk to them about the code for this.

In terms of wiki training I think this will be pretty easy to copy and paste from the descriptions you've provided in your wiki and possibly these explanations here: http://wikispot.org/Help_with_Editing .

Advisors comments

Comments(Comments for the editors)

2012-08-09 07:01:45 nbsp I have circulated a short email this morning to the MarineLives project advisors asking for their comments on the skeleton project manual with substantive suggestions. I have requested that their comments should be posted to the Editors' Page, rather than circulated by email. --Users/ColinGreenstreet

2012-08-09 15:08:59 nbsp Hello Everyone,

At present I am in the process of drawing up a draft of the transcription conventions that the project might consider adopting. The main issue I am having at this point is that I am still waiting for interlibrary loan to get hold of a copy of Dr. Murphy's book.

Regarding the training seminar at TNA, if there is a paleography expert there, it would be a good thing to consult with him/her beforehand and perhaps go over the transcription conventions that you will be teaching. I'm assuming that participants will have images of HCA documents to work with and will be able to get some practice that way. Would it be possible to draw up a sample alphabet and abbreviations/contractions based on images of letter forms found in the documents themselves? Would it also be possible to record parts of the training seminar and post it to the website for those who are not able to participate on the 20th? All three of the paleography tutorial links already posted to the website will be a huge help once things get started. Just some thoughts...

Charlene --Users/charleneeska

2012-08-09 16:57:22 nbsp In answer to Charlene's points and making a couple of my own:

(1) Jo Pugh is making contact with TNA palaeography experts and is checking who might be available. Jo is currently on holiday, but back in the office at Kew on Tuesday, 14th August. I will contact him on the Tuesday to get the name of the suggested palaeographer at TNA, and then I suggest that Charlene and I, together with William and Sarah have a web chat about how to run the palaography session on 20th August, and also in the w/c 3rd September, when we kickoff with project associates.

(2) I just spent half the day with a year thirteen student, Daniel Richards, at the TNA in Kew, showing him HCA documents from 1656-1678, and it reminded me that we will need to be efficient in taking people, some of them who have never sat down an read an original document, and getting them to a decent level of confidence and productivity. By the way Daniel tells me that he wants to join the team, so (when he confirms officially), we have a second school involved, the well known comprehensive school, the London Oratory, in West London.

(3) We can easily provide digital images of relevant documents, and I was proposing that we are very concentrated on HCA documents, and the type of scripts and language that we will all be encountering over the next fourteen weeks. No need to learn Elizabethan or early Jacobean scripts. I think it is a good idea to do close ups of specific letters and the variance you can see around them. I have probably five hundred digital images of HCA documents already on my laptop, and will start to go through a few for different script types and to experiment with enlarging letters and words. I'll post some examples to the palaography section of this wiki, so that people can comment on the effectiveness of this approach.

(4) We can certainly video or otherwise record parts of the palaeography session, and post the recording, probably best done as short thematic clips, to the wiki or website (need to check technical side for this, but Giovanni Colavizza can help us here. I'll add Giovanni to the current users of the wiki) --Users/ColinGreenstreet

2012-08-10 02:37:06 nbsp I am learning my way around the wiki, so inadvertently added my report on soliciting volunteers to Colin's page. Let me know if I should change that! Otherwise, I'm impressed by what I've read so far. -- Margaret --Users/margaretschotte

2012-08-10 11:25:24 nbsp Margaret, I found it very useful that you added your comments directly to the volunteer news page, and I have responded to you at the same location, as well as adding a new page with model emails which you can use (suitably modified), or simply take as a starting point. I have also made available a downloadable PDF of the MarineLives History Today article, which is due to be published on 23rd August in hard copy, with the web edition of the magazine carrying the article roughly a week earlier (Colin)

2012-08-10 12:41:40 nbsp I have added Jill Wilcox to the admiited users of this project manual. Jill has joined William Tullett, Sarah Laseke, and me, as a project facilitator. I have adlso added Giovanni Colavizza, who is based in Friuli, Italy. Giovanni has joined as as our resident IT guru, and will work closely with me and Dr Stuart Dunn, as prepare our recommendations to the project team as to the technical solution(s) to our various needs. Giovanni is studying for his MA at Venice and Padua in archival studies, with a digital humanities flavour, and has a very strong background in databases and coding. --Users/ColinGreenstreet