Australian Scholarly Editions Centre Projects (ASEC)

Just In Time Markup
for
Electronic Editions

By

Phillip William Berrie
September 1999

A Project Report submitted to the School of Computer Science University College University of New South Wales Australian Defence Force Academy for the degree of Master of Information Science. This project was developed in collaboration with the Australian Scholarly Editions Centre based at the Australian Defence Force Academy

Abstract

This paper details a proof of concept for a new paradigm for the creation and maintenance of TEI conformant, SGML-based electronic editions of historical literature. The Just In Time Markup (JITM) paradigm as described in this report, solves a number of common problems identified in the systems currently in use for creating electronic editions. The report also shows how the nature of the JITM paradigm will reduce the significant workload involved in creating and authenticating an edition while allowing the edition to be a continually evolving research work for any number of scholars – even after publication. Unlike the current systems in use for creating electronic editions, the nature of the JITM paradigm also protects the digital asset of the transcription of the original states of the work, preventing the possible proliferation of variant states of the electronic edition.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
The Textual Apparatus

1 Introduction
2 Just In Time Markup(?)
3 Review of Background Material
4 JITM Paradigm Design
5 Development of a Prototype JITM System
6 Evaluation of the JITM System
7 Further Work
8 Conclusions

Glossary
Bibliography
Appendix A : Requirements Survey
Appendix B : Command Set DTD and Example

Any questions or comments concerning thisreport should be directed to the author