0.26 Underpinnings of the social edition  (Page 16/32)

Inserting documents into REKn offered technical challenges as well. Documents from different sources often had different XML structures. Even TEI-standard documents from various sources had different markup tags and elements, depending on the goals of the projects supplying the documents and the particular TEI DTDs used.

4.3. challenge: standalone vs. web application

Developed as a down-and-dirty solution to the original project requirements, PReE at the proof-of-concept stage was built as an installable standalone Windows application written in Microsoft .NET. For the second version of PReE, we considered whether to translate it from a desktop environment to the Internet.

The main advantages of following a web-application (or rich Internet application) paradigm are that it offers superior flexibility in application deployment and maintenance, and the ability to receive and disseminate user-generated content and multi-platform compatibility. The main disadvantage is that browsers impose limitations on the design of applications and usually restrict access to the resources (file system and processing) of the local machine.

A major advantage that standalone applications have over web applications is that performance and functionality are not dependent on the speed or availability of an Internet connection. Further, standalone desktop applications are able to use all of the resources of the local machine with very few design restrictions, other than those imposed by the target hardware and software tools. However, standalone applications must be installed by each individual user and, as a result, involve a level of training, familiarization, and support, which may discourage some users. Perhaps most importantly, given the goals of the project, standalone applications simply do not offer the same level of multi-platform compatibility or flexibility in application deployment and maintenance.

Essentially the question came down to identifying the features or services users would require, and whether those could be accommodated in the client application. For example, if users required the ability to create files and store them locally on their own machines, it may not have been feasible for the client application to be a web browser. After weighing the pros and cons, it was decided that PReE would be further developed as a web application. This decision was followed by a a survey of the relevant applications, platforms, and technologies in terms of their applicability, functionality, and limitations ( Appendix 3 ).

4.4 experiment: shakespeare's sonnets

As outlined above, to facilitate faster prototyping and development of both REKn and PReE it was proposed that REKn should be reduced to a limited dataset. Work was already underway on an electronic edition of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, so limiting REKn data to materials related to the Sonnets would offer a more manageable dataset.

Modern print editions of the Sonnets admirably serve the needs of lay readers. For professional readers, however, print editions simply cannot hope to offer an exhaustive and authoritative engagement with the critical literature surrounding the Sonnets, a body of scholarship that is continually growing. Even with the considerable assistance provided by such tools as the World Shakespeare Bibliography and the MLA International Bibliography, the sheer volume of scholarship published on Shakespeare and his works is difficult to navigate. Indeed, existing databases such as these only allow the user to search for criticism related to the Sonnets through a limited set of metadata, selected and presented in each database according to different editorial priorities, and often by those without domain-specific expertise. Moreover, while select bibliographies such as these have often helped to organize specific areas of inquiry, the last attempt to compile a comprehensive bibliography of scholarly material on Shakespeare’s Sonnets was produced by Tetsumaro Hayashi in 1972. Although it remains an invaluable resource in indicating the volume and broad outlines of Sonnet criticism, Hayashi’s bibliography is unable to provide the particularity and responsiveness of a tool that accesses the entire text of the critical materials it seeks to organize.