Digital research projects involve the transformation of objects of scholarly interest, including texts and images, into electronic form for specialized, enhanced, or remote analysis.
A digital project comprises the planning, preparation, and production that goes into creating electronic publications. Possible electronic publications include: Web sites, electronic books, digital images, etc.
Benefits of a Digital Project
A primary benefit of digital projects is that one encoded text document may produce multiple output options. In addition, the project may include any combination of audio, visual, or textual features.
Further benefits of encoding text for Internet access include:
- the prevention of damage to rare and fragile material by displaying the material online
- allowing access to material online that would otherwise be unavailable
- online searching of material that could not be searched in other formats
Materials for a Digital Project
The following is a list of the basic equipment that is needed to work on a digital project.
- material to encode
- a computer with a text editor
- software to process the encoding
The Center will provide the computer equipment and software needed to work on a digital project.
Things to Consider
When selecting materials to encode for a digital project, it is useful to discuss the value of the project and whether similar projects have already been encoded elsewhere.
Other issues to consider include:
- availability of materials for encoding
- copyright issues
- time constraints
- financial resources
- material resources
- where the finished project might be published
- the server on which the finished project will be located
- the intended audience
- the goals of the project