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Prof. Dr. Lukas Rosenthaler

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SwissBritNet: Swiss-British cultural exchange and knowledge networks 1600-1780

Research Project  | 3 Project Members

The SwissBritNet project proposes to make a substantial corpus of 17th- and 18th-century documents available in a user-friendly database which will allow students, scholars and a wider audience to investigate Swiss-British relations in the early modern period and so deepen our understanding of early modern networks of knowledge. The study of early modern transnational relations in Europe has been advanced in recent years by digital humanities initiatives enabling the large-scale collection, visualisation and analysis of data designed to improve our knowledge of the Republic of Letters. Joining this international research community, we will highlight the nature and relevance of Swiss-British relations. While both continental anglophilia and the British enthusiasm for Switzerland are often seen as late-18th-century phenomena, we will show that they have a long and intricate history. These exchanges are hidden in thousands of unpublished manuscripts and obscure print items which need to be digitised, transcribed and made searchable online. SwissBritNet will contribute to a more complete picture of the early modern Republic of Letters by making Swiss-British relations and exchanges visible in context. Building on existing database projects and sharing data with the well-established hallerNet platform, we will develop advanced search options, visualisation tools and linked data solutions. Innovative search options will permit complex network analysis, and case studies will ensure that data is modelled with well-considered research questions in mind. SwissBritNet will offer fully edited and searchable texts of 1300-plus hitherto unpublished documents from Swiss and British libraries and the metadata for thousands more print and manuscript items, innovative linked-data solutions which enable collaborations with existing databases and visualisations for search results such as maps, graphs, timelines and 3-D animations. The SwissBritNet database will enable complex inquiries into the networked structure of the Republic of Letters by providing an interoperable, multi-modal database that connects to and shares data with other platforms. Representative case studies based on the corpus will be published in open access monographs and articles. Publications and outreach activities including conferences, an exhibition and transnational stories on the SwissBritNet website will disseminate findings to the academic community and a wider public. For data access longevity, compatibility will be ensured with the DaSCH platform. We are committed to an open access policy and sustainability according to the FAIR principles so that data and software will be freely and reliably accessible to the scientific community.

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Develop a Simple User Interface to the Data and Service Center for the Humanities (DaSCH) database (SUID)

Research Project  | 3 Project Members

Researchers in the Humanities need an accessible and easy to use digital platform to manage, store, work with and share their research data. Interesting IT-tools already exist. However, for small projects, e.g., PhD projects, pilot projects, and proof of concepts, these technologies can be difficult to use due to researchers' limited IT-skills, small amounts of funding, limited project time, or need for specific assistance. Most small humanities projects rely on "homemade solutions" using desktop data management tools, such as FileMaker, MSAccess, etc., but the data modelling often does not follow standards. The data itself may be inconsistent. Often researchers only have access to poor tools for export, analyse, and re-use of the data. Powerful data tools already exist for humanities research. The Data and Service Center for the Humanities (DaSCH) is a national research infrastructure at the University of Basel that includes all disciplines of the humanities. This infrastructure is clearly focused on qualitative data such as interlinked databases, complex data involving different media with annotations (text, facsimile, photographic images, video, and film), rich linkages, and connections. The DaSCH team has developed a unique and powerful software platform, Knora, to provide services, like data maintenance, long-term access, and research and analysis tools for qualitative data. However, with no simple user interface, this platform is not easily used by researchers with small projects or limited resources. Over 30 Swiss projects are currently queuing to get access to Knora, waiting for developer staff support. This project proposes to develop a Simple User Interface for DaSCH (SUID). The design is an intuitive, easy to use web-based application placed on top of Knora to directly use its powerful data management functionalities. With SUID, the researchers will be able to add data models, search, browse, and work with their qualitative data as easily as they could with a desktop data management tool. In addition, data models and data will automatically follow accepted standards, be interoperable, findable, and re-usable. Researchers and scholars with small data sets will have access to long-term accessibility at minimal cost and time to keep their research data alive, guaranteeing longevity of the data.

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Zusatzfinanzierung DaSCH 2019/2020

Research Project  | 3 Project Members

The Data and Service Center for the Humanities DaSCH is a Swiss national research infrastructure which, as a competence center for digital methods and long-term use of digital data, supports the hermeneutically oriented Humanities in the use of state-of-the-art digital research methods. Focusing on qualitative data and associated digital objects (bitstreams such as images, sound, video, etc.) from all areas of the Humanities (including law and theology) it provides tools and long-term access to Humanities' research data for the research community in accordance with FAIR principles and international standards for interoperability. It's registered at re3data.org supports scholars in generating new and re-using existing digital research data for cutting-edge research. implements innovative solutions for scientific data processing in close co-operation with researchers and national and international initiatives in order to meet the rapidly changing requirements of internationally competitive research projects.

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WordWeb / IDEM: A new way of representing Intertextuality in Drama of the Early Modern Period

Research Project  | 2 Project Members

WordWeb/IDEM proposes an innovative flexible structure for representing intertextuality to display a comprehensive corpus of mutual quotations in the drama of Shakespeare's time. Within the relational paradigm of traditional databases, it has been extremely challenging to map complex intertextual references. Thanks to new information technologies, we can offer a generic digital framework for representing interrelated information which overcomes these limitations. The collaborative and competitive canon of the London theatre scene around 1600 will serve as a "real world" example of relations between multiple texts.WordWeb/IDEM's main objectives will significantly advance Digital Humanities and the study of early modern literature. (1) To develop and implement WordWeb, a software framework which can model complex intertextual relationships in any cultural domain. (2) To harness 200 years of research for an unprecedented overview of Intertextuality in Drama of the Early Modern Period (IDEM).(3) To clarify Shakespeare's contribution to the overall "web of words" of his time.The project builds on experience gained from the HyperHamlet database (SNF Project Passages We Live By 2006-2010), a hypertext of Shakespeare's tragedy in which each line gives access to texts in which that line is quoted. In contrast, WordWeb/IDEM will make cross-references between the works of dozens of dramatists visible as an extended verbal and social network. WordWeb can renew our vision of intertextuality through a ground-breaking new paradigm for representing what is conventionally called "quotation". Instead of complete texts, Word-Web/IDEM will store only intertextually active passages, i.e. phrases which have been identified in more than one text. These items are not seen as deriving from a famous masterpiece. Instead, they represent much-quoted phrases which just happen to occur also in Hamlet, for example. The name "WordWeb" indicates this new focus: short verbal items ("Word") are connected to each other by rich links that carry bibliographical information and other annotations ("Web"). By storing only shared passages, WordWeb/IDEM will have room for an open number of texts that quote and are quoted and so present an extensive overview of the verbal network of Renais-sance drama. Such a coherent view is urgently needed. Thousands of references between Elizabe-than and Jacobean plays are lost from view because they are reported in hard-to-access footnotes, indexes and detailed studies. WordWeb/IDEM will make this extremely valuable, extremely specific data accessible and set them in context. A digital "semantic web" with sophisticated options for visualization will relate older, philological research to recent digital investigations and set Shakespeare's works in the context of his contemporaries. As a result, connections and influences will emerge that have remained invisible because of fragmented research. IDEM's multidimensional map of the dense tissue of verbal "memes" in early modern drama will revolutionize our under-standing of one of the most significant bodies of English literature. As a new methodology, WordWeb can be applied to advance research and understanding of complex relationships in many cultural domains.

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Data and Service Center for the Humanities V2.0 (DaSCH V2.0)

Research Project  | 2 Project Members

The Data and Service Center for the Humanities (DaSCH) is a national research infrastructure in Switzerland, specifically designed to support the long-term preservation, accessibility, and reusability of humanities research data. Serving as a pivotal hub, DaSCH facilitates the secure storage and sharing of a wide range of digital data, from textual documents to multimedia content. Its focus on adhering to FAIR principles ensures that data is not only safeguarded for future use but also remains easily accessible and interoperable within the academic community.


Recognized for its innovative approach, DaSCH provides essential services to researchers, including sophisticated tools for data management, analysis, and visualization. This infrastructure plays a crucial role in promoting collaborative research, enabling scholars to engage with and build upon existing data. Through its commitment to digital preservation and open access, DaSCH significantly contributes to the advancement of the humanities, ensuring that valuable research insights endure and remain accessible for generations to come.

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Basler Edition der Bernoulli-Briefwechsel

Research Project  | 7 Project Members

The Basler Edition der Bernoulli-Briefwechsel (BEBB) has the aim of publishing a full online edition of the letters exchanged by the mathematicians and physicists Daniel Bernoulli (1700-1782), Jacob I Bernoulli (1654-1705), Jacob II Bernoulli (1759-1789), Johann I Bernoulli (1667-1748), Johann II Bernoulli (1710-1790), Nicolaus I Bernoulli (1687-1759), Nicolaus II Bernoulli (1695-1726), and Jacob Hermann (1678-1733) with over 400 correspondents, many of them of world renown. The Bernoulli correspondence represents a central part of the scientific network of the 17th and 18th century and is an essential text source for the study of western intellectual history, particularly of the history of mathematics and physics.

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Data and Service Center for the Humanities

Research Project  | 5 Project Members

The Data and Service Center for the Humanities (DaSCH) is an institution of the Swiss Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences (SAHSS) financed by the State Secretariat for Eduction, Research and Innovation (SERI). It's also part of the Digital Life Cycle Managment (DLCM) -project (funded by the swissuniversities P5 Programme "Scientific information" ). It's registered at re3data.org and is fully the FAIR compliant ( F indable, A ccessible, I nteroperable, and R e-usable). It implements persistent ARK (Archival Resource Key) Identifiers . The primary goals of the DaSCH are Preservation of research data in the humanities and their long-term data curation. Ensuring permanent access to research data in order to make it available for further research and thus facilitating the reuse of existing research data in future research. Providing services for researchers to assist them with the data life cycle management. Encouraging the digital networking of databases created in Switzerland or in other countries. Collaboration and networking with other institutions on digital literacy. The services of the DaSCH are available to all researchers and projects in Switzerland which work in the the domain of the Humanities and have to deal with digital information. They are provided by the Digital Humanities Lab of the University of Basel (project leader) and by the University of Lausanne ( plateforme technique du Laboratoire de cultures et humanités digitales ) and include hosting and long-term curation of digital data relevant to the Humanities. Consultancy and support of researchers and research projects in the Humanities regarding the creation, the use, the re-use and the long-term curation of digital data. The DaSCH operates a flexible, versatile and secure hardware- and software-infrastructure to provide above services. It adheres to and promotes open standards such as the International Image Interoperability Framework ( IIIF ) or JSON-LD . In the context of the DLCM the DaSCH services are also available to other parties (Life science, Physics, Astronomy etc.) which have to deal with qualitative data. The generic front end to the repository can be accesses using SALSAH . There is also a RESTful API available to access the research data. Please inquire sending an email to info@dasch.swiss .

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Bernoulli-Euler Online (BEOL): Development of a platform for digital editing and a virtual research environment for historical scientific texts

Research Project  | 2 Project Members

The project Bernoulli-Euler Online (BEOL) integrates the two edition projects Basler Edition der Bernoulli-Briefwechsel (BEBB) and Leonhardi Euleri Opera Omnia (LEOO) into one digital platform available on the web. In addition, Jacob Bernoulli's scientific notebook Meditationes - a document of outstanding significance for the history of mathematics at its turning point around 1700 - will be published, offering a multilayer access to the user (facsimile, transcription, critical text, translations, indices, and commentaries). BEOL is implemented within Knora/SALSAH, a generic virtual research environment (VRE) for the humanities. Besides being an edition, BEOL will be a research platform for the study of early modern mathematics and science. It will also be interoperable with other digital platforms, which can interact with it via Knora's RDF-based data model and RESTful API. Knora relies on Semantic Web technologies such as OWL ontologies, and is well suited as a platform for the representation of complex structured qualitative knowledge. The goal of BEOL is thus twofold: It focuses on the mathematics influenced by the Bernoulli dynasty and Leonhard Euler and undertakes a methodological effort to present these materials to the public and researchers in a highly functional way. The methodology to be developed here can also be applied to other editions, enhancing the principle of Open Access publication (OA). OA on the basis of a VRE can be thought of as a truly digital form of publishing, which also presents information on (collaborative) authorship, versions, and underlying research data that cannot be implemented in print or print-like formats like PDF.

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LIMC/SALSAH: Digitale Plattform für antike Mythologie

Research Project  | 2 Project Members

The wealth of ancient myths and legends which we call Classical Mythology is one of the major elements of our cultural heritage. The Foundation for the LIMC prepared and published 10 volumes of the Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC) between 1981 and 2009. This work has been continued by the Thesaurus Cultus et Rituum Antiquorum (ThesCRA; 10 volumes), focused on the domain of cult and rite. The digital archives of the LIMC will make accessible what we know of the iconography of Greek, Etruscan and Roman mythology, as well as of the neighbouring Mediterranean cultures, to all people interested in classical antiquity. The existing databases are currently being migrated to a new platform called SALSAH (System for Annotation and Linkage of Sources in Arts and Humanities ). This modern and flexible platform will grant access to and public availability of the digitised LIMC data in the future. New information not yet included in the database will be added. The new technology will allow the tagging of photographs, the connection of our data with different kinds of web information (e.g. geo system information, photos) and the linking of our data to other databases. The Virtual Research environment of SALSAH makes it possible to work with digital information that can be linked and annotated openly or individually within a so-called Region of Interest (ROI). This means that it will be possible to share personal information within a group of selected users. The project is hosted both at the Department of Ancient Civilisations and the Digital Humanities Lab of the University of Basel.