Presentations

Abstract

KinOath Kinship Archiver is an application for collecting and analysing kinship data which can be linked with archive data. It is designed to be flexible and culturally nonspecific, so that it does not impose extraneous concepts onto the data being recorded. Graphical representation of the data is a key feature, it produces publishable quality diagrams that can be exported to SVG, PDF and JPG formats. Data can be imported from GEDCOM, CSV and TIP files. Data can be exported into CSV format, with additional formats becoming available in the next version. The most common format, GEDCOM (Family History Department, 1999), exhibits cultural specificities. GEDCOM has a predetermined set of kinship types, genders and initiation ceremonies. We know that there is a wider array of kinship types (e.g. suckling relations (Altorki, 1980)) and genders (e.g. the Māhū of Hawaiʻi (Matzner, 2001)). There are also initiation ceremonies beyond the Christian and Jewish ceremonies that are predefined in GEDCOM. The cultural nonspecificity in KinOath is achieved by providing very flexible data fields, customisable relation types, customisable symbols and customisable kintypes. This means, for example, that any number of genders and kinship relations can be defined and represented on a diagram. There are two types of diagram: freeform, which is like a quick sketch; and project based diagrams, which share data across diagrams. Project based diagrams allow kintype string queries, allowing individuals to be found based on their relations to others. Individuals in a project diagram can be duplicated and merged, which can be useful, for example, in correcting data, or merging multiple data sets on kin groups that overlap. Kin terms can be defined with kintype strings and shown on the diagram, organised in groups, imported and exported. Statistical Analysis can be performed on the data exported from KinOath with the use of R or SPSS. This combined with queries based on kintypes and other search parameters, provides great potential in the analysis of both the kin data and the archive data that has been recorded. The intended users of Kinoath are any researchers that collect data in a context of social relations. Kinship data is often not systematically included in the metadata of archives, however these kin relations provide a context that enriches that archived data. The stable version of the application is available and the development version is being actively worked on with a number of new features. One of the new features is a plugin layer so that third parties can add functionality specific to their needs. Other new features include additional exporters/ importers and tighter R integration. The various versions and the manual are available at: http:// tla.mpi.nl/tools/tla-tools/kinoath/

Abstract

KinOath is a kinship and archive retrieval application under development by Peter Withers at the Language Archive of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics Nijmegen. It is designed to be flexible and culturally nonspecific, such that culturally different social structures can equally be represented. By linking archived data to kinship individuals, queries can be performed to retrieve the archive data based on kinship relations. The application is nearing beta release and some of the recently added features are; multiple diagram types such as freeform or kin term etc., matrimonial ring diagrams from kin type strings, customisable kin types, export to R or SPSS, customisable metadata via the Clarin Component Registry and ISOCat, improved kin type string database queries and browse-able kin trees. This talk will give an introduction to the application, discussing the current features as well as those that have yet to become available.

Abstract

KinOath is a kinship and archive retrieval application under development by Peter Withers at the Language Archive of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics Nijmegen. It is designed to be flexible and culturally nonspecific, such that culturally different social structures can equally be represented. By linking archived data to kinship individuals, queries can be performed to retrieve the archive data based on kinship relations. A lot of work has been done on the application since the last talk was given and many of the proposed features are now useable. Some of the recent features are; multiple diagram types such as freeform or kin term etc., matrimonial ring diagrams from kin type strings, customisable kin types, export to R or SPSS, customisable metadata via the Clarin Component Registry and ISOCat, improved kin type string database queries and browse-able kin trees. This talk will give a fresh introduction to the application and discuss the features that have become recently available.

Abstract

KinOath is a kinship application under development by Peter Withers at the Language Archive of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics Nijmegen in conjunction with the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology Halle (Saale). Its primary goal is to connect kinship data with archived data, such as audio, video or written resources while also being closely integrated with the archive software such as Arbil. Beyond this goal it is designed to be flexible and culturally nonspecific, such that culturally different social structures can equally be represented. Kin type strings are usedthrough out the application for constructing and searching data sets. The representation of kin terms is also integrated into the application allowing comparative diagrams of kin terms. Graphical representation of the data is an important part of the application and the diagrams produced are intended to very flexible and of publishable quality. This talk will show examples of how the current prototype of this application can be used and also discuss areas that are underdevelopment.

Abstract

We describe our computer-supported framework to overcome the rule of metadata schism. It combines the use of controlled vocabularies, managed by a data category registry, with a component-based approach, where the categories can be combined to yield complex metadata structures. A metadata scheme devised in this way will thus be grounded in its use of categories. Schema designers will profit from existing prefabricated larger building blocks, motivating re-use at a larger scale. The common base of any two metadata schemes within this framework will solve, at least to a good extent, the semantic interoperability problem, and consequently, further promote systematic use of metadata for existing resources and tools to be shared.