The ARCHway Project: Architecture for research in computing for humanities through research, teaching, and learning

An unusual alliance called the ARCHway Project is developing an Edition Production Technology (EPT), a technological infrastructure for collaborative research, teaching, and learning between computer scientists and specialists in Old English. Our goal is to identify and solve problems of mutual importance in building image-based electronic editions of significant cultural materials. The EPT will allow us to implement and integrate both new and already available software applications, to construct a digital library of previously unedited Old English manuscripts as a testbed for our solutions, and to distribute the digital library to the public. This paper introduces some of the tools and technologies currently under development as we build this interdisciplinary research, teaching, and learning infrastructure. First, we introduce the stand-alone tools developed under the Electronic Boethius project, an image-based electronic edition of the Alfred the Great's Old English translation of Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy. Next, we describe formal methodologies for collaborative research, teaching, and learning and the integration of these tools, as well as new developments, into an open-source platform. Next we present new ways to maintain the integrity of highly complex, layered, XML markup. Finally, we discuss how the EPT will be useful to other humanities computing projects.