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Syriaca.org Schema Customizations
Syriaca.org is a Linked Open Data (LOD) oriented project using the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) standard of XML to encode data about core entities (persons, places, works, manuscripts, and bibliography) relevant to the field of Syriac Studies. Syriaca.org uses the TEI because it offers a widely-used standard for humanities projects and because it allows us to capture the nuances of the textual source base we draw upon when encoding data. The LOD-oriented nature of the project, especially the fact that Syriaca.org does not focus on the encoding of texts but rather focuses on the encoding of LOD derived from texts, means that Syriaca.org's use of the TEI is somewhat idiosyncratic.
Syriaca.org's research goals have also required the development of the Srophé Application, an open source eXist-DB application for TEI projects dealing with Cultural Heritage Information. As more and more projects begin to use the Srophé App, users have expressed interest in having a customized TEI schema that will facilitate the encoding of data in ways that the Srophé App expects.
The various needs of Syriaca.org and users of the Srophé App have required the creation of a series of customized schemas that can be applied to different data types and different projects. This project is very much a work in progress. This wiki documents the current state of this customization work.
[For a more detailed discussion of TEI schema customization, see the chapters on "Documentation Elements" and "Using the TEI" in the TEI Guidelines.]
Out of the various processes available for producing TEI customizations, Syriaca.org writes ODD files (a distinctive type of TEI XML file) that can be used to produce a RelaxNG schema against which a TEI file can be validated. Given the need to have schema customizations that apply to different data types and can offer some assistance to projects outside Syriaca.org, we have taken the approach of producing a series of chained ODD files. When generating a schema out of a single (i.e. un-chained) ODD, the source for that file is the TEI (generally TEI P5 All but any TEI subset, i.e. TEILite, could be the source). ODD chaining entails having an initial ODD with the TEI as its source followed by subsequent ODD files that use an earlier ODD customization as their source.
Syriaca.org has produced an initial ODD customization for all Srophé projects. This customization takes a subset of TEI P5 All elements and attributes, constrains how these can be used in different contexts, and introduces a customized attribute in the Srophé namespace. That customization then becomes the basis for a