The Switchover: Teaching and Learning the Text Encoding Initiative in Spanish

Susanna Allés-Torrent,Gimena Del Rio Riande

doi:10.4000/jtei.2994

Abstract

This article analyses the current situation of the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) in a Spanish-speaking digital humanities (DH) education and research context. It also examines the challenges faced when teaching TEI in Spanish and takes into consideration two main issues: the still not well-defined DH curriculum in many Spanish-speaking countries and the different pedagogical approaches to the TEI depending on the learning context: face-to-face instruction, distance education, and the Foreign Language Classroom. It aims as well to raise awareness about the lack of basic pedagogical materials—tutorials or guidelines—devoted to TEI in Spanish, an obstacle that has hindered the growth of a TEI community of practice from Spain and Latin America. It also offers some strategies and new resources that could benefit the outreach and adoption of the TEI inside and outside the Spanish-speaking DH community, while facilitating a new TEI curriculum in a higher education context.

Highlights

This article analyses the current situation of the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) in a Spanishspeaking digital humanities (DH) education and research context
It examines the challenges faced when teaching TEI in Spanish and takes into consideration two main issues: the still not well-de ned DH curriculum in many Spanish-speaking countries and the di erent pedagogical approaches to the TEI depending on the learning context: face-to-face instruction, distance education, and the Foreign Language Classroom
This article will focus on three main points: a general overview of the interest in adopting the TEI as a standard to represent a variety of humanities texts; the challenges of teaching TEI in Spanish within an ill-de ned and emerging DH curricular context, as well as in di erent pedagogical environments such as face-toface instruction and distance education in a native-speaking context, and the Foreign Language Classroom; and an outline of the obstacles and challenges we have faced after almost seven years of teaching TEI in Spanish, together with a set of strategies and resources for improving the overall situation

Summary

Pedagogy and TEI in Spanish

14 The growing global interest in DH has resulted in an increasing number of courses, modules, certi cates, and even degrees covering a broad range of topics at the intersection of Humanities and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) methods. In broad terms and from a technical perspective, students should master the fundamentals of XML standards and related languages; understand the mechanisms of TEI; navigate and use the TEI Guidelines; be aware of the best practices of the TEI community; model the markup of di erent textual types by themselves; create and customize schemas; be able to draft technical documentation about encoding and digital projects; be acquainted with the existing tools for using, exploiting, and preserving TEI documents; and practice collaborative work Targeting these technical goals will not be enough if we do not point towards a bigger picture and to real-case examples and scenarios where TEI can be useful, such as in cultural institutions, libraries, and publishing houses.. Targeting these technical goals will not be enough if we do not point towards a bigger picture and to real-case examples and scenarios where TEI can be useful, such as in cultural institutions, libraries, and publishing houses. this change should be accompanied by a general discourse on text technologies, by the many dimensions that a text can adopt, and by a holistic understanding of how digital methods can improve the quality of students’ work and skills for the job market

Different Pedagogical Contexts

The Dearth of TEI Teaching Resources in Spanish

The Need for Online Teaching Materials and a Case

Some Conclusions

Humanidades