At the Electronic Textual Cultures Laboratory we conduct original research, develop new ways of disseminating information, and foster the innovative adaptation of existing tools. Our cross-disciplinary work in the areas of data-harvesting, textual content analysis, and document encoding puts us at the forefront of a global conversation about the future of communication. Led by Dr. Ray Siemens, Canada Research Chair in Humanities Computing at the University of Victoria, the ETCL develops reading environments for electronic scholarly texts that will facilitate activities central to humanities research. We are also actively involved in providing training and education for students, faculty, and administration. For more information, please see our mandate.

Our mandate

At the ETCL, we

  • conduct and communicate original research in the areas of data-harvesting, textual content analysis, and document encoding
  • explore and facilitate the innovative adaptation of existing textual tools
  • develop new models and mechanisms for information management and dissemination
  • provide training and support to graduate students, faculty, and administration involved in digital initiatives

We work closely with research centres and projects at the University of Victoria and beyond. Our activities complement projects underway in the U Victoria library community and the Humanities Computing and Media Centre (HCMC), including the CFI-funded Text Analysis Portal (TAPoR) project. Our affiliation with these projects and others—Synergies, CRKN, and beyond—strengthens our ability to attract new researchers and research initiatives and provides opportunities for significant collaboration within both local and global partners.

The ETCL supports the work of Dr. Ray Siemens, Canada Research Chair in Humanities Computing at the University of Victoria. Dr. Siemens' work is towards employing a humanities computing-derived model of scholarly interaction to develop a prototypical computing environment for the professional reading (and the electronic scholarly edition) that integrates activities central to professional involvement in humanities research, specifically in the areas of archival representation and critical inquiry.

Recently in the lab...RSS News Feed

July 2nd, 2010 | by admin

Job Posting: Graduate Student Research Assistant, in Text Analysis

An interdisciplinary research project on campus seeks a graduate research assistant with qualifications in computer-assisted textual analysis and an understanding of its potential across a number of types of textual materials, specifically academic. Read the rest of this entry »

June 17th, 2010 | by admin

DHSI 2010 a huge success!

Thank you to everyone who made this past week so enjoyable! DHSI may be over for another year, but we are already planning for DHSI 2011, June 6-10! We’ll start posting, mailing, and tweeting details soon. Keep following us on Twitter, at #dhsi2010.

Read more about DHSI! The Chronicle of Higher Ed calls us Summer Camp for Digital Humanists and, more recently, “grown up nerd camp” ;).