How the Prosopography of the Byzantine World could fit with a "digital ecosystem" to support Byzantine Studies. Invited presentation at full day seminar PBW and its place in Byzantine Scholarship. Keble College, University of Oxford. 7 October, 2013.

1. PBW: Possible Futures and
technical directions
John Bradley
Department of Digital Humanities
King’s College London
john.bradley@kcl.ac.uk
PBW Planning Meeting
Keble College, Oxford
7 October, 2013

2. A renewed PBW: a response
to new technologies?
 PBE (Prosopography of the Byzantine
Empire), became in part a response to
the new emerging technologies of
databases and the WWW in the 1990s
 Could PBW, while we think about
renewing it now, again become a
response to new technologies again?

3. Prosopography:
a bringing together of materials
3
Sources
People
From J.R. Martindale, The
Prosopography of the
Later Roman Empire, 3:
A.D. 527-641. Cambridge:
Cambridge University
Press. 1992.
Places

4. PLRE as a “hypertext
database”
 It must now be asked whether it makes
sense to imagine these further
"volumes" as print publications at all. A
prosopographical work like this is
already a hypertext database, mined
with cross-references.
 O’Donnell, J. J. (1992). Review of Martindale, J. R. The
Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire. Vol. III, AD 527–641, in
two parts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. xlviþ1–760
(first part), pp. viþ761–1575 (second part). Bryn Mawr Classical
Review. Online at:
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/1993/04.04.07.html

5. PBW: Digital Prosopography
http://db.pbw.kcl.ac.uk/id/person/106274

6. PBW: Digital Prosopography
http://db.pbw.kcl.ac.uk/id/person/106274
People
Sources

7. The factoid model in PBW
Factoid: an assertion
that a spot in a
source says
something about a
person or persons.
Narrative
Unit
connects to

8. PBW, THE SEMANTIC WEB
AND LINKED DATA

9. Tim Berners-Lee on Linked
Data
 All kinds of conceptual things, they have names now that start
with HTTP.
 I get important information back. I will get back some data in a
standard format which is kind of useful data that somebody
might like to know about that thing, about that event.
 I get back that information it's not just got somebody's height
and weight and when they were born, it's got relationships.
And when it has relationships, whenever it expresses a
relationship then the other thing that it's related to is given one
of those names that starts with HTTP.
 Tim Berners-Lee: Linked Data presentation at TED 2009
9

10. Person Identity as a URI
 PIR
 PBW “URI”: http://db.pbw.kcl.ac.uk/id/person/143353
10

11. PBW as Open, Linkable data:
 making the data available directly through
the Web
PBW
Structured Information
In a database
Processor to
Take information
From the DB and
Dynamically
Create webpages
Browser
WWW
Agents

12. Highly structured open data:
enabling new approaches
 PBW’s database can support exploration beyond
that currently provided to its users through its web
interface.
 Example: Women with asserted ethnicity.
 Built in <10 minutes via an MS Access backend to the
PBW data

13. Opening up the data
 An “open data” approach (given independant direct access to
the structure could allow for researchers to explore the data in
ways not envisaged by the project originally)
 Example: Gaelic Scotland project (funded by
Leverhulme) exploring Social Network Analysis
techniques against the PoMS database.
Duncan (II), earl of Fife

14. Linking data out of PBW
(Linked Data 3rd principle)
 As a database PBW naturally interconnects the entities it
represents to each other, but it doesn’t much connect formally
to digital resources outside of itself: e.g. textual sources, or,
perhaps, places.
 Could PBW places, for example, be linked to those defined in,
say Pleiades or Pelagios?
???
http://pleiades.stoa.org/places/530885/adrianoupolis

15. PBW as Open, linkable data
 Express the data currently in a database
using the technologies of the Semantic Web
 Publish this data openly on the web so that
anyone familiar with SW technologies can
query it in ways they wish.
 Explore linking to other related sites:
locations in PBW to Pelagios/Pleiades, for
example.

16. PBW AS AN ONLINE
COMMUNITY

17. Online Social Communities
 "In casual usage, the term community usually suggests positive feelings,
prosocial behavior, and choice" (Sproull and Arriaga 2007, p. 1)
 "The definition of online community used in this chapter is also based on
shared experience, interest, or conviction; positive regard for members; and
members' voluntary contribution to member welfare and collective welfare.”
(Sproull and Arriaga 2007, p. 1)
 Sproull, Lee and Manual Arriaga (2007). “Online Communities”. Online at
http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~marriaga/papers/sproull%20and%20arriaga-2007.pdf. In Bidgoli,
Hossein (ed). The Handbook of Computer Networks. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

18. Blog: Mapping Medieval
Chester

19. Connecting to Facebook

20. Public Annotation

21. Authors and Readers
 "The fundamental change introduced by the use of a wiki in
comparison with traditional Web sites is that the authors and
readers of a site are no longer two distinct groups: instead,
active participant visitors can create and directly edit the
content that attracts those same visitors to the site." (Sproull
and Arriaga 2007, p 4)

22. PBW IN A “DIGITAL
ECOSYSTEM”

23. Ecosystems: independent
systems coexisting
 Ecosystem models
recognise the
independent, but
cooperating nature of
different systems
 Each system provides
mechanisms that
supports other systems
as well as itself.

24. Natural Ecosystems inspire
Digital Ecosystems
Ecosystem
 "An ecosystem is a
loosely coupled, domain
clustered environment
inhabited by species,
each proactive and
responsive regarding its
own benefit while
conserving the
environment” (p. 398)
 Boley, Harold and Elizabeth Chang (2007),
“Digital Ecosystems: Principles and
Semantics”. In IEEE International
Conference of Digital Ecosystems and
Technologies.
Wikipedia: Digital
Ecosystems
 “ A digital ecosystem is a
distributed, adaptive,
open socio-technical
system with properties of
self-organisation,
scalability and
sustainability inspired
from natural ecosystems.”

25. Ecosystems, decentralisation,
semantics and sustainability
 "A Digital Ecosystem ... is an open community, and
there is no permanent need for centralised or
distributed control or for single-role behaviour.“
(Boley and Chang 2007, p 399)
 “Biological ecosystems have developed shared
implicit semantics ... during their long evolution.
Social ecosystems have enriched this with shared
explicit informal semantics (communicated via
natural languages) .... Digital ecosystems should
add shared explicit formal semantics .. to enable
automation. (Boley and Chang 2007, p. 400)

26. PBW in a “Digital Ecosystem”
 PBW as digital Ecosystem plays up the
potential for different researchers to be
doing their own thing rather more
independently of PBW.
PBW Anna
Komnene
Digital
Edition
Archeological
Data for
monastery of
Kecharitomene
Crusades
Project
Byzantine World Digital Ecosystem
Is this a “VRE”?

27. PBW: Possible Futures and
technical directions
1. Linked Data
2. Online Communities
3. Digital Ecosystem
 All three explore ways to break down
barriers between PBW and other
scholars and scholarly ventures, but
take different approaches.
“Harder”

28. Prosopography and its
research community
 "PLRE's influence also has extended far beyond the purely
prosopographical-cum-biographical world. It has facilitated
opportunities for doing a great many studies, far too many
even to begin to cite here, relating to the society, culture,
administration, economy and religion of late antiquity. It
provides the foundation and substructure without which
elaborately analytical works could not hope to be
accomplished satisfactorily" (p. 37)
 Mathisen, Ralph (2003). "The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire: Yesterday,
Today and Tomorrow". In Cameron, Averil (ed). 50 Years of Prosopography: The Later
Roman Empire, Byzantium and Beyond. London: The British Academy. pp. 23-40.

29.  Thank you.
 Questions, comments?