Mapping the Contours of a Buddhist World: Appendix 2

Suggested citation format:
Ciolek, T. Matthew. 2012. Appendix 2: Day-to-Day Logistical Properties and Constraints of Some Digital Research/Publication Tools. [in:] Ciolek, T. Matthew and Stewart Gordon. 2012. Mapping the Contours of a Buddhist World: An Online Database of Georeferenced Buddhist Monasteries, 200 -1200 CE.
www.ciolek.com/PAPERS/mbm-mapping-buddhist-world.html

Appendix 2
Day-to-Day Logistical Properties and Constraints of Some Digital Research/Publication Tools

The following table compares various capabilities of a number of electronic tools, which were of either short- or long-term interest to the "Mapping Buddhist Monasteries 200-1200 CE Project" (http://monastic-asia.wikidot.com).
Please acknowledge this document (using the suggested citation format above) should you find it useful in planning or reviewing your own research technology.

Return to the Mapping the Contours of a Buddhist World paper.

1. Definitions and details

TEXT EDITOR - "a type of program used for editing plain text files. [...] 'Text file' refers to a type of container, while plain text refers to a type of content" (Wikipedia 2012a). "Because of their simplicity, text files are commonly used for storage of information. They avoid some of the problems encountered with other file formats [...]. Further, when data corruption occurs in a text file, it is often easier to recover and continue processing the remaining contents." Wikipedia (2012b).
Text editing software can be Windows- or MAC OS X-specific, or cross-platform. For a comparison of text editors and their capabilities see Wikipedia (2012c). An example of an ideal and inexpensive OS X text editor is Tex-Edit Plus ($15 shareware), produced by Trans-Tex Software (http://www.tex-edit.com).

WORD PROCESSOR - "a computer application used for the production (including composition, editing, formatting, and possibly printing) of any sort of printable material." (Wikipedia 2012d). There exist numerous word processors across all platforms. Microsoft's Word and Apple's Pages are notable examples.

WEB (HTML) - "The World Wide Web (abbreviated as WWW or W3, commonly known as the Web [...] is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet. With a web browser, one can view web pages that may contain text, images, videos, and other multimedia, and navigate between them via hyperlinks." Wikipedia (2012e).

WIKI - "a website which allows its users to add, modify, or delete its content via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a rich-text editor. Wikis are powered by wiki software. Most are created collaboratively. [...] Ward Cunningham, the developer of the first wiki software, WikiWikiWeb [developed in 1994 - tmc], originally described it as 'the simplest online database that could possibly work.' [...] the four basic types of users who participate in wikis are reader, author, wiki administrator and system administrator. the system administrator is responsible for installation and maintenance of the wiki engine and the container web server. the wiki administrator maintains wiki content and is provided additional functions pertaining to pages (e.g. page protection and deletion), and can adjust users' [i.e. authors' - tmc] access rights by, for instance, blocking them from editing." Wikipedia (2012f). Cunningham (2012) lists, as of June 2012, 155 types/variants/flavours of wikis. For a comparison of capabilities and features of various types of wiki software see Wikipedia (2012g).

WIKIDOT - among the most powerful, fastest and most user-friendly of wiki software (Wikidot.com 2012a). According to Wikidot.com (2012b) "[It] is the world's third-largest wiki farm, with almost half a million users running 120,000 sites and serving about 40M unique visitors per year."

DATABASE - a collection of groups (records) of precisely defined digital data items. Each record is organized as a set of fields (i.e. dedicated containers for instances of data) and links that connect relevant records (and/or their fields) to each other. See Wikipedia (2012h), Wikipedia (2012i).

FALLING RAIN MAPS - maps associated with the online World Gazetteer of settlements published by the Falling Rain Genomics, Inc. Each entry in the gazetteer is illustrated with rough satellite-based maps that show the placement of the settlement's coordinates on that map. "Fallingrain.com uses NIMA [National Imagery and Mapping Agency - tmc] data for coordinates, which are reported to the nearest minute and have a datum of WGS84 [World Geodetic System 1984 - tmc]." (Yamamoto n.d.).
The MBM Project takes a general structure of the Fallingrain.com maps, and reverse-engineers them to display the MBM data (see Appendix 4)

GOOGLE MAPS - free online mapping service and technology provided by the Google Inc. The technology relies heavily on JavaScript. Other comparable services exist, such as Microsoft's * Bing Maps (comprising road maps and aerial/satellite imagery - http://www.bing.com/maps) * MapQuest (http://mapquest.com) * OpenStreetMap (a royalty free, editable map of the world - http://www.openstreetmap.org) * ABmaps (http://www.abmaps.com) (Wikipedia 2012j). The MBM Project developed its cartographic operations around the mapping services provided by Google Maps. MBM plots its georeferenced data on custom maps in KML (Keyhole Markup Language) file format (see Appendix 6) and publishes them in the Google Maps mapping environment.
The resultant MBM interactive web maps consists of an MBM-generated information layer superimposed on Google Maps' satellite imagery, topographical and administrative maps, georeferenced photographs of places and buildings, and other resources. The Google Maps' environment allows one to select any marked object, read its description and inspect its geographical context in detail.

LOCAL vs. CLOUD - the locus of one's digital operations - these can take place locally (on a PC, mainframe) or "somewhere" on the Internet (in a cloud), or in some combination.

HTML - the computer language used to create Web-publishable hypertext documents.

FULLTEXT SEARCH - a search within a document, using a string (a sequence of characters or words) as a "keyword". This is a kind of search that does not pre-organise the query into as a set of defined categories or fields (or "fielded search").

Table 1

TYPE OF OPERATION vs.
TYPE OF DIGITAL TOOL TEXT
EDITOR WORD
PROCESSOR WEB PAGE
(html documents) WIKI
(using Wikidot.com as a reference)
http://www.wikidot.com/ DATABASE FALLING RAIN MAPS
http://www.fallingrain.com/ GOOGLE MAPS
http://maps.google.com/

1. LOCUS

Locus of Editing Software Local Local Local Cloud Local or Cloud Local Local

Locus of Data Local, can move to the Cloud Local, can move to the Cloud Local, can move to the Cloud Cloud Local or Cloud Cloud Cloud

2. INPUT & CORRECTIONS

Data Input Operations Easy Easy Difficult Easy Easy Difficult Difficult

Testing the Quality of the Input N/A N/A N/A N/A Yes
(Test for the data format only. No tests for the semantics) N/A Yes
(via the Google Earth software)

Storage of Draft & Temp Notes Easy Easy Difficult Easy No N/A N/A

Adding Corrections Easy Easy Difficult Easy Easy Difficult Difficult

3. STRUCTURE & APPEARANCE

Consistency of Appearance of Data Easy Difficult Difficult Easy Easy Easy Easy

Structuring Logic of Information Easy Easy Difficult Difficult Easy N/A Difficult

Template Construction Easy Easy DIfficult Difficult Difficult Difficult Difficult

Template Use Easy Difficult Difficult Easy Easy Easy Easy

4. FEATURES

Hypertext Linking No Yes, to an extent Yes Yes Depends on
the database type No Yes

Combining Text & Images No Yes Yes Yes Depends on
the database type Yes No

Invisible Annotations No Yes Yes Yes Yes No No

Data Tagging Maybe Maybe Yes Yes No No No

Interaction With Displayed Data No Yes, but clumsy Yes
(via the hypertext links) Yes
(via the hypertext links) Depends on
the database type No Yes
(via the interactive map
and embedded hypertext links)

Dynamic Control of Map Scales Not applicable Not applicable Not applicable Not applicable Not applicable No Yes

Inbuild Fulltext Search Yes Yes Yes Yes Qualified Yes
(searches in one field at a time) N/A N/A

Global Changes to Edited Document Yes Yes Yes No Qualified Yes
(changes in one field at a time) N/A N/A

Export of the Data Yes Yes Partial Yes Uncertain Yes N/A N/A

Upload of the Data N/A N/A Simple Simple Yes N/A Diffcult

Handling Non-Latin Fonts No Yes Yes Yes Depends on
the database type No Possibly No

Changes Tracking No Yes No Yes Depends on
the database type No No

5. ADMINISTRATION

Storage Capacity Small (preferably less
than 100KB per document) Small (preferably less
than 100KB per document) Large series of
small interconnected files Large series of
small interconnected files Large Microscopic
(only 1 or 2 objects per map) Small
(under 200 objects per map)

Simultaneous Multi-user Edits No No No Yes Depends on
the database type No No

Access Control
(graduated permissions system) No No No Yes Depends on
the database type No No

Rollback to Earlier, Correct Version No No No Yes Depends on
the database type No No

Automated Backup No No No Yes Depends on
the database type Yes Yes

Cost of Software Zero to Low Zero to Medium Zero Zero to Medium Low to High Zero Zero

IT Skills Needed to Operate Zero to Low Zero to Low Low to Medium Low High High Low to Medium

http://www.ciolek.com/PAPERS/mbm-mapping-buddhist-world.html

TYPE OF OPERATION vs. TYPE OF DIGITAL TOOL	TEXT EDITOR	WORD PROCESSOR	WEB PAGE (html documents)	WIKI (using Wikidot.com as a reference) http://www.wikidot.com/	DATABASE	FALLING RAIN MAPS http://www.fallingrain.com/	GOOGLE MAPS http://maps.google.com/
1. LOCUS
Locus of Editing Software	Local	Local	Local	Cloud	Local or Cloud	Local	Local
Locus of Data	Local, can move to the Cloud	Local, can move to the Cloud	Local, can move to the Cloud	Cloud	Local or Cloud	Cloud	Cloud
2. INPUT & CORRECTIONS
Data Input Operations	Easy	Easy	Difficult	Easy	Easy	Difficult	Difficult
Testing the Quality of the Input	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	Yes (Test for the data format only. No tests for the semantics)	N/A	Yes (via the Google Earth software)
Storage of Draft & Temp Notes	Easy	Easy	Difficult	Easy	No	N/A	N/A
Adding Corrections	Easy	Easy	Difficult	Easy	Easy	Difficult	Difficult
3. STRUCTURE & APPEARANCE
Consistency of Appearance of Data	Easy	Difficult	Difficult	Easy	Easy	Easy	Easy
Structuring Logic of Information	Easy	Easy	Difficult	Difficult	Easy	N/A	Difficult
Template Construction	Easy	Easy	DIfficult	Difficult	Difficult	Difficult	Difficult
Template Use	Easy	Difficult	Difficult	Easy	Easy	Easy	Easy
4. FEATURES
Hypertext Linking	No	Yes, to an extent	Yes	Yes	Depends on the database type	No	Yes
Combining Text & Images	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Depends on the database type	Yes	No
Invisible Annotations	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
Data Tagging	Maybe	Maybe	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Interaction With Displayed Data	No	Yes, but clumsy	Yes (via the hypertext links)	Yes (via the hypertext links)	Depends on the database type	No	Yes (via the interactive map and embedded hypertext links)
Dynamic Control of Map Scales	Not applicable	Not applicable	Not applicable	Not applicable	Not applicable	No	Yes
Inbuild Fulltext Search	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Qualified Yes (searches in one field at a time)	N/A	N/A
Global Changes to Edited Document	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Qualified Yes (changes in one field at a time)	N/A	N/A
Export of the Data	Yes	Yes	Partial Yes	Uncertain	Yes	N/A	N/A
Upload of the Data	N/A	N/A	Simple	Simple	Yes	N/A	Diffcult
Handling Non-Latin Fonts	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Depends on the database type	No	Possibly No
Changes Tracking	No	Yes	No	Yes	Depends on the database type	No	No
5. ADMINISTRATION
Storage Capacity	Small (preferably less than 100KB per document)	Small (preferably less than 100KB per document)	Large series of small interconnected files	Large series of small interconnected files	Large	Microscopic (only 1 or 2 objects per map)	Small (under 200 objects per map)
Simultaneous Multi-user Edits	No	No	No	Yes	Depends on the database type	No	No
Access Control (graduated permissions system)	No	No	No	Yes	Depends on the database type	No	No
Rollback to Earlier, Correct Version	No	No	No	Yes	Depends on the database type	No	No
Automated Backup	No	No	No	Yes	Depends on the database type	Yes	Yes
Cost of Software	Zero to Low	Zero to Medium	Zero	Zero to Medium	Low to High	Zero	Zero
IT Skills Needed to Operate	Zero to Low	Zero to Low	Low to Medium	Low	High	High	Low to Medium

Appendix 2 Day-to-Day Logistical Properties and Constraints of Some Digital Research/Publication Tools

1. Definitions and details

Appendix 2
Day-to-Day Logistical Properties and Constraints of Some Digital Research/Publication Tools