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Quickstart: Getting Started

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Learn about the Project

The Map of Early Modern London (MoEML) is a TEI-powered project comprised of four distinct, interoperable projects: an edition of the 1561 Agas woodcut map of London; an Encyclopedia of London people (Personography), places (Placeography), organizations (Orgography), topics (Topics), and terms (Glossary); a Library of texts rich in London toponyms, including an anthology of the mayoral shows; and editions of the four texts of John Stow’s Survey of London. In addition, MoEML dynamically generates a Gazetteer of toponymic variants gleaned from the placenames tagged across the project’s files. With 2.5 million page visits per year, MoEML’s scholarly reach is significant.
Read MoEML’s Mission Statement for a more detailed description of the project.

Working

You will be adding special, computer-readable tags to texts in order to say things about the text. This work is called encoding, tagging, or marking up a text. MoEML uses tags from the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI), a widely used standard for marking up historical and literary texts.
For a brief introduction to TEI and markup, see Introduction to Markup.

Team Communication

A question unasked is an opportunity lost. If you have any questions that come up as you work and the person you need is not in HCMC, you can email the following people: Make sure to cc londonpm@uvic.ca on all email communication that requires a follow-up.

Role-Based Email

In order to prevent our development team from needing to keep track of dozens of individual Netlink IDS, MoEML makes use of role-based emails for more efficient communications.
As an RA with MoEML, you are responsible for checking moemlras@uvic.ca. You will also use this address for correspondence with external contributors and whenever RAs need a professional email address from which to send work related emails.
You can access the MoEML RA role-based email via the Outlook webmail application.
Remember that moemlras@uvic.ca is a shared email address. As such, you are responsible for keeping up with all messages in the inbox, read and unread, regardless of whether they have been addressed already by another team member.

Email Distribution Lists

In order to communicate efficiently with the entire team, the moemlras@uvic.ca address is subscribed to several distribution lists designed to alert the team to important issues regarding the repo and the live builds.

Team Meetings

When you join the MoEML team, the Project Manager will ask you for your weekly availability so they can schedule a team meeting time. RAs are responsible for attending team meetings, adding to the team meeting agendas, and reading the team meeting minutes. Team meetings are a great way to connect with colleagues and learn how their work fits into the larger scope of the project.
Note that in 2020 and 2021, team meetings were held over Skype and Microsoft Teams and RA training was completed over Zoom. For more information, see Tools for Remote Work.

Project Management Software

MoEML has used a variety of project management software throughout its history. From 2012-2014, the team used Flow, and from 2014-2020, the team used Asana in conjunction with Google Docs. In fall 2020, the team switched from Asana to Microsoft Teams due to Teams’ video-calling and document sharing capabilities. Project management software allows the Project Manager and other team members to assign tasks and subtasks to specific individuals and provides a centralized and accessible space for team communication. As an RA with MoEML, it is your responsibility to monitor what has been assigned to you in Teams and answer other team members’ questions via the Posts section of General. More information on how to effectively use Teams will be provided to you during training.

Tracking Hours and Payroll

In 2020, we created a system in Asana—and then in Teams—for the RAs to track their hours. It is important that RAs accurately report their hours because the Project Manager uses this information to prepare time sheets.
RAs are paid hourly, and pay days are bi-monthly, paid on the 8th and 23rd of each month. If you hold a salaried position at UVic in addition to MoEML (I.e., a TAship), you will be paid for your MoEML work around the 15th and 30th of each month. Note that due to the nature of our funding, MoEML is one pay period behind UVic. For example, MoEML RAs will be paid for the SM11 reporting period when salaried employees are paid for the SM12 reporting period.

Tools for Remote Work

As an RA, you will be working in HCMC. In the offchance that the team will have to switch to remote work, the MoEML team will do its best to provide the same level of remote support to new RAs as it would if everyone was together in the office.

Remote Access VPN

The UVic VPN service provides secure communication back to the campus network. Connecting to UVic’s VPN is required for much of the work we do, including committing files to the MoEML repository.
VPN servers employ encryption and other security measures to ensure that any data sent on the Internet will not be intercepted.
Faculty, staff, and students with a valid NetLink ID can download and run the UVic VPN client on their computers.

Virtual Co-working Spaces

Looking for an answer in real time? Miss the camaraderie of working beside your peers?
We will have Senior RAs and team members available for both casual and more structured co-working sessions.
If you would like more information or you would like to schedule some one-on-one time with another team member, contact the Project Manager at londonpm@uvic.ca for more details.

Set up your Workstation

All of the files you will need access to are stored in an SVN (subversion) repository. This repository keeps a copy of every version of every file so that, if needed, we can retrieve a previous version of a file, folder, or even the entire project. The SVN repository is like the cloud. Before you work on the files in your folder for the first time, you will check out the current version of that folder from the cloud and save it to your computer. During and after you work on a file, you will send your new version back up to the cloud so that everyone working on MoEML will have access to the most current version of the file. This process is called committing. At the beginning of every new work session (and periodically during all of your work sessions), you will update your folder. These processes of checking out, committing, and updating will be explained in more detail below.

Get SVN

To access data from the repository, you will need to use an SVN command-line client. This method may seem old-fashioned, but it is an easy process that remains consistent across different operating systems (Linux, Windows, and Mac).
If you are going to be working in HCMC, you do not have to download an SVN client because it is already installed on the lab computers. If you are working on your own computer, instructions on how to download an SVN command-line client for your operating system (OS) are below:

Check out the Repository

Once you have downloaded an SVN command-line client, you will need to check out the MoEML repository. The Principal Investigator (MoEML’s Director) will need to have your NetLink ID to give you access to the repository:

Get Oxygen

You will now be able to open and view your MoEML folders in your file browser, but you will need an XML editing application to edit the files. If you are working in HCMC, Oxygen has already been installed on the lab computers. If you are working on your own computer, you will need to download Oxygen: You can download and use Oxygen for 30 days on a trial basis. The Project Manager will provide Research Assistants with an Oxygen license key. To add a license key to Oxygen, follow these steps:
  1. Open Oxygen
  2. Click Help in the top toolbar and choose Register
  3. Copy and paste the Oxygen license (it will be nine lines of text) in the large text area
Once you have been encoding for awhile, see Get the Most Out of Oxygen for a brief outline of Oxygen’s key features.

Access the Repository

Now that you have checked out the repository and have downloaded Oxygen, you will be able to edit the MoEML repository:
  1. Open Oxygen
  2. Click File (top left) and then click Open
  3. Open the data folder and then click moeml.xpr
It is important that the moeml.xpr file is always open when you work. This file contains the schematron that your files will be validated against. Put simply, the schematron is what catches your mistakes and makes sure you do not commit a broken file to the repository.

Update and Commit Files

It is important that everyone working on MoEML always has the most current version of the files. While you only have to check out the entire repository once (the first time you work on a specific machine), you will need to update your repository before every work session:
Since everyone needs to have the most current version of the files, you will need to commit your work to the repository. While you do not need to commit constantly as you work, you will need to make sure you commit your files once you are done encoding for the day. It is important to note that files need to be valid in order to be committed. If an invalid file is committed to the repository, the website’s build will break and your work will not be rendered properly.
To validate your file, click the red checkmark in the white box in Oxygen. You should consistently validate your file when you are encoding. It is much easier to fix invalidities as soon as they appear instead of going back later.
Once you know your file is valid, you can commit your file to the repository:
It is important to get into the habit of updating, validating, and commiting. To refresh, when you sit down to work make sure you:
  1. Open SVN
  2. Enter the MoEML directory (cd london)
  3. Update your repository (svn up)
  4. Validate as you work (click the red checkmark in the white box)
  5. Commit your work (svn commit -m "Write a message about your work.")

Research Hygiene and Daily Routine

Working on a large project requires each team member to be vigilant about following the rules of proper research hygiene. While we will go over what that entails in more detail during training, please ensure you complete the following steps each day:
  1. Check the moemlras@uvic.ca email to ensure you are up to date with the latest Jenkins build notifications.
  2. Check Teams to see what is on your plate for the day and week.
  3. Update your repository before you start to encode.
  4. Validate consistently as you encode.
  5. Commit your files to the repository.
  6. Record your hours and progress in Teams.

Cite this page

MLA citation

LeBere, Kate. Quickstart: Getting Started. The Map of Early Modern London, Edition 6.6, edited by Janelle Jenstad, U of Victoria, 30 Jun. 2021, mapoflondon.uvic.ca/edition/6.6/moeml_quickstart.htm.

Chicago citation

LeBere, Kate. Quickstart: Getting Started. The Map of Early Modern London, Edition 6.6. Ed. Janelle Jenstad. Victoria: University of Victoria. Accessed June 30, 2021. mapoflondon.uvic.ca/edition/6.6/moeml_quickstart.htm.

APA citation

LeBere, K. 2021. Quickstart: Getting Started. In J. Jenstad (Ed), The Map of Early Modern London (Edition 6.6). Victoria: University of Victoria. Retrieved from https://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/editions/6.6/moeml_quickstart.htm.

RIS file (for RefMan, RefWorks, EndNote etc.)

Provider: University of Victoria
Database: The Map of Early Modern London
Content: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

TY  - ELEC
A1  - LeBere, Kate
ED  - Jenstad, Janelle
T1  - Quickstart: Getting Started
T2  - The Map of Early Modern London
ET  - 6.6
PY  - 2021
DA  - 2021/06/30
CY  - Victoria
PB  - University of Victoria
LA  - English
UR  - https://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/edition/6.6/moeml_quickstart.htm
UR  - https://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/edition/6.6/xml/standalone/moeml_quickstart.xml
ER  -

TEI citation

<bibl type="mla"><author><name ref="#LEBE1"><surname>LeBere</surname>, <forename>Kate</forename></name></author>. <title level="a">Quickstart: Getting Started</title>. <title level="m">The Map of Early Modern London</title>, Edition <edition>6.6</edition>, edited by <editor><name ref="#JENS1"><forename>Janelle</forename> <surname>Jenstad</surname></name></editor>, <publisher>U of Victoria</publisher>, <date when="2021-06-30">30 Jun. 2021</date>, <ref target="https://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/edition/6.6/moeml_quickstart.htm">mapoflondon.uvic.ca/edition/6.6/moeml_quickstart.htm</ref>.</bibl>

Personography