About

The THINK Group: A Research Trajectory in Digital Scholarly Editing (2022–2026)

Origins and Focus

The THINK group is an informal, self-organized international research collective of scholars working in digital scholarly editing (DSE) and digital humanities. Formed around a shared dissatisfaction with the theoretical and technical limits of TEI/XML-based documentary editing, the group has spent several years developing an alternative approach centred on graph-based and event/annotation-oriented models of text — treating editions not simply as encoded documents but as networks of glyphs, annotations, and interpretive acts that can be modelled, queried, and reasoned about computationally.

The group meets on a recurring (usually weekly) video call, a rhythm maintained with only brief interruptions across more than six years, through which it has produced peer-reviewed publications, conference papers, panels, and two multi-day workshops.

2020: Origins of a Funding Proposal and First Publication

The group’s earliest activity documented here centres on an AHRC/DFG-funded grant proposal, Textual Heritage editing through INtegrated Knowledge graphs (THINK), led by a UK-based PI with international co-investigators (Germany, Netherlands, Italy). After the proposal received favourable but non-fundable reviews in mid-2022, the team drafted and submitted a formal response to reviewers (per AHRC guidelines), addressing critiques around theoretical grounding (situating the work relative to scholars such as Sahle, Pierazzo, McGann, and Vogeler) and around Linked Open Data/CIDOC-CRM integration. The proposal was ultimately not funded (November 2022), with reviewers rating it “internationally excellent” but not high enough priority given limited funds.

Rather than abandon the work, the group treated the proposal text as the seed of an academic article, continuing to meet regularly through late 2022 into 2023 to develop the underlying theoretical model — built around glyph/annotation graph structures, questions of reading order and text “addressability” via URIs, and critique of TEI/XML’s documentary assumptions.

2023: Zürich, the DSE Article, and a Conference Panel

• Article development (2022–2024): The theoretical article — eventually addressing graph models, glyph-level text representation, and the limits of standing-off/tree-based markup — was drafted collaboratively over roughly two years, moving through several shared documents, examples drawn from a medieval Spanish manuscript tradition (the Estoria de España), and multiple rounds of revision.
• Zürich conference paper (2023): The group submitted and presented a paper titled “Opening Up Scholarly Observation of Textual Phenomena: A Fundamental Proposal” at the Open Up DSE conference in Zürich (some members presenting in person, others remotely due to a rail strike).
• DHd 2024 panel (Passau): The group proposed and had accepted a panel for the DHd 2024 conference in Passau, bringing in additional collaborators from outside the core group. The panel was presented in person in early 2024 and was well received.

2024: Journal Publication in IJDH

The group’s central theoretical article was submitted to the International Journal of Digital Humanities (IJDH) in mid-2024. Peer review (received September 2024) was notably positive, with reviewers describing the paper as convincing as submitted and recommending only minor reference formatting corrections rather than substantive revision. The article was published later in 2024, with open-access publication costs covered by one author’s institution (University of Cologne).

2025: The Vienna Workshop

Building on the article and panel, the group organized a two-day international workshop in Vienna (20–21 February 2025), inviting scholars from multiple disciplines working on textual and material editing (manuscript studies, epigraphy, musicology, numismatics, etc.).The workshop’s aim was to explore a more generalized, cross-disciplinary model of “editing” as a formally expressible interpretive process, combining a theoretical/discussion component with a hands-on session applying a graph-based (“star”) data model to participants’ own datasets. The event required substantial logistical coordination (invitations, travel, accommodation, position papers from ~15+ participants) and was followed by a period of “document gardening” to consolidate outputs into actionable next steps and a special issue call.

Following Vienna, the group: - Solicited and began collecting position papers/articles for a planned special journal issue continuing the workshop’s themes. - Presented related work at further conferences, including DHd 2026 and other venues, with multiple individually and jointly authored papers accepted.

2026: Cologne Workshop, IMC, and Editopia

• Cologne workshop (November 2025 window, discussed through 2026): A second, smaller two-day workshop was organized in Cologne to advance the special-issue articles arising from the Vienna workshop, this time self-funded by participants (no central travel budget).
• IMC Leeds: Group members proposed and delivered work related to materiality and textuality (including a case study on “sortes” texts) at the International Medieval Congress.
• CISE / special issue: The group continued coordinating a special issue built on the Vienna and Cologne workshop outputs, with an internal submission deadline and shared bibliographic/reference management (Zotero) for contributing authors.
• Editopia 2026 (Wuppertal): The group’s most recent major output was a contribution to the Editopia conference (organized by the Institut für Dokumentologie und Editorik, marking an anniversary event), where the group’s submission was accepted not as a standard paper but reworked, at the organizers’ request, into a “fishbowl” discussion format — including a short, scripted, semi-theatrical opening piece written collaboratively by the group to frame the discussion. The group attended and live-annotated other conference sessions collaboratively via a shared notes document.

Ongoing Work

As of the most recent activity, the group:

• Maintains a public web presence (a compact project site).
• Continues to admit new collaborators, including graduate students working on related dissertation topics (e.g., non-linearity in text).
• Is discussing further venues for continued in-person collaboration (e.g., a possible Amsterdam meeting) and further funding applications, alongside its standing weekly discussion meetings.

Summary of Formal Outputs

Output	Type	Venue/Outlet	Status
THINK grant proposal + reviewer response	Funding application	AHRC/DFG	Not funded (Nov. 2022)
“Opening Up Scholarly Observation of Textual Phenomena”	Conference paper	Open Up DSE, Zürich	Presented 2023
DHd panel (graph/editing theory)	Conference panel	DHd 2024, Passau	Presented 2024
Core theoretical article (graph/glyph model of text)	Journal article	International Journal of Digital Humanities	Published 2024 (open access)
Vienna workshop	Multi-day workshop	University of Vienna	Held Feb. 2025
Cologne workshop	Multi-day workshop	University of Cologne	Held 2025/26
Special issue articles	Journal special issue	In progress (CISE-related)	In preparation
Materiality/sortes texts paper	Conference paper	IMC Leeds	Submitted/presented 2025
Fishbowl session + scripted piece	Conference session	Editopia 2026, Wuppertal	Presented Sept. 2026

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