An experimental workflow development platform for historical document digitisation and analysis

Abstract

The paper presents a novel web-based platform for experimental workflow development in historical document digitisation and analysis. The platform has been developed as part of the IMPACT project, providing a range of tools and services for transforming physical documents into digital resources. It explains the main drivers in developing the technical framework and its architecture, how and by whom it can be used and presents some initial results. The main idea lies in setting up an interoperable and distributed infrastructure based on loose coupling of tools via web services that are wrapped in modular workflow templates which can be executed, combined and evaluated in many different ways. As the workflows are registered through a Web 2.0 environment, which is integrated with a workflow management system, users can easily discover, share, rate and tag workflows and thereby support the building of capacity across the whole community. Where ground truth is available, the workflow templates can also be used to compare and evaluate new methods in a transparent and flexible way.