A Qualified Assertion Database for the History of Places. Issue 1 (October 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Plewe, Brandon
• Is Part Of: International journal of humanities and arts computing. Volume 13:Issue 1/2(2019)
• Page Start: 95
• Page End: 115
• Publication Date: 2019-10
• Subjects: Historical GIS -- gazetteers -- data modeling -- uncertainty -- religion -- web mapping; Humanities -- Data processing -- Periodicals; Arts -- Data processing -- Periodicals; 001.30285
• DOI: 10.3366/ijhac.2019.0233
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1753-8548

Abstract

Abstract : Historical place databases can be an invaluable tool for capturing the rich meaning of past places. However, this richness presents obstacles to success: the daunting need to simultaneously represent complex information such as temporal change, uncertainty, relationships, and thorough sourcing has been an obstacle to historical GIS in the past. The Qualified Assertion Model developed in this paper can represent a variety of historical complexities using a single, simple, flexible data model based on a) documenting assertions of the past world rather than claiming to know the exact truth, and b) qualifying the scope, provenance, quality, and syntactics of those assertions. This model was successfully implemented in a production-strength historical gazetteer of religious congregations, demonstrating its effectiveness and some challenges.