nodegoat Workshop�2 November 2023�NYU Abu Dhabi

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Pim van Bree & Geert Kessels

@LAB1100 / @nodegoat

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Programme

09:00 Welcoming Remarks

Süphan Kirmizialtin, Visiting Assistant Professor of Middle Eastern History, NYUAD

David Joseph Wrisley, Professor of Digital Humanities, NYUAD

09:30 Introduction to Nodegoat

Pim van Bree and Geert Kessels, LAB1100

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10:15 Who are you and what is your research question?

10:30 Learn how to enter geographical data into nodegoat

11:00 Coffee Break

11:15 Learn how to enter relational data into nodegoat

12:15 Learn how to conceptualise a data model

13:00 Lunch

14:00 Learn how to implement a data model in nodegoat

15:00 Enter data in your data model

15:30 Coffee Break

15:45 Filter & visualise data

16:15 Import & export

16:45 Conditional formatting, network analysis, linked data connections

17:30 End of the workshop

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Who are we?

LAB1100 is a research and development firm established in 2011 by Pim van Bree and Geert Kessels.

We started in 2011 by developing diachronic spatial and social network graphs for historical research for the Study Platform on Interlocking Nationalisms at the University of Amsterdam.

We then built a web-based research platform to host all the data that is used in the visualisations. We first called this the ‘Chrono Spatial Research Platform’ and then renamed the platform to nodegoat.

2011 “SPINTime”

The Study Platform on Interlocking Nationalisms (Universiteit van Amsterdam) uses nodegoat to map and analyse intellectuals in the 19th century to understand the spread of romantic nationalism.

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People, Letters, Paintings, Monuments, Music, Texts, Currency.

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12 years, over 400 collaborators.

Usage of nodegoat

nodegoat is used by 2800+ individual research projects.�nodegoat runs at 40 institutes in 18 countries, supporting 80+ projects, including:

Universität Bern: ‘Repertorium Academicum Germanicum’, ‘Forced Academic Migration’, ‘Dynamic Data Ingestion’, etc.

Australian National University / University of New Hampshire: ‘Modelling Ancient Narratives, Territories, Objects’.

Universiteit van Amsterdam: ‘Encyclopedia of Romantic Nationalism in Europe’, ‘Managing multi-level conflicts in commercial cities in northern Europe (c. 1350-1570)’, ‘The European Spa as a Transnational Public Space and Social Metaphor’, etc.

Universiteit Gent: ‘The transnational dynamics of social reform, 1840-1940’, ‘Agents of Change: Women Editors and Socio-Cultural Transformation in Europe, 1710-1920’, ‘Pyramids and Progress: Belgian expansionism and the making of Egyptology, 1830-1952’, etc.

CNRS IRHT: ‘Signifying Objects, Texts and Networks: Digitising Transactions in Jewish European Culture, 1500-1700’.

Colorado College: ‘Al-‘Ulūm al-gharība: Mapping the sciences in al-Jabartī’, ‘Homosexuality in Modern France’, etc.

LMU München: ‘Relocating Modernism: Global Metropolises, Modern Art and Exile’.

Università di Padova: ‘l'Ottocentenario dell'Università di Padova del 2022’, ‘Ruling in hard times. Patterns of power and practices of government in the making of Carolingian Italy’.

Université du Luxembourg: ‘Mapping Wartime Jewish Diaries’, ‘Soldiers and their communities in WWII: The impact and legacy of war experiences in Luxembourg’, ‘Ecrire l'histoire de la place financière d/au Luxembourg’, etc.

Universidade NOVA de Lisboa: ‘Mapping movements in the Portuguese empire’.

�See nodegoat.net/usecases or zotero.org/lab1100/tags/nodegoat for examples.

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nodegoat allows you to define any number of custom data models. You are free to define your research environment based on the specific needs of your research project.

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• Person
• Letter
• Event
• Location

After you have configured nodegoat, you can use your environment as a collaborative workspace to create, manage, analyse and visualise data.

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• Analyse correspondence networks
• Collect conference attendees
• Create a literary map of Rome

Once you have created a data set, you can publish interactive visualisations or export data publications.

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• Publish interactive visualisations
• Publish datasets
• Publish mobile app

1

2

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RESTful API (JSON & JSON-LD)

Version Control

Clearance Levels

Multiple Users

Multiple Projects

Ingestion Processes

Linked Data Connectivity

Public User Interfaces

Import CSV / Export CSV / ODT

Reconciliation Processes

Find and Replace

Text Tagging

Full Text Editing

Media Upload (PDF, Images, etc.)

Source Referencing

Chronology Statements

Chronological Visualisations

Built-in Diachronicity

Custom Map Tiles

Geographical Visualisations

Built-in Spatiality

Graph-based Network Metrics

Social Visualisations

Built-in Relationality

Geometry Support

Reversed Classification

Path-based Data Analysis

Multi-layered Filtering

Relational Data Entry

Implement your own data model in nodegoat based on your research question and source material

The Repertorium Academicum Germanicum (Universität Bern) uses nodegoat to map and analyse medieval students and their careers in the Holy Roman Empire.

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Events, People, Institutes, Sources.

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Over 70.000 scholars and 400.000 events in live environment.

Susanna de Beer (Universiteit Leiden) uses nodegoat to map literary texts and ancient locations in Rome.

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Interactive web app shows current location of device.

The TIC project (Ghent University) uses nodegoat to map and analyse conference attendance between 1880 and 1920 to analyse intellectual cooperation.

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Events, People, Organisations, Topics.

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Three years, 40 collaborators, over 20.000 conference attendees in live environment.

Lucie Janotová (Scuola Normale Superiore, Florence, Italy) uses nodegoat to analyse non-conformist art activism in Socialist Czechoslovakia.

Use nodegoat

nodegoat runs in the browser, more info: https://nodegoat.net/.

To get a hosted account, go to: https://nodegoat.net/requestaccount.

For larger projects we provide paid services to run local installations, training events, workshop, support, server management, etc. See: https://nodegoat.net/products.

The latest version of the open source package can be found at http://nodegoat.net/release.

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Who are you?

Please introduce yourself and your research question.

Learn how to enter data

We use a shared demo environment for this exercise. Please log out with your personal account you received via email.

Go to nodegoat.net and login with:

Username: workshop[1-40]�Password: denhaag

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nodegoat allows you to define any number of custom data models. You are free to define your research environment based on the specific needs of your research project.

​

• Person
• Letter
• Event
• Location

After you have configured nodegoat, you can use your environment as a collaborative workspace to create, manage, analyse and visualise data.

​

• Analyse correspondence networks
• Collect conference attendees
• Create a literary map of Rome

Once you have created a data set, you can publish interactive visualisations or export data publications.

​

• Publish interactive visualisations
• Publish datasets
• Publish mobile app

1

2

3

Creating a database

Conceptual �Data Modelling

Logical �Data Modelling

Data-based�Application

<XML>

Creating a database

Conceptual �Data Modelling

Logical �Data Modelling

Data-based�Application

<XML>

Creating a database

Conceptual �Data Modelling

Logical �Data Modelling

Data-based�Application

<XML>

How to conceptualise a data model

How to conceptualise a data model

How can you describe each of these Types in-depth?

From a spreadsheet to a data model

Whenever historians gather data, this usually happens in a spreadsheet. How to transfer this to a database?

From a spreadsheet to a data model

A lot of historians put all their data in a single spreadsheet, which grows, and grows, and grows...

From a spreadsheet to a data model

Instead of working with one massive sheet, it's better to work with separate sheets for different kinds of information:

Sheet 1 contains all the information about each letter

From a spreadsheet to a data model

Instead of working with one massive sheet, it's better to work with separate sheets for different kinds of information:

Sheet 2 contains all the information about each person

From a spreadsheet to a data model

Instead of working with one massive sheet, it's better to work with separate sheets for different kinds of information:

Sheet 3 contains all the information about each city

From a spreadsheet to a data model

In between these sheets, we have relationships:

Sheet 1: Letters

Sheet 2: People

Sheet 3: Cities

Creating a database

Based on this, you can now draw out your conceptual data model:

Creating a database

Conceptual �Data Modelling

Logical �Data Modelling

Data-based�Application

<XML>

Iterative Data Modelling

Draft a Conceptual Data Model

Draw a first version of a conceptual data model of your project. This can be done on a piece of paper or with any digital tool (PowerPoint, Word, etc).

You can find the slides of this presentation via https://lab1100.com/pres.

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Setting up your nodegoat project

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For those who have an account on https://nodegoat.net: go to nodegoat.net and login with the credentials you received via email.

If you do not have an account yet, go to https://nodegoat.net/requestaccount and request one.

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Some definitions

Objects are things that may have existed (e.g. 'Jacob Grimm', or 'The Lord of the Rings'). Objects are grouped by means of their typology: the Objects of 'Jacob Grimm' and 'Wilhelm Grimm' belong to the Type 'Person'. 'The Lord of the Rings' and the 'Bible' belong to the Type 'Book'.

Sub-Objects define aspects of Objects that have a temporal and/or spatial dimension. 'Birth', 'Place of Residence' and 'Death' define temporal and spatial dimensions of Objects of people. 'Production', 'Ownership', and 'Exhibition' define temporal and spatial dimensions of Objects of artworks.

Categories are labels that are assigned to Objects (e.g. 'female', or 'sketch'). Categories are part of a Classification: the Categories 'female' and 'non-binary' are part of the Classification 'Gender'. The Categories 'sketch' and 'oil painting' are part of the Classification 'Kind of Artwork'.

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Complex Temporal Statements: ???

Historians have endless needs to express temporal uncertainty, but lack a vocabulary to represent this (e.g. ‘around’, ‘approx.’, ‘1780?’).

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The Repertorium Academicum Germanicum project at the University of Bern commissioned us to extend nodegoat with a feature to handle complex date statements. We first explored using EDTF for this. EDTF was not suitable for our needs due to these shortcomings:

• Missing the flexibility in defining vagueness by using relationships.
• Missing the flexibility to define custom (i.e. historical) intervals/groupings.
• Too much summarised in one date 'rule', losing context.
• Well suited for representation, less suited for computation.

Complex Temporal Statements: ChronoJSON

To produce date statements that are both vague and actionable, we developed 'Chronology Statements'. Chronology Statements implement a human and computational interpretable temporal topology. It provides objects with a position in time by means of statements that combine operators, cyclic periodisation, relationality, and additional offsetting.

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• Chronology Statements apply operators similar to Allen operators and are in line with the computational efficiency of, for instance, temporal relational primitives.
• Offsetting in time is expressed by specifying an offset amount in combination with an offset unit. Offsets can also be expressed by self-defined cycles.
• Chronology Statements enable temporal relationality by allowing users to select a reference to another stored Chronology Statement instead of specifying a date.

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Chronology Statements are formatted in JSON, for which the ChronoJSON format has been developed.

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Defining Chronology Statements

Period

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Date Start

Date End

Period

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Date Start

Defining Chronology Statements

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Statement (before/after/etc.)

Date End

Statement (before/after/etc.)

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Period

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Date End

Defining Chronology Statements

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Date Start

Between Statement

(before/after/etc.)

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Between Statement

(before/after/etc.)

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Between Statement

(before/after/etc.)

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Between Statement

(before/after/etc.)

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​

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Date End

Defining Chronology Statements

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Date Start

Between Statement

(before/after/etc.)

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Between Statement

(before/after/etc.)

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Between Statement

(before/after/etc.)

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Between Statement

(before/after/etc.)

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Period

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Date End

Defining Chronology Statements

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Date Start

Between Statement

(before/after/etc.)

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Between Statement

(before/after/etc.)

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Between Statement

(before/after/etc.)

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Between Statement

(before/after/etc.)

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Period

cycle

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Date End

Defining Chronology Statements

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Date Start

Between Statement

(before/after/etc.)

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Between Statement

(before/after/etc.)

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Between Statement

(before/after/etc.)

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Between Statement

(before/after/etc.)

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Period

cycle

cycle

cycle

cycle

reference

reference

reference

reference

cycle

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Date End

Defining Chronology Statements

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Date Start

1 year after

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2 years before

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2 months after

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1 month before

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immatriculation

spring

winter

w.sem.

spring

Luther's imatr.

1504

1500

Erasmus' graduation

sommer semester

Defining Chronology Statements

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ChronoJSON

Compute

Complex Temporal Statements: ChronoJSON

Explicit and transparent storage and representation of uncertain and vague dates.

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Actionable by design:

• Chronology Statements are computed into ranges and available in all filter, analysis, and visualisation functionalities.
• Chronology Statement options can be used as filters, e.g.: ‘show all letters starting two years after Ľudovít Štúr’s second move to Preßburg’.

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Full documentation will be released soon. Guides on usage are available: https://nodegoat.net/guides/chronologystatements, https://nodegoat.net/guides/relationalchronologystatements.

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@nodegoat / nodegoat.net / support@nodegoat.net

@LAB1100 / LAB1100.com / info@LAB1100.com