Statement of Editorial Principles
Editorial Policy Statement and Procedures
The Brock-Ford project, led by Dr. Jennifer Smith, Associate Professor of English at Pepperdine University, aims to transcribe, code, and organize correspondence between Mrs. Margaret Brock and President Gerald Ford so that these letters can be incorporated into a publicly accessible website. Despite the online format of classes due to the COVID-19 pandemic, each of the eighteen students in Dr. Smith’s Introduction to Digital Humanities class collaborated to create and edit this website so that Mrs. Brock’s work and contributions to Pepperdine University and the Republican party can be shared with a broader audience.
The content of this project, housed in Pepperdine University Library’s Special Collections, includes handwritten letters, printed letters, envelopes, photographs, and Christmas cards, among other documents. Archival items include letters printed on Ford’s presidential stationery, Pepperdine University’s letterhead, and Mrs. Brock’s personal stationery and letterhead. We acknowledge that the transcription and editing processes involve subjective judgement, especially concerning details of illegible handwriting, marginalia, undated documents and presumably nonessential items such as envelopes. We have attempted, however, to honor the material and maintain authenticity by working in teams, peer-editing each transcription, and working under the guidance of professionals.
- Organization
Our class, composed of eighteen students, was equally divided into three groups: Designers, Coders, and Editors. These groups are designed so that each student has a specific partner with whom they collaborated and peer-edited. Over the course of the semester, each group met individual deadlines for their portions of the Brock-Ford project. These individual assignments are displayed on the final website. This organizational structure is designed to keep each group on track as the project and website developed, while also ensuring that each document and process was double and triple checked. As a result of this collaboration and effort, the class has created a smoothly functioning, polished, authentic, and completely digital collection of Pepperdine’s Brock-Ford documents.
- Processes
- Consistency of Transcriptions
First, each student was assigned approximately fifteen documents from the Margaret Brock collection that were to be transcribed and organized chronologically by date. Each document was transcribed by two different transcribers who did not look at each other’s work. This was for the purpose of the Coders, who, when uploading the transcribed documents, were able to cross-reference the documents and upload the most authentic and complete digital versions of the original letters.
As a class, we had several discussions involving the importance of envelopes with no unique markings, and came to the conclusion that envelopes should not be transcribed unless they contained interesting, useful information that was not otherwise provided in the letter.
- Coding
The Coders then used the software Juxta to double check the transcriptions and derive an authentic, final transcription of each transcribed document. Next, the Brock-Ford Collection was coded using Oxygen, a software program that uses “Text Encoding Initiative” (TEI) to collectively develop and maintain a standard for the representation of texts in digital form. Since the goal of this project is to provide wider access to Pepperdine’s Margaret Brock Collection, TEI tags will make it possible for our work to be found when searching similar topics online.
III. Project Liaisons and Collaborators
The Brock-Ford project would not have been possible without the aid of several project liaisons, guides, and collaborators who ensured that the students’ work transcribing, coding, and uploading historical documents onto the website is authentic, valuable, and correctly formatted. Dr. Smith and Rachael Hogan, senior undergraduate teaching assistant, led class discussions to problem-solve and keep each group on track. Jason Egglston, Senior Application Analyst, taught the class how to use TEI coding and served as a guide through all technological difficulties throughout the project. Special Collections librarians Melissa Nykanen and Kelsey Knox allowed Dr. Smith’s class to access Pepperdine’s Margaret Brock collection, and also explained her biography and association with the Republican Party. Finally, Anna Speth, Librarian for Emerging Technology and Digital Projects, helped the Designers create the final, functioning website. From an editing standpoint, this project would have been impossible without these collaborators, who allowed the students both to explore and develop Pepperdine’s Margaret Brock Collection while simultaneously learning and understanding the various processes of creating the final website.