Report on the workshop LINCS/Itineraires
Introduction
On March 20, 2026, a three-hour workshop was held between certain partner teams of the Revue3.0 partnership project. Susan Brown, Luciano Frizzera, and Rose Wagner represented the [LINCS project](https://lincsproject.ca/docs/about-lincs/) and presented the [LEAF-Writer](https://leaf-writer.leaf-vre.org/), [NERVE](https://nerve.lincsproject.ca/fr), and [Context Explorer](https://lincsproject.ca/docs/tools/context-explorer/) tools. Matthis Tabeling and Aurélie Journo from the editorial team of [Itinéraires](https://journals.openedition.org/itineraires/) followed the step-by-step tutorial proposed by S. Brown, L. Frizzera, and R. Wagner, adapted for an XML article from the journal. Clara Grometto and Alexia Schneider represented the [Laboratory for Research on Digital Writings](https://www.ecrituresnumeriques.ca/fr) to ensure technical coordination and continuity of the projects initiated.
The workshop provided an opportunity for the Itinéraires team to become familiar with the LEAF-Writer tool for XML-TEI annotation, NERVE for semi-automatic annotation of semantic information in XML-TEI, and Context Explorer for exploring links between LINCS data directly within the Chromium browser. Starting from an article from the journal, we were able to work directly on the potential integration of these tools into the journal’s publishing workflow. In addition to this hands-on training, the meeting also served as an opportunity to identify potential points of collaboration between the different teams.
Proceedings
The workshop proceeded according to the following points:
- Round-table introductions,
- Presentation of expectations regarding the workshop and future collaboration by the Itinéraires team concerning their current projects,
- Demonstration and step-by-step guidance by S. Brown and L. Frizzera to M. Tabeling and A. Journo on LEAF-Writer and NERVE, using an XML article from the journal,
- Demonstration of Context Explorer by Rose Wagner directly on OpenEdition using a journal article and on English-language data.
Itinéraires’ Expectations and Projects
- Preparation of the special issue for the 50th anniversary: selection of digitized or non-digitized articles and XML-TEI encoding of the selected articles.
- Analysis of the journal’s history through specific themes or citation graphs: visualization of the journal’s evolution.
- Linking articles to encourage readers to read multiple articles from the journal.
Tool Demonstrations and Points of Interest for Other Journals
The demonstrations and step-by-step guidance conducted within the no-code interfaces of the tools allowed the Itinéraires team to quickly adopt them, enabling them to ask precise and technical questions within minutes. This demonstrates that a workshop open to partner journals would likely generate significant interest.
The three hours of exchange and practice highlighted certain limitations of the demonstrated tools regarding the processing of French-language data. This remains an area for improvement and would encourage collaboration with the Francophone team of the Laboratory for Research on Digital Writings within the Revue3.0 partnership project, which primarily works with Francophone journals.
Semantic Enrichment Questions for Journals and Proposed POCs
As a journal distributed by OpenEdition, Itinéraires provides their deposit platform with a validated XML-TEI document via `lodel`, which is then transformed with OpenEdition’s XSLT stylesheet into HTML. While the XML-TEI is preserved, it is not distributed by OpenEdition. As is often the case, the question arises regarding what to do with TEI tags such as `<placeName>`, `<persName>`, etc.
Encoding the information extracted by Named Entity Recognition (NER), although simplified by the NERVE validation environment, remains a conscientious task that requires time, which journals often lack. In its current model, OpenEdition does not leverage TEI tags that could encourage editors to engage in thoughtful indexing. Currently, encoding enriched data in XML-TEI does not guarantee improved discoverability of an article, and by extension, of the journal. This encourages a journal interested in semantic enrichment, like Itinéraires, to consider developing its own website. While having a dedicated website is common for journals based in Canada, this solution may not align with the distribution model of Social Sciences and Humanities (SHS) journals established in France, where OpenEdition plays a role as a distributor and has less focus on archiving.
In this sense, this workshop serves as a starting point for several projects and proof-of-concept (POC) initiatives. On the one hand, demonstrating the feasibility at the scale of an issue for Itinéraires of adopting a no-code tool like NERVE or LEAF-Writer highlights the possibility of integrating a step for systematic encoding of semi-automatically extracted XML-TEI data into the editorial workflow. On the other hand, starting from the produced data—either by working with XML-TEI formatted articles or by demonstrating the possibility of "wrapping" this format in HTML—it becomes possible to show the interest, at the scale of the journal or the distributor, in obtaining rich and reliable information to establish connections between articles. With Sens Public having paved the way for semantic encoding, it is now possible to work on a broader corpus and reflect on the interoperability of documents between OpenEdition and Érudit, for example.
Follow-up Developments
Development of collaboration between the teams based on the following elements:
For LINCS: This workshop allowed the identification of points of friction between the formats accepted by their tools and the XML-TEI format of OpenEdition, as well as the limitations of their NLP tools for processing French-language data. This could lead to more direct collaboration with OpenEdition or with journals like Itinéraires, which are distributed via OpenEdition, for the validation of specific XML schemas.
For Itinéraires: The workshop paves the way for work on enriching TEI encoding using NERVE or LEAF-Writer as intermediaries for producing enriched text, with a first application for their 50th-anniversary special issue.
For Revue3.0 and the Laboratory for Research on Digital Writings: The workshop served as the starting point for the following projects and POCs:
- Using available articles from Itinéraires on OpenEdition as a use case for automatic knowledge extraction and linking articles based on bibliographic or semantic aspects (agreement and disagreement in citations).
- Visualization of cross-cutting themes and their evolution in the journal’s history, and development of a standalone website for the journal’s 50th anniversary.
- Simplified integration of Stylo exports into XML formats validated for both OpenEdition and the LEAF-Writer and/or NERVE tools.