Reinier de Blois

Editor, UBS's Semantic Dictionary of Biblical Hebrew & Bible translation consultant

The Semantic Dictionary of Biblical Hebrew: A Bible Dictionary Designed to be Published Electronically

Slowly but surely dictionaries and lexica of the biblical source texts find their way into software packages. Most of these resources were first published on paper and later adapted for electronic publication. This adaptation process is tedious and the end result can only benefit to a limited extent from the numerous possibilities that are available for the display of databases in computer software. In 2000 the United Bible Societies launched a new project: a dictionary of the Hebrew Old Testament based on semantic domains. This dictionary --a third of which is ready-- was designed to be published electronically and has several features that only an electronic publication can exploit to the fullest. This dictionary will also be part of the Logos Libronix Library. This presentation will explain the methodology underlying this dictionary, its layout, and how it can interact with other resources.

John Hudson

Designer of SBL Hebrew and upcoming SBL Greek and SBL BibLit fonts

Re-making it visible

Much of what we want to do with electronic text involves making it invisible, taking language that the scribe made visible on papyrus, parchment or paper and hiding it from view in the bits and bytes that allow us to do things with it on computers. John Hudson's job as a type designer and font developer is to find ways to make the text visible again. In this presentation he looks at the benefits of encoding standards and layout intelligence embedded in fonts in the specific context of Bible text, and exposes some of the challenges of re-making it visible.

J.K. Tauber

co-creator of MorphGNT.org

MorphGNT and the Building of Linguistic Databases for New Testament Greek

MorphGNT has, for the last 15 year, been one of the most popular freely-available tagged texts of the Greek New Testament and the basis for a number of websites. In the last couple of years, J.K. Tauber has been augmenting the database with additional linguistic analyses, primarily at the lexical and morphological level. MorphGNT is now also the home of Ulrik Sandborg-Petersen's tagged Tischendorf text. Tauber and Sandborg-Petersen are currently working on combining their databases and laying a foundation for future work.

This talk will delve into many of the issues faced, both from a linguistic and practical software development point of view. As well a describing challenges confronted and lessons learnt, the talk will look at the opportunity for new applications of the data and new collaborations that will become possible. From text encoding to data structures, from grep and awk to Python and Django, this talk should have something for everyone interested in the intersection of linguistics, software development and the Greek New Testament.

Troy A. Griffitts

Project Lead for the open source CrossWire Bible Society

The State of Open Source Bible Software Development

Come hear about free software resources available to use as building blocks for your projects. This session will give a brief overview of many of the open projects at CrossWire Bible Society, from web components, to tools running on Mac, Linux, PDAs, and even Windows. We'll also give a sneak peak at some of what's brewing in our labs. CrossWire Bible Society is a non-income organization committed to facilitating a community where tech talented individuals of the Body of Christ can share together in work for our Lord.

Internals of The SWORD Engine

The SWORD Engine is a crossplatform Biblical Text research engine at the heart of most projects at CrossWire. This session will cover the basics of how the engine works, with hands-on development of a basic application using the API.

Todd Tillinghast

CEO of Snowfall Software and OSIS Tech Committee

Communities, Content, and Syndication in a Consumer-Driven Digital and Print-On-Demand Environment

With the ease of content creation and delivery, there is an ever-increasing need for the syndication of content by credible sources along side consumer and community driven resources. Special attention will be paid to how content from multiple sources and in multiple formats including but not limited to OSIS are integrated into a consumer driven environment for digital as well as print-on-demand delivery.

Andi Wu

Computational Linguist, Asia Bible Society

Treebanks of Biblical Texts

This is a dynamic treebanking project where each verse of the original Hebrew and Greek Texts is given an analysis of its syntactic structure in the form of phrase-structure trees. The trees are in the form of XML and are automatically generated by a Hebrew parser and a Greek parser where machine errors can be corrected by human intervention in the parsing process. Version 1 of the treebank is 100% completed for the Greek New Testament and 80% completed for the Hebrew Old Testament. The demo will present the trees and the computational process whereby the trees are generated.

Zack Hubert

Creator of zhubert.com and Pastor of Technology at Mars Hill Church

Open Source Bible Software: The Re:Greek Transition

In whirlwind fashion, Zack will present the history of The Resurgence Greek Project from it’s early days to future plans, with some software commentary along the way.

Karl Hofmann

Senior Design Engineer, Alstom Signaling

Building Community or Building Babel?

How should Christians use technology to build community? This talk will discuss where we have come from, where we are, and where we are going in terms of utilizing technology to read, study, and discuss the Bible. Special attention will be paid to how advancements in technology have contributed to the formation of communities of belief. Mr. Hofmann will conclude with a proposal for an online Bible study project to facilitate individuals and communities interacting with Scripture as a text. The collection of these interactions would then provide the basis for identifying and distinguishing communities.

Drew Haninger

President, CEO, Olive Tree Bible Software, Inc.

Electronic Publishing and Bible Software in a Fast-Moving Mobile Landscape

The handheld mobile technology including PDA’s, Smartphones, and cell phones is in constant motion with the rapidly increasing number of platforms on the market. How does a publisher of Biblical content keep up? How do they decide which platforms are worth supporting now, and which ones it would be better to just wait and see how they mature? For mobile electronic publishers today there is a potential quagmire of platforms, operating systems, screen sizes, user interface paradigms, software delivery methods, and publisher permissions. Mr. Haninger will touch on some of the different methods of approaching this rapidly changing market. In addition, he will present a quick overview of many handheld technologies and platforms such as Palm, Pocket PC, Smartphone, Blackberry, iPod, iPhone, etc.

Neil Mayhew & Larry Waswick

Language Software Developers, SIL International

Electronic Tools and Bible Translation

Translating the Bible into minority languages around the world needs specialized software for language analysis, scripture editing and access to expert reference materials. SIL is creating open-source software for analysis and editing, but is using software developed by others for access to references. This presentation will begin with an overview of the various tools that are being used, and go on to explain how these tools interact with one another to provide a smoothly integrated environment for translation. Following this, the presentation will discuss various solutions for making SIL-originated reference materials available on low-cost systems such as older laptops running Linux and the OLPC.

Kurt Fuqua

President, Cambridge Group Research

High-Quality Machine Translation Using a Semantic Interlingua

The common argument against using machine translation for Scripture is that the quality is inadequate. A hybrid approach is presented in which the original text is manually translated into a semantic interlingua once by scholars. From the interlingua representation of the original text, translations can be made into many languages semi-automatically. This can dramatically reduce the required effort. Existing NT-only translations can be extended to cover the OT as well. The process can be validated for consistency and accuracy assuring the highest fidelity. The interlingua, InterLing, has been designed to handle complex nuances of meaning.

An Architecture for Computational Linguistics – The Scalable Language API

This tutorial will give an overview of an open architecture for processing each level of language. From creating lexicons, to speech synthesis, from grammars to morphology, speech recognition to machine translation, the Scalable Language API covers the spectrum of language. SLAPI is a well-defined modular architecture of functions and data structures for representing grammars and lexicons. As part of this presentation, speaker Kurt Fuqua will demonstrate the SLAPI tools available for Greek grammatical studies.

Rick Brannan

Information Architect, Logos Bible Software

Locating New Testament Cross-References: Some Strategies

This talk will examine the feasibility of locating topically-related verses in the New Testament using word frequency and co-occurrence measures. The focus will be on strategy and results, not on the nitty-gritty details of the code.

Mark Hoffman

Associate Professor of Biblical Studies at Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg

Digital Resources for Biblical Maps and Mapping

There is an abundance of digital resources now available for biblical maps and mapping. This presentation will review options available on the internet, as downloadable programs, and as modules within Bible software packages.

Nick Garbidakis

CIO/CTO, American Bible Society

OSIS and modern Bible Tools

Nick Garbidakis and his team from the American Bible Society will be looking at where the industry is heading with regards to digital Bible tools. Their talk will give details on the Digital Scripture Initiative which started with OSIS. This will be a review of where we came from, where we are today and where the market is heading. A substantial amount of time will also be designated for feedback from attendees.

Craig Rairdin

President, Laridian, Inc.

Beyond Mobility: Synchronizing User-Created Data Between Platforms, Readers, and Vendors

In the last ten years, Bible software users have moved from being 100% desk-bound to nearly 100% mobile. Unfortunately, mobile devices are significantly more disposable than desktop systems, and users move from device to device, platform to platform, and Bible software to Bible software. Through this they long to have portability of not just their libraries but their own annotations, highlights, cross-references, bookmarks, and any other user-created data their programs allow them to create. Craig will discuss the goals, challenges and implementation of a system that synchronizes user-created data between the various platforms that Laridian software supports and suggest opportunities for multiple-vendor participation in such a system.

Sean Boisen

Information Architect, Logos Bible Software

Bibleref: a Microformat for Bible References

Microformats are “a set of simple, open data formats built upon existing and widely adopted standards” (see http://microformats.org) that capture small but important bits of information on web pages. Bibleref is a proposed microformat for identifying Bible references that are embedded in blog posts and other web content. Broad use of bibleref would enable search engines, content aggregators, and other automated tools to correctly label the references so they're more easily searchable. This presentation will explain why bibleref is needed, explore the technical specifics, and discuss how to promote broader adoption.

The Zoomable Bible

Information visualization is an established computer technique for providing rich, typically interactive, visual presentations of complex multivariate data. While increased computing power has made information visualization more common, our interfaces for navigating and browsing the Bible are still largely linear adaptations of traditional print forms. New interface paradigms (like Apple’s iPhone and Microsoft’s SeaDragon technology) can present large amounts of information on a traditionally-sized computer display though the use of Zoomable User Interfaces (ZUIs). This presentation will overview existing tools, applications, and principles for ZUIs and other visualizations, and explore some novel interfaces that give higher-level views of Biblical content.

Nathan Smith & Christian Bradford

Godbit.com

Web Standards: Speaking in Today's Vernacular

If we believe that the gospel message of Jesus is true, then we should care about the delivery of the timeless story. Presenters Nathan Smith and Christian Bradford will discuss how their respective roles at a large IT corporation have affected the way they view communication. Two of the main tenets of their presentation will be "Enterprise," which means getting big denominations to care about their web presence and Blogging, which they describe as "talking to people at a personal level and meeting them where they're at." All of this is better facilitated by treating code as meticulously as the early scribes approached the craft of hand "coding" the Scriptures, making sure each letter was written with attention to detail.

Stephen Johnson

Software Engineer, Olive Tree Bible Software

The Challenges and Future of Bible Software in a Mobile World

Developing Bible Software for mobile devices is a challenging endeavor. Much of the development time is spent on the logistics of developing for mobile devices. Stephen Johnson will discuss many of these challenges and offer some insight for how to address some of these challenges. Mobile technology is moving forward at a frenzied pace. What does the future have in store for Bible software in the mobile world? Will these same challenges be around in five or ten years?

Bob MacDonald

Director of Research and Development, Anthony MacAuley Associates

Visualizing Micro and Macro Structures in Scripture

Speaker Bob MacDonald will be presenting some diagrams of Hebrew poetry showing both internal and external structure. This presentation’s theme will not be getting things done 'faster', but the sustained learning process that web-based software framework allows over long periods of time. The talk will also display new ways that the drawing surface expresses both aspects of structure. In doing so, MacDonald will illustrate how a software presentation explores visually what the ancients would have heard in an aural performance.

Mark Miller

Director of Communications, Word of Grace

Guy Mullins

Director of New Media, Arizona State University

New Culture, New Media

This breakout workshop will cover two areas. New Media and Participatory Culture. The goal of this workshop is to give basic understanding to the tools and methods but also the culture, and how it’s being infused to the communication DNA of younger generations. Since New Media and Participatory Culture are two areas vastly growing and changing, the workshop is set up more like a dialog then a lecture.

Patrick Durusau

Acting Convener SC 34/WG 3, Topic Maps, Consultant

Topic Maps and the Bible

This talk will provide a technical overview of topic maps and their ability to honor different views of subjects and their relationships in the Bible.

Stephen Smith

Crossway

The ESV and Bible Usability

Stephen Smith’s talk will discuss some of the internet work Crossway Publishers has undertaken with the ESV Bible, with an emphasis on rapidly (and inexpensively) implementing new ideas and making sure that the research results are usable. The session will discuss some of Crossway’s user research, the interface design principles they have developed, and how a web-friendly approach has helped the ESV’s sales.