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The Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries’ Digital Lab partnered with Syriaca.org to conduct “Digital Encoding for the Study of Syriac Literature,” an international virtual workshop held from June 29 through July 9.
The workshop brought together researchers, graduate students, faculty members, librarians, independent scholars and technologists working in Syriac studies, an academic field focusing on the history, language and literature of the Syriac-speaking Christian tradition. Across five days of live instruction, participants learned how digital tools and collaborative workflows can support the creation, review and long-term maintenance of scholarly data.
The curriculum introduced participants to XML editing, Text Encoding Initiative standards, GitHub version control, linked data, the Syriaca.org knowledge graph, and emerging applications of artificial intelligence in digital scholarship.
Connecting humanities research with digital methods
The workshop was designed to show how traditional humanities research can be represented, connected, reviewed and shared through structured digital methods.
Participants explored how XML and TEI encoding can help scholars describe literary works, people, places, manuscripts and relationships in a consistent and reusable form. They also learned how GitHub can support collaborative scholarship by allowing contributors to propose, review, track and preserve changes to shared research data.
The workshop centered on Syriaca.org’s New Handbook of Syriac Literature, giving participants an opportunity to apply these methods within an active scholarly resource. By working directly with the handbook’s data, participants could see how digital encoding supports the description, discovery and study of Syriac texts while contributing to a larger international research initiative.
Making unfamiliar technology approachable
The Digital Lab played an active role in delivering the workshop. Team members helped teach foundational technical concepts, guided participants through the installation and use of Visual Studio Code and GitHub, and provided hands-on assistance as participants completed coding and digital-encoding exercises.
For many attendees, the workshop involved learning unfamiliar technical systems alongside highly specialized scholarly content. The instructional team therefore emphasized clear explanations, guided practice and individualized troubleshooting.
Rather than simply watching demonstrations, participants installed the tools, worked through practical exercises, resolved technical challenges, and applied their learning directly to structured scholarly data. This hands-on approach helped participants move from introductory concepts to confidently editing and contributing digital content.
A highly rated collaborative experience
Participant feedback reflected a strongly positive learning experience, with 100 percent of survey respondents selecting “satisfied” or “very satisfied.” The result highlights the value of combining subject expertise with accessible technical instruction and sustained individual support.
The workshop’s success came not only from presenting information, but also from helping participants overcome the practical barriers that often accompany unfamiliar software, coding environments and version-control workflows. By addressing those challenges directly, the instructional team helped ensure that technology supported the needs of scholarship rather than becoming a barrier to participation.
Supporting future digital scholarship
The collaboration reflects the Digital Lab’s broader mission to advance faculty- and student-driven digital projects while supporting sustainable infrastructure, shared learning and interdisciplinary experimentation. “Through workshops such as this one, the Digital Lab helps make structured data, version control, digital editing and artificial intelligence more approachable for scholars with different levels of technical experience,” said Daniel Genkins, interim director of the Digital Lab.
Participants concluded the workshop better prepared to contribute to Syriaca.org, apply digital-encoding practices to future research projects, and participate in collaborative digital scholarship. The program demonstrated what becomes possible when disciplinary expertise and technical support come together: Scholars can move beyond learning about digital tools and begin using them to create, connect and preserve knowledge.