RECCOMENDATIONS FOR
Digital Scholarly Editions

1. Plan an editorial workflow keeping the FAIR principles in mind and taking advantage of existing tools, to optimise editing and data management. #

IDENTIFY PLAN

Review software tools for digital philology

Numerous tools are available to assist philologists throughout the editing process, from transcribing primary sources to lemmatisation, making edition creation more efficient and cost-effective. While planning the editiorial work, take time to review existing software tools. With the goal of producing a FAIR-compliant digital edition in mind, selecting appropriate tools and establishing a workflow becomes more straightforward, for example by favoring tools that support standard formats.

To discover tools, you can use curated lists and dedicated catalogues such as:

Criteria for high-quality digital editions

The RIDE journal’s criteria for reviewing and evaluating digital critical editions highlight which aspects need to be addressed or given particular attention to create reliable and high-quality editions. RIDE Criteria for Reviewing Scholarly Digital Editions, version 1.1

2. Include photographic reproductions of the documents/witnesses when available, preferably through IIIF. #

PLAN PRODUCE

Manuscript and document images can be used both for the preparation and the publication of the edition. The inclusion of photographic reproductions within the editions allows readers to verify the editor’s readings first-hand.

Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF)

Since many digital scholarly editions need to provide readers with digital images of the documents or manuscripts on which they are based, the most effective way is through the International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF).

Introductory guide to understanding how IIIF works.

Many libraries and cultural institutions (for example, the Vatican Library and the French National Library) have adopted this set of standards and APIs, allowing scholars to access and reuse photographic reproductions of cultural objects from their collections.

List of all collections available through IIIF.

Guide: “How to use IIIF resources and image viewers”

Strategies for image inclusion

  • Many tools for both digital scholarly editing (e.g., eScriptorium, PRISMS, FairCopy and digital publishing (e.g., EVT) are compatible with IIIF, allowing images to be retrieved directly from their repositories. Alternatively, IIIF-compatible viewers, such as OpenSeadragon, Universal Viewer, and Mirador, may be integrated into the edition’s website.
  • If it is not possible to include the documents’/witnesses’ digital facsimiles in the DSE, we recommend providing links to the facsimiles or the cataloguing records offered online.

3. For texts rich in references to people, places, and named entities, consider creating a semantic edition to highlight these aspects. #

PLAN PRODUCE

Semantic editions

Semantic editions enable automated text analysis, including the identification of recurring themes and character relationships. These editions can be integrated with other databases and research tools, enabling broader historical, cultural, and linguistic analysis of the text.

Example: the digital semantic edition of Paolo Bufalini’s notebook.

Semantic editing

  • Create links between entities mentioned in the text and Linked Open Data authorities, such as Wikidata, VIAF, DBpedia, and GeoNames.
  • To easily create semantic editions, you can use tools like CWRC-Writer, an online XML and RDF editor that automatically detects named entities and links them to records in Linked Open Data authorities.

4. Use XML/TEI or another appropriate standard schema to ensure interoperability. #

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The TEI standard

The standard document format for text encoding is the one developed and promoted for more than 30 years by the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) and based on the XML markup language. The TEI guidelines are organised in modules and allow to represent various text types and literary genres, from manuscripts to dictionaries, from performance texts to speech transcriptions. The current version of the guidelines is P5, which is freely available online in HTML and PDF formats, and is also available in different languages.

Given the growing adoption of TEI as a standard for creating digital scholarly editions, many editing tools are compatible with TEI or allow data export in TEI format.

Over the years, building on TEI guidelines and the experience of its promoting consortium, new encoding schemas and standards have been developed to represent specific types of texts and documents, namely:

  • MEI (Music Encoding Initiative), for musical documents;
  • Epidoc (Epigraphic Documents in TEI XML), for epigraphs and inscriptions;
  • CEI (Charters Encoding Initiative), for medieval diplomatic documents (charters).

Metadata

For metadata, the most convenient solution is to implement them within the same document, always using the TEI standard, as it allows for describing both the digital edition itself and how it was prepared, as well as the documents/witnesses on which it is based (TEI Header Module). Alternatively, other standard metadata schemas such as Dublin Core and the FRBR/LRM model can be used and also included in TEI documents using the xenoData element.

Encoding strategies

To facilitate encoding, consider these strategies:

  • Employ an editor that exports data as XML/TEI or other appropriate formats.
  • Convert from other data formats to desired format using conversion tools (e.g., TEI Garage).
  • Consider using annotation tools based on Domain-Specific Languages (Zenzaro, Boschetti and Del Grosso, 2025).

The TEI consortium offers a series of tools to facilitate text encoding:

5. If necessary, create and publish custom encoding schemas, starting from existing ones. #

PRODUCE DEPOSIT

Existing digital scholarly editions may have developed custom encoding schemas that can be directly reused or used as a reference for modelling your domain.

Digital editions often describe their underlying data models in written documentation. While these descriptions are very useful for users, they are not machine-readable. To achieve full FAIR compliance, an edition’s encoding schema should be formalised and published with a retrievable URL.

  • When using XML/TEI, you can apply the following strategies to easily create custom schemas:
  • Publish encoding schemas in a trustworthy repository, alongside the edition’s files.

6. Provide a detailed description of the textual tradition, the editorial process and applied methodologies, accompanied by links to relevant web resources. #

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This will allow readers to clearly understand the edition’s objectives and how it was prepared, and to verify the editor’s work.

If you develop solutions to common challenges while working on your edition—whether it’s a custom encoding schema or new software tools—document and share them in detail to help other scholars facing similar issues.

  • Include references to other research products, such as software tools, datasets and previous DSEs, used to prepare the edition.

7. Give credit to all editors and contributors, including those responsible for markup and technical implementation. #

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Markup is a scholarly activity that significantly impacts the expressiveness and quality of a digital edition. Choosing elements and attributes to best represent textual phenomena and creating new custom elements are complex tasks that deserve recognition. Similarly, the technical implementation of a digital scholarly edition is crucial—developers’ work is essential for producing usable and accessible DSEs.

8. Make your editorial process transparent by publishing different versions of the edition and its by-products. #

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Creating a digital edition is a long, iterative process where editors continually refine the text and its accompanying materials (critical apparatuses, introduction, etc.). When users consult an online edition, they often cannot tell whether they are viewing the final version or a work in progress that may soon change. Publishing without clear version status makes digital editions appear unstable and unreliable. Therefore, we recommend publishing intermediate versions before the final edition, clearly documenting changes and work status. This approach allows intermediate versions to be cited and reused while making the edition more trustworthy. During the early stages, editors can also publish other standard components of a critical edition, such as the bibliography, list of witnesses/documents, and their transcriptions and/or translations.

  • Within trusted repositories like Zenodo, editors can upload new versions of the same file. The application automatically generates a PID for each version, maintaining links between them.
  • The TEI guidelines allow for detailed description of the various revisions made to a document (TEI’s Revision Description).

9. Enable users to download the edition, including a print-ready PDF version when appropriate, to facilitate reuse. #

PRODUCE DISSEMINATE

The practice of reuse in philology is far more common than many realise. Editions frequently build upon previous editions, serve as foundations for linguistic studies, or provide source material for dictionaries. In the digital age, FAIR principles have expanded the possibilities for reuse - editions can now serve as training data for machine learning models (such as automatic transcription and linguistic analysis tools) and enable sophisticated intertextual analysis.

Examples of reuse scenarios: Spadini and Palenzuela, ’Re-Using Data from Editions’, 2025.

  • Where there are no copyright restrictions, make the edition freely downloadable in a standard format such as XML/TEI.
  • Consider other formats as well, including TXT, ODT and JSON. The more formats available, the easier the edition is to reuse.
  • The PDF format can be more accessible for some users.

Example: digital edition of De rebus Siculis Carmen edited by Fulvio delle Donne available in XML/TEI and in PDF.

10. Store the edition in a trustworthy repository and ensure it is indexed in relevant field-specific catalogues to guarantee long-term preservation and enhance its discoverability. #

DEPOSIT

Depositing the edition in a certified repository (CoreTrustSeal, Nestor, etc.) ensures its long-term accessibility, even if the visualisation system becomes obsolete.

  • To maximise discoverability, index the edition in searchable resources like OpenAIRE (which happens automatically when using repositories like Zenodo) and in relevant field-specific catalogues and lists of digital critical editions (see point 2).

11. For visualising the edition, use non-proprietary tools or adopt existing publishing solutions. #

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Visualisation tools

Various tools for visualizing DSEs—including TEIPublisher, TEIBoilerplate, and EVT—allow you to customise text formatting. When you need specialised visualisation features, instead of building from scratch, use existing open-source tools. You can often work directly with tool development teams to tailor these solutions to your needs.

Example: the collaboration between the digital edition of the Codice Pelavicino and the visualisation software EVT.

Minimal effort publishing solutions

Ready-to-use publishing solutions allow editors to focus solely on preparing the edition while delegating publication tasks. Examples are the Micro-Editions of the Scholarly Editing journal and the editions in the Digital Humanities series by BUP. Consider also services such as the H2IOSC digital philology hub, which allow users to use complete services, from editing to publication.

12. For extensive and rich texts, provide indexes and a search function to improve discoverability. #

DISSEMINATE

Example: analytical indexes of the National Edition of Aldo Moro’s works.