OSIS

1
OSIS An Introduction

• Bible Technologies Conference
• SBL Annual Meeting
• November 22, 2002

2
OSIS Past and Present

• What is OSIS?
• Why do we need it?
• How are we building it, and who is involved?
• What are the next steps?

3
I. What is OSIS?

• Open not a proprietary format
• Scriptural- we are working with the Bible as text
• Information- we plan to be able to markup
  scripture related text as well
• Standard- OSIS will be a standard way of marking
  up scripture and related text which everyone can
  use

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Ok, so what is OSIS?
Media
Speed
Custom
OSIS provides an agreed upon format to provide
both fast production and customization. It is
truly a common format for many visions. People
use the bible for many reasons.
5
What is XML?

• XML is eXtensible Markup Language
• Allows us to identify and describe the pieces of
  a document
• Provides portability across applications and
  media types
• Grows/extends with time and use

6
So what?

• We can mark up a text once, then view it on a
  number of different applications, instead of
  taking the time to format it for each different
  application (PC, Palm, Cell Phone, Printed Bible,
  etc.)
• In other words, we free the text from the
  render
• This gives the user the freedom to determine the
  best format from which to engage the scriptures.

7
II. Why do we need OSIS?

• Standards are useful
• Permanence
• Portability

8
Standards Are Useful

• Financial- My Visa acct ? your Mastercard acct
  Units of money
• Media- TV channels, VCRs Wire and cell phones
• Units and Measures- Length voltage, etc. Thus
  2?4s, wrenches, light bulbs,

9
Goal Permanence

• Problem At risk texts are not just ancient
  scrolls. Works stored in proprietary electronic
  formats are vulnerable to software/hardware
  revisions and upgrades.
• Solution a digital repository for XML text
  outlasts and is impervious to changes in
  technology

10
Goal Portability
11
III. How OSIS was created

• Bible Technologies Conferences
• Bible Technologies Group

12
About First BTC

• First meeting hosted by ABSi in Virginia in
  April, 2001
• 60 participants representing all sectors of the
  Bible community
• Agreed on loose organizational structure (the
  Bible Technologies Group, or BTG)
• Created working groups

13
About BTG

• Co-sponsored by SBL, ABS
• Led by Steve DeRose, Kees de Blois (UBS)
• Two current working groups OSIS core and
  Linguistic Annotation
• Key Bible organizational participants SBL, UBS,
  ABS, Bible Forum, Catholic Biblical Association,
  in addition to numerous publishers and software
  manufacturers

14
Technical Progress

• Evaluated use cases from working groups 5/01 to
  11/01
• Evaluated DTDs (TEI, Logos, SIL, Lifeway, BH,
  eHosanna, ThML) 5/01 to 11/01
• Created requirements doc for OSIS 1.0 released
  11/01 (SBL Annual Meeting)
• Completed OSIS beta version released 04/02
  (Spring Bible Tech Conference)
• Completed OSIS 1.1 released 11/02 (SBL Annual
  Meeting)

15
Who will benefit?

• Scholars
• Small Publishers
• Translators
• Software manufacturers

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IV. OSIS The Future

• OSIS is truly a common format for many visions.
• The goal of the Bible Technologies Group is to
  continue to develop OSIS as a common format for
  many visions, by building OSIS tools to allow
  lay people, publishers, software manufacturers,
  translators and anyone interested in scripture
  interaction to engage the text more effectively

17
OSIS and the BTG

• Producing OSIS user manual, cheat sheet for
  developers (due 2/03)
• Working on authoring tool for non-techies to put
  text in OSIS (due 3/03)
• Marking up ABS Bibles and other scriptural text,
  including public domain text such as
  commentaries, sermons, etc. (Ongoing)

18

• www.bibletechnologies.org
• Technical Questions
• Patrick Durusau (SBL), Pdurusau_at_emory.edu
• Steve DeRose, sderose_at_acm.org
• General Questions
• Mike Perez (ABS), mperez_at_absinteractive.com