Sample Call for Hosts

Call for Hosts: TEI Conference & Members’ Meeting, 2018 & 2019

The Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) is a consortium which collectively develops and maintains a standard for the representation of texts in digital form. Its chief deliverable is a set of Guidelines which specify encoding methods for machine-readable texts, chiefly in the humanities, social sciences and linguistics. Since 1994, the TEI Guidelines have been widely used by libraries, museums, publishers, and individual scholars to present texts for online research, teaching, and preservation. In addition to the Guidelines themselves, the Consortium provides a variety of resources and training events for learning TEI, information on projects using the TEI, software developed for or adapted to the TEI, and an annual conference and members’ meeting. In August of 2017, the TEI Consortium and community as a whole will receive the esteemed Antonio Zampolli Prize from the Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations.

The annual TEI Consortium Members' Meeting and Conference is held every September/October/November, and brings together members of and contributors to the TEI community to share research, showcase tools and techniques as well as provide a report of the state of the TEI-C as part of the Members’ Business Meeting. We are now seeking applications to host the conference and members’ meeting for 2018 and 2019.

The meeting this year will take place on the 11th through the 15th of November 2017 at the University of Victoria in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. The most recent meetings have been held:


 * 2016 in Vienna, Austria, hosted by the Austrian Centre for Digital Humanities (ACDH) and the Austrian Academy of Sciences from 26th to 30th of September
 * 2015 in Lyon, France, hosted by the Histoire, archéologie, littératures des mondes chrétiens et musulmans médiévaux (CIHAM) and Histoire et sources des mondes antiques (HISoMA) from 28th to 31st of October
 * 2014 in Evanston, Illinois, USA, hosted by Northwestern University from 22nd to 24th of October
 * 2013 in Rome, Italy, hosted by Sapienza Università di Roma and Associazione per l’Informatica Umanistica e la Cultura Digitale from 2nd to 5th of October

The TEI-C attempts to ensure that the annual meeting is held in a variety of locations reflecting the distribution of TEI members and TEI-related activities with particular interest in institutions that have not previously hosted a TEI Conference and Members’ Meeting. As the TEI community continues to grow globally, the TEI-C is committed to inclusivity. We are also committed to supporting conference settings that are safe and welcoming to all.

Local organizers at the host institution(s) are responsible for providing facilities for all conference-related activities, including pre- and post- events, developing the conference web site, producing a collection of abstracts, organizing a conference dinner, and coordinating appropriate social events. The TEI-C Members’ Meeting and Conference attracts approximately 150 participants and spans 2-4 days, depending on the proposals submitted and the workshops offered. The conference is entirely financed through conference registration fees, a $7,000 USD subvention from the TEI-C, and contributions that the Local Conference Organising Committee is able to obtain from sponsors.

The host application requires thorough logistical, fiscal and other information from the prospective meeting host(s) to enable the TEI-C Board of Directors to fully review the applications with special emphasis on:
 * the level of support and underwriting (financial and logistical) the institution can offer to ensure the success of the meeting.
 * the venue itself and its suitability for a meeting of this size and type.
 * the kinds of support the organizers can draw upon locally to ensure the logistical success of the meeting.

Additional information about conference expectations and requirements, including detailed information about the application process can be found: http://members.tei-c.org/hosting.

Prospective hosts are invited to discuss their plans informally with members of the TEI-C Board of Directors (http://www.tei-c.org/About/board.xml) before submitting an application. We are currently in the process of updating conference protocols, sample proposals, etc. Please contact the Chair of the TEI-C Board, Michelle Dalmau, mdalmau@indiana.edu, about details not covered in the “Hosting a TEI Conference and Members’ Meeting” documentation (http://members.tei-c.org/hosting).

Applications are due 26 May 2017, and will be reviewed by the members of the TEI-C Board who make the final decisions.