Mobilizing Metadata: Open Data Kit (ODK) for Language Resource Development in East Africa

摘要

Linguistic fieldworkers collect and archive metadata as part of the language resources (LRs) that they create, but they often work in resource-constrained environments that prevent them from using computers for data entry. In such situations, linguists must complete time-consuming and error-prone digitization tasks that limit the quantity and quality of the resources and metadata that they produce (Thieberger & Berez 2012; Margetts & Margetts 2012). This paper describes a method for entering linguistic metadata into mobile devices using the Open Data Kit (ODK) platform, a suite of open source tools designed for mobile data collection. The method was incorporated into two community-based language documentation projects in Tanzania, involving twelve researchers simultaneously collecting data in four administrative regions (Griscom & Harvey 2019). Through the identification of project-specific data dependencies and redundancies, a number of efficiencies were built into the metadata entry system. These include the use of closed vocabularies, unique data entry forms for distinct data collector categories, and separate forms for entering participant and resource metadata. The resulting system serves as the basis for the ongoing development of general purpose bilingual English-Swahili metadata entry tools, to be made available for use by other researchers working in East Africa.