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Data Analysis

Extraction of information, knowledge or meaning from a digital resource, using techniques such as searching and querying or feature measurement.

See the tabs in the box at the bottom for a list of People and Projects using this category of method at Oxford. The category comprises the subheadings below; click on the expand button next to each one to see a list of detailed methods, with definitions taken from arts-humanities.net. The links on each individual method take you to the national list of related projects there.

Audiovisual analysis
  • Image feature measurement: Image feature measurement is a term to describe techniques used to acquire, measure, and analyse the parameters of digital images, such as size, shape, relative locations, textures, grey tones and colours. These parameters are also known as ‘perception attributes’.
  • Image segmentation: Segmentation refers to the process of partitioning a digital image into multiple segments, also known as superpixels. The goal of segmentation is to simplify and/or change the representation of an image into something that is more meaningful and easier to analyse.
  • Sound analysis: Refers to the extraction of information and meaning from sound signals for classification, storage, retrieval and synthesis. Different types of sound, for example voice and music, can be analysed in different ways.

Searching and linking
  • Content-based image retrieval: Content-based image retrieval (CBIR) refers to techniques used to search for digital images by features of their content, which is particularly helpful when studying large databases. It is often preferable to perform searches relying on metadata, which can be expensive and time-consuming to produce, as it requires humans to describe each individual item in the database.
  • Content-based sound retrieval: Refers to techniques used to search for sound files by features of their content, using specialist software, which is particularly helpful when studying large databases. It is often preferable to perform searches relying on metadata, which can be expensive and time-consuming to produce, as it requires humans to describe each individual item in the database.
  • Data mining: Data mining is the process of using computing power to extract hidden patterns from data, analysing the results from different perspectives and summarising it into a useful format, such as a graph or table. This process is often facilitated by the use of metadata. It is important that any patterns found are verified and validated by comparison with other data samples. In this way, data mining can identify trends that go beyond simple data analysis.
  • Record linkages analysis: The term ‘record linkage’ refers to techniques used to link records from different sources, by finding entries that refer to the same entity (e.g. person) in two or more files. These entries can be combined to form individual micro records.
  • Searching and querying: In this context, ‘Searching and Querying’ refers to the extraction of information from data by means of query languages. This process is very different from queries performed using a web search engine, which are often unstructured and ambiguous.
  • Topic detection and tracking: Topic Detection and Tracking (TDT) refers to systems that monitor topically related material and sources, for example news stories, by algorithmic means and track these as they change over time. This data can be in a variety of different types of media formats, such as video, audio and text.

Statistical analysis
  • Statistical analysis: Statistical analysis methods include descriptive statistics, inferential/predictive statistics and kriging.

Text analysis
  • Collating: Collation is the process of comparing different versions of a text to discover the location and type of textual variants. Collation is fundamental to a variety of scholarly pursuits, for example in the Arts and Humanities field it can be used for the accurate reconstruction of texts of classical works. In the past collation was performed by hand; today, it is performed with the assistance of a computer.
  • Collocating: Refers to the techniques used to detect patterns of words that appear together in a text more often than would be expected by chance. A collocation is a group or pair of words that are always used together, and can illustrate restrictions on which verbs or adjectives can be used with particular nouns, or the order in which words appear.
  • Content analysis: Content analysis is a research technique focused on the content and internal features of media. It is used to determine the presence of certain words, concepts, themes, phrases, characters, or sentences within texts or sets of texts and to quantify this presence in an objective manner.
  • Indexing: Indexing refers to techniques used to generate indexes of words in a text, in order that the reader can find information quickly and easily. Although indexing is still usually performed by hand, specialised computer software is often used to facilitate sorting, editing, formatting and printing.
  • Parsing: Parsing is an important method used in both computer science and linguistics. The term is synonymous with ‘syntactic analysis’, and refers to the process of taking a sequence (e.g. of characters), determining its structure, and checking whether it is legal in a given language. This is done by checking the structure of the sequence against a given formal grammar.
  • Stemmatics: Refers to techniques used to reconstruct the transmission of a text on the basis of relations between the various surviving manuscripts.
  • Text mining: Text mining, sometimes alternately referred to as text data mining, roughly equivalent to text analytics, refers generally to the process of deriving high-quality information from text. ‘High quality’ in text mining usually refers to some combination of relevance, novelty, and interest.

Other analysis
  • Design analysis: Design analysis is a powerful software technology for simulating physical behaviour on the computer. Instead of building a prototype and developing elaborate testing regimens to analyse the physical behaviour of a product, engineers can elicit this information quickly and accurately using this technology.
  • Motion analysis: Motion analysis provides systematic, time-dependent and quantitative data on any movement captured using digital video, as recorded in moving image collections. It is related to motion capture, which is the process of recording movement and translating that movement onto a digital model.
  • Overlaying: Refers to the techniques used to produce a geometric intersection between two sets of data to highlight features of interest. Overlaying is often used when studying or displaying maps. Specifically, the term ‘overlaying’ refers to the use of vector data. A similar method called ‘data extraction’ is performed using raster data.
  • Spatial data analysis: This method comprises techniques used to analyse spatial (geographic) data. Such techniques include Thiessen polygon analysis, the X-tent principle, cost/friction analysis and network analysis, among others.

Visualisation
  • Visualisation: Refers to techniques used to summarise and present data visually, in a form that enables people to understand and analyse the information. Formats can include images, maps, timelines, graphs and tables. Visualisation often uses computer graphics software, including virtual reality and 2-D or 3-D animation, as well as static images.

To filter the list of People and Projects, select sub-headings and details from the pull-down lists below (select sub-headings first). NB Not all users have registered their methods at these more detailed levels.

Sub-headings Details
  • Projects (111)
  • People (78)
APGRD - Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama Classics Faculty Fiona Macintosh
Architecture, Mathematics, and English Culture 1550-1750 History of Science Museum Stephen Johnston
Around 1968: Activism, Networks, Trajectories History Robert Gildea
Automatic annotation of the Spoken BNC Linguistics, Philology & Phonetics Faculty John Coleman
Autonomous Morphology in Diachrony: comparative evidence from the Romance languages Medieval & Modern Languages Faculty Martin Maiden
BEAM Bodleian Libraries Research & Learning Services Susan Thomas
Beazley Archive Classics Faculty Thomas Mannack
Bibliography of British and Irish History History Ian Archer
Bibliotheca Academica Translationum; Translations of Classical Scholarship 1701-1917 Classics Faculty Oswyn Murray
Blockbooks Bodleian Libraries Research & Learning Services Nigel F. Palmer
Bodleian Library Broadside Ballads Bodleian Libraries Research & Learning Services Mike Heaney
Boethius in Early Medieval Europe English Faculty Malcolm Godden
British Archaeology at the Ashmolean Museum: Rationalisation and Enhancement of the Historic Collections Ashmolean Museum Alison Roberts
British National Corpus OUCS Martin Wynne
Building a Virtual Research Environment for the Humanities (BVREH) Oxford e-Research Centre Alan Bowman
Celtic Coin Index Archaeology Christopher Gosden
Centre for the Study of the Cantigas de Santa Maria Medieval & Modern Languages Faculty Stephen Parkinson
CLARIN Oxford e-Research Centre Martin Wynne
Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Buckets Archaeology Helena Hamerow
Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum Online Classics Faculty Donna Kurtz
Creative Practice in Contemporary Concert Music Music Faculty Mark Doffman
Cultures of Knowledge: An Intellectual Geography of the Seventeenth-Century Republic of Letters History Howard Hotson
Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative Oriental Studies Faculty Jacob Dahl
Curse Tablets of Roman Britain Classics Faculty Alan Bowman
Cutting Edge: Revealing hidden stories in a cross-cultural collection of arms and armour : 2006-08 Pitt Rivers Museum Jeremy Coote
Diachronic Corpus of Sumerian Literature Oriental Studies Faculty Jacob Dahl
Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources Classics Faculty Richard Ashdowne
Digital Ashmolean Cuneiform Ashmolean Museum Jacob Dahl
Digital Asset Management at the Pitt Rivers Museum Anthropology Daniel Burt
Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music (DIAMM) Music Faculty Elizabeth Eva Leach
Digital Impacts: A Synthesis Oxford Internet Institute Eric Meyer
Digital Miscellanies Index English Faculty Jennifer Batt
Digitally Curating Knowledge Creation: Understanding and Recording the Process of Interpreting Cultural and Historical Artefacts Oxford e-Research Centre Ségolène Tarte
Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) Special Collections and IT Alexander Huber
Electronic Database of Poetic Form English Faculty Elizabeth Scott-Baumann
Electronic Enlightenment Project Special Collections and IT Robert McNamee
Elements of Drawing Ashmolean Museum Colin Harrison
England: the Other Within: Analysing the English Collections at the Pitt Rivers Museum Pitt Rivers Museum Christopher Gosden
Epact: Scientific Instruments of Medieval and Renaissance Europe History of Science Museum Jim Bennett
e-Science and Ancient Documents (eSAD) Classics Faculty Alan Bowman
The First World War Poetry Digital Archive IT Services Stuart Lee
Fontes Anglo-Saxonici English Faculty Rohini Jayatilaka
Forced Migration Online International Development Ian McClelland
Foreign Office Confidential Prints Bodleian Libraries Research & Learning Services Hannah Chandler
The Forster Collection Pitt Rivers Museum Pitt Rivers Museum Jeremy Coote
futureArch project Bodleian Libraries Research & Learning Services Susan Thomas
The Gascon Rolls 1317-1468 History Malcolm Vale
Griffith Institute Archive Oriental Studies Faculty Elizabeth Frood
Holinshed Project History Ian Archer
Humanities Information Practices Oxford Internet Institute Eric Meyer
Imagery Lenses for Visualizing Text Corpora Oxford e-Research Centre Martin Wynne
Imaging Papyri at Oxford Classics Faculty Dirk Obbink
Internet Archive Live Music Archive Linked Data Oxford e-Research Centre Kevin Page
Islamic Manuscripts Project Bodleian Libraries Research & Learning Services Neil Jefferies
Jane Austen's holograph fiction manuscripts: a digital and print resource English Faculty Kathryn Sutherland
The John Johnson Collection: an Archive of Printed Ephemera Bodleian Libraries Research & Learning Services David Tomkins
Last Statues of Antiquity Classics Faculty Roland Smith
Lexicon of Greek Personal Names Classics Faculty Robert Parker
Machine-readable grammatical resources for Indonesian Linguistics, Philology & Phonetics Faculty Mary Dalrymple
Making Britain: South Asian Visions of Home and Abroad 1870-1950 History Elleke Boehmer
Mapping Crime beyond the John Johnson Collection Bodleian Libraries Research & Learning Services David Tomkins
Medieval Libraries of Great Britain (MLGB3) History James M. W. Willoughby
A Museum Without Walls: Realising the Potential of Crowdsourcing in the Arts Oxford Internet Institute Kathryn Eccles
Novum Inventorium Sepulchrale - Kentish Anglo-Saxon graves and grave-goods in the Sonia Hawkes archive Archaeology Helena Hamerow
Online Egyptological Bibliography Oriental Studies Faculty John Baines
On-line language documentation for Biak (Austronesian) Linguistics, Philology & Phonetics Faculty Mary Dalrymple
The Other Within: Analysing the English collections at the Pitt Rivers Museum Pitt Rivers Museum Jeremy Coote
Out of the Wings Medieval & Modern Languages Faculty Jonathan Thacker
Oxford Digital Library Bodleian Digital Library Systems & Services Michael Popham
Oxford English Corpus Oxford University Press Pete Whitelock
Oxford English Dictionary Oxford University Press Barbara McGillivray
Oxford Google Project Bodleian Digital Library Systems & Services Michael Popham
Oxford Latin American Economic History Database Interdisciplinary Area Studies Valpy FitzGerald
Oxford Text Archive OUCS Martin Wynne
Paradigm Bodleian Libraries Research & Learning Services Susan Thomas
Pitt Rivers Luo Visual History Pitt Rivers Museum Christopher Morton
Poinikastas: Epigraphic Sources for Early Greek Writing Classics Faculty Alan Bowman
Portraits in Oxford History Annette Peach
PotWeb Ashmolean Museum Jonathan Moffett
Poxy: Oxyrhynchus Online Classics Faculty Dirk Obbink
Preparing DARIAH Oxford e-Research Centre Martin Wynne
Preserving and Enhancing Access to Historic Oxfordshire Ashmolean Museum Alison Roberts
Project Bamboo Oxford e-Research Centre Martin Wynne
Prosopography of the Byzantine World History Avril Cameron
Recovering the material and visual cultures of the southern Sudan: A museological resource Pitt Rivers Museum Jeremy Coote
Rethinking Pitt-Rivers: Analysing the Activities of a Nineteenth-Century Collector Pitt Rivers Museum Jeremy Coote
The reuniting of Osip Mandelstam's texts and archives in digital form Medieval & Modern Languages Faculty Jennifer Baines
Scene details in Ancient Egyptian monuments: Oxford Expedition's electronic database and publications project (c.2960 - 2040 BC). Oriental Studies Faculty Yvonne Harpur
The Shakespeare Quartos Archive Bodleian Digital Library Systems & Services Pip Willcox
Shields and Objects, Anthropology and Museums Pitt Rivers Museum Alison Petch
Sir John Evans Centenary Project Ashmolean Museum Alison Roberts
South Cadbury Environs Project Archaeology Gary Lock
Sphakia Survey Classics Faculty Lucia Nixon
Thomas Gray Archive Bodleian Digital Library Systems & Services Alexander Huber
The Tibet Album: British photography in Central Tibet 1920-1950 Pitt Rivers Museum Clare Harris
TileWeb: Paving-Tile Watercolours Online Ashmolean Museum Jonathan Moffett
Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic Texts, Statues, Reliefs, and Paintings Oriental Studies Faculty Vincent Razanajao
UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology Oriental Studies Faculty John Baines
Understanding Indonesian: developing a machine-usable grammar, dictionary and corpus Linguistics, Philology & Phonetics Faculty Mary Dalrymple
Universal Leonardo History Martin Kemp
Using neologisms to test theories of speech production Linguistics, Philology & Phonetics Faculty Greg Kochanski
The Venetian Book-trade in the 15th Century: material evidence for the economic and social history of the Renaissance Medieval & Modern Languages Faculty Cristina Dondi
Verb semantics and argument realization in pre-modern Japanese: A comprehensive study of the basic syntax of pre-modern Japanese Oriental Studies Faculty Bjarke Frellesvig
Victorian Social Reform: A Bibliography of the Published Papers of the Social Science Association 1857-86 History Lawrence Goldman
Vindolanda Tablets Online Classics Faculty Alan Bowman
Virtual Infrastructure with Database as a Service (VIDaaS) OUCS James A J Wilson
William Godwin's Diary Politics & Int Relations Mark Philp
Women and Gender in Chinese Studies Network Interdisciplinary Area Studies Maria Jaschok
Word joins in real-life speech: a large corpus-based study Linguistics, Philology & Phonetics Faculty John Coleman
The World of Art on the Semantic Web (CLAROS) Oxford e-Research Centre Donna Kurtz
Xaira OUCS Lou Burnard
Richard Ashdowne Classics FacultyClassical Languages
Jennifer Baines Medieval & Modern Languages FacultyRussian
Jennifer Batt English Faculty 
Giles Bergel English Faculty 
Francisco Bosch-Puche Oriental Studies FacultyGriffith Institute
Alan Bowman Classics FacultyAncient History
Michael Brady Engineering Science 
Sushila Burgess Bodleian Libraries Research & Learning Services 
Lou Burnard OUCS 
Ben Burton English Faculty 
Alex Butterworth HistoryHistory Faculty
John Coleman Linguistics, Philology & Phonetics FacultyPhonetics Laboratory
Daniela Colomo Classics Faculty 
James Cummings OUCS 
Mary Dalrymple Linguistics, Philology & Phonetics Faculty 
David De Roure Oxford e-Research Centre 
Mark Doffman Music Faculty 
Cristina Dondi Medieval & Modern Languages FacultyItalian
Amanda Flynn Bodleian Digital Library Systems & Services Digital Collections Development
Bjarke Frellesvig Oriental Studies Faculty 
Ulrich Gehn Classics FacultyClassical Archaeology
Lawrence Goldman HistoryHistory Faculty
Christopher Gosden ArchaeologyArchaeology Institute
Peter Haarer Classics FacultyAncient History
Helena Hamerow ArchaeologyArchaeology Institute
Colin Harrison Ashmolean Museum 
Felicity Heal HistoryHistory Faculty
Stephen Wright Horn Oriental Studies Faculty 
Simon Horobin English Faculty 
Howard Hotson HistoryHistory Faculty
Alexander Huber Bodleian Digital Library Systems & Services 
Rohini Jayatilaka English Faculty 
Zena Kamash ArchaeologyArchaeology Institute
Katharine Keats-Rohan HistoryHistory Faculty
Paulina Kewes English Faculty 
Graham Klyne Zoology 
Aditi Lahiri Linguistics, Philology & Phonetics Faculty 
Gary Lock ArchaeologyArchaeology Institute
John J. Lowe Linguistics, Philology & Phonetics Faculty 
Fiona Macintosh Classics FacultyAncient History
Christine Madsen Bodleian Libraries Central Services and Administration 
Martin Maiden Medieval & Modern Languages Faculty 
Jenny McAuley English Faculty 
Ian McClelland International Development 
Barbara McGillivray Oxford University Press 
Peter Millican Philosophy Faculty 
Kevin Page Oxford e-Research Centre 
Robert Parker Classics FacultyAncient History
Peter J. Parsons Classics Faculty 
Annette Peach HistoryHistory Faculty
Judith Pfeiffer Oriental Studies Faculty 
Sharron Pleydell-Pearce Divisional Administration 
Chris Powell Ashmolean Museum 
Sebastian Rahtz IT Services 
Vincent Razanajao Oriental Studies FacultyGriffith Institute
Frances Reynolds Oriental Studies Faculty 
David Robey Oxford e-Research Centre 
Glenn Roe Medieval & Modern Languages FacultyFrench
Mark Rogerson Special Collections and ITSystems and e-Resources
Suzanne Romaine English Faculty 
Henriette Roued-Cunliffe Classics Faculty 
Kerri L Russell Oriental Studies Faculty 
Emilie Savage-Smith Oriental Studies Faculty 
Richard Sharpe HistoryHistory Faculty
John Charles Smith Medieval & Modern Languages FacultyFrench
Gábor Mihály Tóth HistoryHistory Faculty
Lik Hang Tsui Oriental Studies FacultyChinese Studies (Humanities)
Malcolm Vale HistoryHistory Faculty
Greg Votruba Archaeology 
Spiro Vranjes Classics Faculty 
Peter Lawrence Watson Continuing Education - HQ 
Benjamin Weaver Classics Faculty 
Abigail Williams English Faculty 
Chris Wingfield Pitt Rivers Museum 
David Womersley English Faculty 
Zixi You Oriental Studies Faculty 
David Zeitlyn AnthropologySocial & Cultural Anthropology
Andrew Zisserman Engineering Science