Frequently Asked Questions
Analysis: How can I analyze or visualize my data?
Geovistory offers you currently three tools that allow you to analyze and visualize your project's entities in the analysis section.
Table: the most powerful analysis tool. In a table you can visualize a specific entiy class (e.g. Person, Geographical place, Builtwork, Group) and associated information (e.g birth place, birth date, parents, profession etc.).
Timeline: if you work with dates, you may want to view your information on a timeline.
Map with timeline: if your information is associated with both a place and a date, then it is interesting to combine a map and a timeline.
Download: How can I download my data stored in the Toolbox?
When you work with Geovistory, you store and produce data & information on different layers. This is explained here.
Sources: Data-Layer
In the sources section, digital reproductions are stored, which correspond to the data layer of the DIK-pyramid.
In the current version of the Toolbox, you can store and manage texts and tables. However, the current version does not yet allow you to directly export these objects with a single click. Copy&Paste is necessary to extract the needed elements.
Entities: Information-Layer
The entity section corresponds to the information layer in the DIK-pyramid.
In its current version, you can download the research data that you produce in the entity section using the analysis function "table" as explained here.
Entity classes: The entity class I want to use does not exist. What can I do?
In Geovistory, information is stored in entities. There are two type of entities, persistent items and temporal entities, which are further specified in different classes.
Each entity class is well defined according to the overarching ontology, giving it a semantic meaning.
As described in the cycle of knowledge production, at a certain moment you have to translate your research question into a semantic data-model that defines which classes are of relevance in your project and how they relate to each other.
In Geovistory, users have different options how they can adjust the entity classes at disposal:
some entity classes are already available within each project and can simply be activated or deactivated.
entity classes are grouped in profiles, which take together entity classes of relevance for a certain topic. These profiles can be activated and are then available in your project.
if the classes you need are not yet available within an profile, you can reach out to us.
Language: How do I choose another language than the five preselected options?
When you name an entity, it is easy to specify the language used.
The five most used languages in our program (English, German, French, Dutch, Italian) are displayed directly, but if you are using another language, such as Latin for example, just type in the first letters in the box called "Language" and other options will appear.
Names: How do I distinguish between first name, surname and nickname ?
In Geovistory, the field for naming a Person is called "Person appellation in language".
The way you want to name your Person is up to you. You can enter the complete name or you can separate the first name, last name and nickname by entering them individually as separate names.
You can further specify its type for each name (for example "nickname"). You can manage your type options by using the Controlled Vocabulary Settings.
Remember that a naming can be linked to a language (french, english, latin,...), a time-span and a type.
Manage the Controlled Vocabulary
The way you call and define the types of naming for your persons (e.g "person appellation in language") is up to you. But there are already several types of names in Geovistory (see some examples on the screenshot below). You can add them in your project.
Networks: Is it possible to produce a network visualization?
No, this is currently not possible. At the moment Geovistory offers three tools for data analysis as mentioned above. More will come soon. But you can export your data in .csv or JSON in order to create your own visualisation with any kind of software. See below how to export your data.
Parents: How do I connect a child to its parents?
In genealogical research it is best-practice to connect children via their "birth" and the "union" of their parents to their parents. A marriage is for example one type of a "union".
To interact with the classes "birth" and "union", the Biographical basics and family profile must be activated.
To connect a person to their parents, you will use the class "birth". Birth allows to inform about the date of birth, the place where this event took place, but also the parenthood.
We suggest the following procedure:
Select the person you want to connect to his/her parents and add his/her birth.
Enter first information about the birth of this person if known (leave it empty if you don't know).
Select the field "stemmed from" and open it. It allows you to add now the "union".
Once the field for "union" (a marriage is for example a type of "union") is open, you can add the two partners of this "union", hence, the parents of your person, as seen on the screenshot below. You can also add only one parent if you wish.
Password: How do I change my password?
The function to change your password is not yet visible in the user-interface. However, you can nonetheless change your password:
log out of Geovistory
click on login
select "forgot your password?"
proceed as indicated
This turnaround allows you to modify the password.
Payment: Do I have to pay for Geovistory Toolbox?
Individual users
Currently, the Geovistory Toolbox is still in BETA and individual usage of the Geovistory Toolbox is for free during BETA phase. BETA means that the database is stable and all data is savely stored. Services and functionalities are running mostly smooth. However, we are still improving and developping some features before we close the BETA phase.
Users with an active BETA-account will transition automatically to the next Geovistory Toolbox version, which will remain for free for them. The exact pricing configuration of the different account types is still to be determined.
Research projects
The Geovistory Toolbox is already used by several multi-anual research projects in a browser-based and collaborative environment. However, the Geovistory Toolbx BETA is not for free for multi-person research projects. In addition, for research projects, often a introductory training and specific customization of the available classes is wished.
Contact us if you are interested so that we can discuss your ideas and see how Geovistory might serve your needs: [email protected]
Person: How do I add it?
In Geovistory a Person must be a real person who live or is assumed to have lived. Legendary figures that may have existed, such as Ulysses and King Arthur, fall into this class if the documentation refers to them as legendary or historical figures.
Two fields are mandatory to enter a Person :
his/her naming
a short definition that allows other users (and even you) to identify him/her quickly.
Source Object: How do I add it?
Choose between five different kinds of sources : Unique Source Objects, Serially Produced Sources, Publication Exemplars, Web Sources and Serial Works.
Use the naming function to add a bibliographical reference (e.g in Oxford Style). Depending on your needs, you will have to activate profiles (such as "Intellectual and literary life" to record separately the name of the author, the date of creation or publication of your source object, etc.
You can also group elements of your source object in sections or create collections.
Upload: Can I upload data from excel- or csv-files?
Yes, you can upload excel- and csv-files into your Geovistory project. Csv- and exel-files are treated as digital reproduction of sources and can be added similarly to texts. Each cell can then be linked to corresponding entities.
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