The key technical research challenges in this project relate to the variety and inconsistency of the source documents, and the complex organisational structures and relationships in the Church of England detailed in the documents across the period covered (1540-1835). The analysis phase produced a series of simplified models corresponding to each of the main source document types - records of ordinations, appointments, liber cleri, etc - and the highly complex model used in creating the master database, which is at the heart of the online publication. The former was necessary to enable the data-recording to be carried out in 'collection databases' - by lightly trained research assistants, in repositories across the land - as efficiently and as reliably as possible.

The latter enables the inter-linking of information, the development of a model and tools to support the expression in CCEd of the complexities of livings and other posts in the church, and more recently the career modelling, carried out by the lead historians, as well as providing the basis for the rich range of browse and search functions available to readers of the online publication.

The web application that provides access to the CCEd database has provided the principal context for the development of the methodology and technologies now used by all CCH projects to provide DB publication on the WWW.

The online publication has extensive supporting text materials. The key technical research challenge here was to ensure that the text encoding model provided appropriate compatibility with the master database. The final challenge was the integration of the database and text materials to provide a visually and functionally coherent online publication.

Technical Research Roles