TEI 2026: Ending Your Digital Project

Using case-studies of both successfully preserved and lost projects, this workshop outlines best practices and concrete approaches for achieving Endings-compliance. We will ask what it means to end a project, what should remain « on the shelf » in 20 years, and what happens when we run projects through existing archiving tools. We address the difference between archivable data and an archivable project, and the importance of preserving the latter as well as the former despite the challenges of digital dependencies. We cover practical steps to « staticize » various types of site, ask critical questions about interface, and discuss best practices for design. The course concludes with a documentation exercise that will help participants identify the strengths and weaknesses of an edition’s documentation.

The workshop will be co-taught between members of the Endings Project team (Holmes, Jenstad, Takeda). Participants will leave with a detailed Endings-compliant project plan for a specific project version, with timelines, a list of requirements, potential outputs, and an archiving strategy to plan, develop, build, release, and archive your digital project in maximally sustainable ways.

Presenters: J. Jenstad, M. Holmes, J. Takeda