The "CBGM" and the "open-cbgm"

For the first time, a public platform and user interface for an implementation of the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method (CBGM) is available to users for use with their own collation data.

The CBGM

The CBGM is a set of tools for the analysis of the relationships between textual witnesses. Gerd Mink created and implemented the first versions of the CBGM in association with INTF. It is highly recommended that users of Apatosaurus familiarize themselves with the CBGM in general before attempting to use the modules provided here.

There are two aspects to learning about the CBGM:

  1. Key concepts and terms, e.g. "coherence," "contamination," "witness," etc.
  2. The mechanics of using a specific implementation of the CBGM.

For an introduction to the key concepts and terms, David Flood recommends the following resources:

  • The CBGM: An Illustrated Crash Course by Joey McCollum.
    A brief, helpful, and open-access overview of the CBGM.
  • A New Approach to Textual Criticism: An Introduction to the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method by Tommy Wasserman and Peter Gurry.
    This book offers a good introductory explanation of the theory of the CBGM as originally invented by Gerd Mink. Some of the implementation-specific details are now out of date, however the theoretical discussions and examples are still very helpful.
  • For an introduction and collection of other links and sources from the CBGM's creator, see this introductory page from INTF.

The open-cbgm

The open-cbgm is an open-source implementation of the CBGM developed by Joey McCollum. He has released the open-cbgm as both a class library and as a standalone command line application. It is only because of this superb software and generous permissions that Apatosaurus is able to offer the tools of the CBGM to users. For more information about the open-cbgm, see the pages for the class library and standalone versions linked above.

The open-cbgm in Apatosaurus

Apatosaurus provides a user-friendly interface to the open-cbgm. The interface provided here offers the same flexibility and power of the command line application while easing the transition from collation creation to analysis of that collation via the CBGM. Apatosaurus includes the open-cbgm in accordance with the MIT license.

The open-cbgm takes a TEI collation file as input. The advantage that Apatosaurus has is that collations are stored in the database and can be reliably exported in a TEI format that the open-cbgm accepts. Therefore, this conversion is invisible to the user since Apatosaurus handles it in the background.

Citing the open-cbgm

Whether you use the open-cbgm via Apatosaurus, or the command line version, please use the DOI for citation purposes. Details for citing Apatosaurus are forthcoming.