OES – From a proprietary solution to configurable, reusable software

The development of the Open Encyclopedia System (OES) exemplifies the evolution of research software in the humanities. The conceptual foundations of the OES were established within the framework of a specific online encyclopaedia, which was technically a standalone solution. In a second phase, the OES was developed as a ‘generic’ and reusable software solution, which was then further developed and consolidated in a third phase to meet the requirements of various online reference works.

2011–2015: DFG project ‘1914-1918-online: International Encyclopedia of the First World War’

The encyclopaedia 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War was one of the first encyclopaedias purely in digital form when published in 2014, and it continues to set standards for the structure, design and networking of encyclopaedic content on the internet. Under the lead of Prof. Oliver Janz and Dr. Jennifer Willenberg, the essential concepts for collaborative online publications in open access were developed and implemented, and structures and forms of access were transferred from the analogue to the digital spaces. A custom-made software solution was developed for ‘1914-1918-online’ by CeDiS (PI: Prof. Nicolas Apostolopoulos, software development: Ilker Egilmez) which was replaced by a standardised solution in the follow-up project.

2016–2020: DFG project ‘From 1914-1918-online to the Open Encyclopedia System’

Based on fundamental considerations regarding the structure, functionality and design of online encyclopaedias, this follow-up project ‘From 1914-1918-online to the Open Encyclopedia System’ created the Open Encyclopedia System (OES) software, a standardised platform for creating, publishing and maintaining of academic online encyclopaedias in the humanities and social sciences. As such, OES adds an open-access solution for lemma-based publication formats to the electronic publishing offerings already available for journals and monographs in the form of the Open Journal System (OJS) and Open Monograph Press (OMP). The OES software is based on the open-source content management system WordPress and adopts its system architecture by distinguishing between publication and editorial layers. It is implemented as WordPress plugins with associated themes. Proof of concept was provided by the Compendium heroicum (CRC 948, University of Freiburg) and the Compendium deutsch-griechischer Verflechtungen (CeMoG, Freie Universität Berlin), and the 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War (FMI, Freie Universität Berlin). Since October 2020, when DFG funding expired, the OES code has been available for use and extension by third parties under a GPLv2 licence on GitHub.

Special thanks go to Dr. Georg Feitscher (CRC 948), Dr. Bart Soerthaert (CeMoG) and Dr. Jennifer Willenberg (FMI) for their significant contributions to the conceptual development of OES through their use cases, and to Ilker Egilmez for implementing the OES prototype. Read more on the project's objectives, the team and the results. 

2020 to present: OES development within the framework of project collaborations

From autumn 2020 onwards, as part of the collaboration with the EXC2020 Temporal Communities, the OES code was comprehensively refactored by Maren Welterlich-Strobl, and was published as OES 1.0 on GitHub. An exemplary OES application (OES Demo), which is also published on GitHub, demonstrates the current state of development and enables users to experience the OES functionalities using fictitious data.

Since 2020, a wide variety of online publications based on OES 1.0 and later releases have been realised (see Applications), mostly in the context of project collaborations. These include online encyclopaedias, online compendiums and online lexicons with a specific scholarly focus. Moreover, OES is used by interdisciplinary research groups for authoritative clarification, collaborative writing, discussion and presentation of key terms. The Compendium heroicum of the CRC 948 and Articulations of the EXC2020 ‘Temporal Communities’ set a precedent for the use of online reference works in collaborative research. ComDeG was the first OES application to introduce a bilingual website and use biographical data extensively, thereby helping to shape how multilinguality and biographical data are handled in OES. ‘Articulations’ introduced new visualisation methods and visually oriented design to OES. We are especially grateful to the Research Area 5 of the EXC2020 and to Bart Soethaert for their ciritical support and conceptual contributions to the development of OES.

In collaboration with its application partners, OES has undergone continuous development and expansion, resulting in the addition of numerous functionalities. Alongside the OES Core, a variety of OES modules are now available, including timeline, map, media, and DOI. The future development, operation and maintenance of the software are ensured by Freie Universität Berlin. The OES team would like to thank all project partners and OES users for their contributions to the conceptual development of OES and the many vauable discussions of OES features and frontend.

As part of our DFG project Establishment and Continuation of a Community for the Open Encyclopedia System (ComOES), public relations and community building have been expanded since 2025. The project's goal is to establish sustainable structures for exchange and cooperation between OES users in the form of a community. The project will initiate and structure processes to enable the OES user group to develop sustainable solutions for infrastructural tasks in a collaborative and user-oriented manner.

In the future

The need to develop a common language and problem perception and explicit discipline-specific approaches is particularly challenging in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary working contexts. Therefore, it can be assumed that the growing number of interdisciplinary projects in the digital humanities and collaborative research, as well as the increasing importance of open-access publication formats, will drive further demand for OES. The migration of published online reference works to flexibly adaptable open access publications is creating additional demand. Finally, the documentation and preservation of knowledge and the transfer of knowledge within research groups and to the public are becoming increasingly important; here, lemma-based publications can serve as a tool for scientific communication.

The Open Encyclopedia System is operated and further developed by the OES team within the Digital Research Infrastructure division of FUB-IT. The OES code and the OES applications hosted by FUB will be maintained and made available on a long-term basis.