Name

Profile: Background and Skills

Linguist

The normal user. A person acquainted with the principles of historical comparative linguistics and the International Phonetic Alphabet, who uses WordCorr to process real language data, either for research or as a classroom exercise. Knows how to click buttons, edit data, and access help information on a computer, either standalone or connected to the World Wide Web. May be color blind or have some visual impairment. Data Keepers and Team Leaders spend most of their time in the role of Linguist.

Data Keeper

A Linguist designated by a Team Leader as responsible for typing in, importing, and maintaining real language data on behalf of the team. Knows how to proofread and edit data. Data Keepers do everything Linguists do and more.

Team Leader

A linguist who takes responsibility for the success of a research project. The Manager issues a password to the leader of a new team, who in turn issues passwords to each Linguist on the team. Decides on the entries to be included in each collection, their order, how to gloss them in one or more languages, and what speech varieties to include, with appropriate abbreviations for each. Trains and advises each team member while looking at their analyses. Team Leaders do everything Data Keepers do and more.

Manager

A person able to guide Team Leaders who use WordCorr concerning the application and the World Wide Web. Issues a password to the leader of each new team, and helps orient the new Team Leader to the computational side of the work. Extracts the word lists in a collection that a Linguist going away to do field work in standalone mode will need. Channels the collections of Linguists who have been working in standalone mode either to a new team structure, or if they are part of an established team, to the Data Keeper for that team so that the Data Keeper can integrate them with the collection on the Web. The Manager need not be a linguist.

Guest

A person with or without linguistic training who wants to try out WordCorr on the Web. Treated as a Linguist on a virtual team that has access to one collection designated as the demonstration data. Can annotate, tabulate, and refine just like any other Linguist. The system issues a password, but if the Guest goes for more than a month without using WordCorr, his or her analysis is erased automatically and the password invalidated after an attempt to communicate with the Guest.

Team of One

A single individual using either the standalone configuration or the Web combines the roles of Team Leader, Data Keeper, and Linguist.