W3Corpora: World Wide Web Access to Corpora

Doug Arnold
University of Essex
doug@essex.ac.uk

Abstract

This talk will describe the design decisions and implementation techniques for allowing access to linguistic corpora via the World Wide Web (WWW) employed in the W3Corpora Project (1996-8).

The motivation behind the project and the design decisions that were adopted will be described, and a brief overview and tour of the W3Corpora Web Site will be given (http://clwww.essex.ac.uk/w3c/). The way the system actually works will be briefly described. Various limitations of the system will be noted (partly via comparisons with other WWW sites providing access to corpora). The talk will conclude with some open questions, and reflections on some of the avoidable pitfalls and unavoidable obstactles that face this sort of enterprise.


doug@essex.ac.uk