updated README for the official template.

README.md

@@ -12,40 +12,165 @@ tags:
 - oral testimony
 ---
 
+---
+language:
+- en
+tags:
+- history
+- human rights
+license: mit
+pretty_name: TRC Testimonies Dataset
+size_categories:
+- 10K<n<100K
+---
+# Dataset Card for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Testimonies Dataset
+
+## Dataset Summary
+
+This dataset contains the transcriptions of testimonies from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) hearings in South Africa. It includes a wide range of testimonies from different types of hearings such as Amnesty Hearings, Human Rights Violation Hearings, and Special Hearings.
+
+## Languages
+
+English
+
+## Data Instances
+
+A typical data point in this dataset comprises a transcript excerpt from a TRC hearing. The data includes metadata about the hearing, such as the type, location, date, and more.
+
+An example from the dataset is as follows:
+
+```json
+{
+  "speaker": "MR PRIOR",
+  "dialogue": "May I proceed Mr Chairman?",
+  "file": "../data/data_saha/amnesty_hearings/aliwal_north/54583.json",
+  "file_index": 0,
+  "saha_page": "https://sabctrc.saha.org.za/documents/amntrans/aliwal_north/54583.htm",
+  "saha_loc": 2,
+  "hearing_type": "Amnesty Hearings",
+  "location": "Aliwal North",
+  "file_num": 54583,
+  "date": "1998-04-28",
+  "umap_x": 4.24962,
+  "umap_y": 8.829064,
+  "hdbscan_label": -1
+}
+```
+
+## Data Fields:
+
+1. **`speaker`**:
+   - **Type**: String
+   - **Description**: The name or title of the person speaking.
+   - **Example**: "MR PRIOR"
+
+2. **`dialogue`**:
+   - **Type**: String
+   - **Description**: The content of what the speaker said.
+   - **Example**: "May I proceed Mr Chairman?"
+
+3. **`file`**:
+   - **Type**: String
+   - **Description**: The path to the JSON file containing the full dialogue.
+   - **Example**: "../data/data_saha/amnesty_hearings/aliwal_north/54583.json"
+
+4. **`file_index`**:
+   - **Type**: Integer
+   - **Description**: The index of the testimony in the file.
+   - **Example**: 0
+
+5. **`saha_page`**:
+   - **Type**: URL
+   - **Description**: A link to the SAHA page where the full transcript can be found.
+   - **Example**: "https://sabctrc.saha.org.za/documents/amntrans/aliwal_north/54583.htm"
+
+6. **`saha_loc`**:
+   - **Type**: Integer
+   - **Description**: A numerical identifier for the location of the hearing.
+   - **Example**: 2
+
+7. **`hearing_type`**:
+   - **Type**: String
+   - **Description**: The category of the hearing (e.g., Amnesty Hearings, Human Rights Violation Hearings, Special Hearings).
+   - **Example**: "Amnesty Hearings"
+
+8. **`location`**:
+   - **Type**: String
+   - **Description**: The physical location where the hearing took place.
+   - **Example**: "Aliwal North"
+
+9. **`file_num`**:
+   - **Type**: Integer
+   - **Description**: A unique identifier for the file.
+   - **Example**: 54583
+
+10. **`date`**:
+    - **Type**: Date
+    - **Description**: The date when the hearing took place.
+    - **Example**: "1998-04-28"
+
+11. **`umap_x`, `umap_y`**:
+    - **Type**: Float
+    - **Description**: Coordinates in a UMAP dimensionality reduction, useful for visualization and analysis.
+    - **Example**: 4.24962, 8.829064
+
+12. **`hdbscan_label`**:
+    - **Type**: Integer
+    - **Description**: Label from HDBSCAN clustering, potentially useful for grouping similar testimonies or dialogue themes.
+    - **Example**: -1
+
+## Curation Rationale
+
+This dataset is curated to provide researchers, historians, and the public with access to the testimonies recorded during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings. These testimonies are crucial for understanding the extent of human rights violations and the process of reconciliation in South Africa post-apartheid.
+
+## Initial Data Collection and Normalization
+
+The testimonies were initially collected during various TRC hearings across South Africa. The data was then digitized, with care taken to accurately transcribe the spoken words and to preserve the integrity of the original testimonies.
+
+## Who are the source language producers?
+
+The language producers include the victims, witnesses, and other participants in the TRC hearings, who provided their testimonies during the commission's operation.
+
+## Annotations
+
+No additional annotations are provided in this dataset beyond the metadata that accompanies each testimony excerpt.
+
+## Annotation process
+
+Not applicable.
+
+## Who are the annotators?
+
+Not applicable.
+
+## Personal and Sensitive Information
+
+This dataset includes sensitive information as it contains real testimonies from individuals involved in or affected by human rights violations. Care should be taken to treat this information with respect and sensitivity.
+
+## Social Impact of Dataset
+
+The dataset is a valuable resource for understanding the historical context of human rights violations in South Africa. It provides insights into the impact of apartheid and the subsequent process of reconciliation. It is a vital tool for education and awareness about human rights and social justice.
+
+## Discussion of Biases
+
+There may be inherent biases in the dataset due to the nature of the TRC hearings. Some testimonies might not be included, and the dataset may not fully represent all perspectives or experiences during the apartheid era.
+
+## Other Known Limitations
+
+The dataset is based on transcriptions and may contain transcription errors. Additionally, the emotional and complex nature of the testimonies may lead to challenges in interpretation and analysis.
+
+## Dataset Curators
+
+
+
+## Licensing Information
+
+MIT License.
+
+## Citation Information
+
+
+
+## Contributions
 
-Curation Rationale
-This data was made available by South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in 2003 in print and electronic form as Volume 7 of the TRC Final Report.  Subsequently, the South African History Archive, in partnership with the South African Broadcasting Corporation hosted a .csv file version of this data on their jointly administered website, Truth Commission - Special Report (https://sabctrc.saha.org.za/export/victims.php).  The .csv version of this dataset contains three fields for each victim: name, incident description, and, age. Incident descriptions consist of a 3-4 sentence description of human rights violation(s) (HRV) experienced by each named individual.  These sentences contained a wealth of information stored in text string, such as the name of the town or city where the incident occurred, organizations involved in the HRV or affiliated with the victim, date(s) of incident(s), and the type of violence used.  Certain categories of information used in incident descriptions were standardized by the TRC during data entry using a coding frame that contained a fixed vocabulary of 71 terms for references to types of political violence (i.e. “shooting”, “stabbing”, “torture”, etc.).  Unfortunately description data was also not encoded in UTF-8.  
-In 2019, we began working with this data to extract vital metadata using a combination of heuristics and machine learning. This dataset is unique among publicly available human rights datasets in both its size and specificity.  In 2021, we debut our first four data visualizations on our website (www.bitteraloeproject.com).  By making this dataset available, researchers will be able to learn more about the nature of political violence in South Africa between 1960 and 1994/5 at a nationwide scale, as collected by the TRC.  
-Initial Data Collection and Normalization
-In 2019, we encoded the data into UTF-8. Next, we normalized the text so that there were no trailing or leading white spaces. We also ensured that certain peculiarities, such as double white spaces in the middle of a text were removed. Finally, we provided proper None values.
-Who are the source language producers?
-This list was originally compiled from many sources but the bulk of information was drawn from statements given by victims, their family or witnesses and provided to TRC statement takers during 1994-1998.  Statement taking consisted of an individual providing information about the incident(s), a statement taker recording that information in the form of notes, which served as the basis for subsequent data entry.  In order to receive status as a victim, some degree of corroboration was conducted by TRC staff with additional evidence.
-Annotations
-Our additional annotations include the fields: hrv, places, homeland, provinces, (presumed) gender, and dates.
-Annotation process
-To annotate the data, we leveraged Python and spaCy to automate the identification of categories of human rights violations, places, homelands, provinces, gender, and dates. To identify coordinates, we automated the mapping of identifiable places with no given alternative toponyms such as ‘Cape Town’. For more challenging places (approximately 2,000 locations), we performed manual validation to disambiguate multiple toponyms given in the original dataset for the same geopolitical entity. In some cases, specifically places with many toponyms, we provided the most likely candidate based on history, custom or carefully informed estimates.  However almost all instances of toponym resolution were straightforward and likely accurate.
-Who are the annotators?
-The annotators for places were Steve Davis (PI) and Robert Vaughan (Geographer).
-Personal and Sensitive Information
-The dataset contains the names and ages (where available) of victims of human rights violations in South Africa. These details were made public by the TRC in 2003 after the publication of Volume 7 of the TRC Final Report.  In 2012, the South African History Archive (SAHA), in collaboration with the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) posted an electronic version of this information hosted on Truth Commission – Special Report (https://sabctrc.saha.org.za/export/victims.php).  “Truth Commission – Special Report” was a weekly television news digest of TRC proceedings broadcast in South Africa. The SAHA-SABC website also includes a new user interface and search function for improving access to hearing transcripts and a glossary of victims.
-Social Impact of Dataset 
-This dataset improves access to data collected by the TRC by facilitating further data-driven research.  Prior to our work, geo-political entities, types of violence and organizations were embedded within text strings and thus not available as a structured dataset.  Our structured dataset allows researchers to now track broad patterns in political violence over chronological, geographic or thematical dimensions using various machine learning methods.  The most immediate applications of this data set are the creation of new data visualizations and forms of quantitative analysis.  The legibility enabled by our dataset extends the work of the TRC by preserving its archive for future generations in a new digital format.  The aim of our work is sustaining and deepening the public’s understanding of human rights violations that occurred during the apartheid era.  This data also informs ongoing debates about past and present human rights concerns beyond the domain of South African history.
-Discussion of Biases
-This dataset is not an exhaustive list of all individuals who were the victims of human rights violations during the apartheid era.  A variety of circumstances including access to resources and transport, skepticism about the TRC’s motives, and the personal difficulty of revisiting severe trauma prevented many victims from participating in the statement-taking process.  As noted by the TRC itself, these limitations are especially apparent for specific categories of victims such as women and victims of sexual assault, who are likely underrepresented in this data due to the reasons listed above.  Additionally, the TRC’s process of corroboration may have excluded some victims from inclusion in its official victims list.  Another source of bias is the TRC’s use of a coding frame to standardize descriptive terms related to violence.  The coding frame limited data entry staff to approximately sixty terms.  Given the complexity of the original statements given by individuals, problems of translation and compression of detail undoubtedly shaped the resultant descriptions that form the basis of this dataset.  However, at the time of the composition of Volume 7 the state of database management to some degree required this approach.
-Other Known Limitations
-In nearly every instance of geopolitical entity coordinates, we are used the coordinates geographic center for that particular town, city or location.  The original dataset did not include the exact street address of most incidents, presumably for issues related to privacy.  The coordinates we provide in our dataset are rough estimates for any geopolitical entity.  
-The names of perpetrators generally do not appear in the original list uploaded to the SAHA-SABC website.  Occasionally the authors of the original list indicated that the name of a perpetrator was known to the TRC.  In those instances incident descriptions generically attribute actions using the term ‘known perpetrator’.
-Additionally, it is important to note that only a small percentage (+/- 8%) of victims were invited to give testimony in public hearings held by the TRC.   
-Dataset Curators
-Steve Davis, Associate Professor of History, University of Kentucky
-William J.B. Mattingly, Postdoc Fellow, Smithsonian Institution
-Jennifer Hootman, Coordinator of Digital Scholarship, William T. Young Library, University of Kentucky
-Robert Vaughan, Research Assistant, University of Kentucky
-Jamari Turner, Graduate Assistant, University of Kentucky
-
-Licensing Information 
-MIT License
-Citation Information
-[Chicago Manual of Style format, websites.]
-Contributions
-We would like to thank all victims, witnesses and Truth and Reconciliation commissioners and staff for assembling the data that comprises Volume 7 of the Final Report.  We also thank the South African History Archive and the South African Broadcasting Corporation for making the initial dataset available as a CSV file.
+Thanks to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the individuals who provided their testimonies, and the team involved in the transcription and curation of these testimonies.