Analyzing Large Collections of Electronic Text Using OLAP

TL;DR

This paper presents a method for using OLAP systems to efficiently analyze large electronic text collections, enabling rapid, user-driven insights in humanities and social sciences research.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach to storing and analyzing text data with OLAP, significantly reducing analysis time and supporting user-driven exploration.

Findings

Analysis time reduced from days to seconds

Supports user-driven research inquiries

Applicable to large text archives

Abstract

Computer-assisted reading and analysis of text has various applications in the humanities and social sciences. The increasing size of many electronic text archives has the advantage of a more complete analysis but the disadvantage of taking longer to obtain results. On-Line Analytical Processing is a method used to store and quickly analyze multidimensional data. By storing text analysis information in an OLAP system, a user can obtain solutions to inquiries in a matter of seconds as opposed to minutes, hours, or even days. This analysis is user-driven allowing various users the freedom to pursue their own direction of research.