Introduction

Introduction

Purpose of the Document

This document constitutes the technical-functional manual of the DaMSym application (WP4), developed within the ITSERR infrastructure – Italian Research Infrastructure for Religious Studies, connected to the European project RESILIENCE.

The manual provides a detailed description of the functionalities, user roles, and operational workflows of the DaMSym platform, offering a comprehensive overview of its technical functioning and application logic.

The objective is to provide a clear, complete, and structured guide for all users and project stakeholders, both from a functional perspective (platform usage) and from a technical-procedural perspective (internal processes and roles).

The document also aims to promote a shared and unambiguous understanding of the system among analysts, developers, and personnel involved in validation activities, providing a common foundation for potential future extensions or integrations.

Reference Context

DaMSym (WP4) is one of the operational tools developed within the ITSERR platform, with the objective of providing a multilingual semantic search engine dedicated to the analysis, study, and comparison of ancient and religious texts.

The system enables semantic searches across multiple linguistic domains (Arabic, Church Slavonic, Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, and Latin & Greek), also supporting functionalities for reviewing, adding, and approving textual resources.

DaMSym is distinguished by its ability to recognize conceptual relationships between terms, rather than limiting itself to literal word matching, thus offering a more sophisticated and scientifically oriented approach to the study of sources.

Target Audience

This manual is intended for different categories of users:

End users (Researcher, Reviewer, WP Lead) → for the operational use of the platform, resource management, and evaluation activities;
Functional analysts and project managers → for verification of workflows, roles, and functional consistency with project requirements;
Developers and technical integrators → for maintenance, improvement, and evolution of the application;
ITSERR and RESILIENCE personnel → for supervision, testing, and documentation of released functionalities.

Structure of the Document

The manual is structured into five main chapters, each addressing a distinct functional area of the DaMSym platform:

Chapter	Content
1. Introduction	Purpose, context, target audience, and structure of the document.
2. Roles and Authentication	Description of user profiles, access methods, and authentication workflow.
3. Semantic Search Engine	Main functionalities of the search system and result management.
4. Feedback and Review System	Result evaluation mechanisms and feedback management.
5. Resource Management	Creation, modification, approval, and supervision of content.

General Objectives

The document pursues the following objectives:

to comprehensively describe system functionalities and the behavior of different user roles;
to provide precise operational references for the daily use of the platform;
to ensure traceability and transparency of data management processes;
to align the technical documentation of DaMSym with the ITSERR manual standards (in line with the Ubiquity documentation model).