Annotationsfor the ALA

Ron Chernich

Principal Research Fellow

University of Queensland, Australia

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TDWG ‘08

Goals of the UQ eResearch Lab for DIAS-B in 2008-9

Quick introduction to web based annotation services, capabilities, and technologies

Highlight choices, challenges, and implications

Provide sources for additional information

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DIAS-B Annotation Goals: Year 1

Investigate existing collaborative annotation systems and select the most appropriate solution.

Investigate requirements for annotation services in other NCRIS capabilities and in ANDS

Investigate how to integrate it with the Metadata Repository and other components in the ALA system.

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What is an “annotation”?

Additional information attached to an existing resource (which may itself be an Annotation!)

– Simple Example: an email chain A bookmark

– Less Simple Example: A highlighted selection on a web page with a comment A structured correction to a data set

– Complex Example: An identified region of a multi-media resource A specific view and zoom of a protein model

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Delicious Bookmarks

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Delicious annotation tool

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Annozilla Side-Bar

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Vannotea

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W3C Annotea

– Annotates (resource)– Author– Body– Context– Created/Modified (date)– Related

An extensible standard, part of the W3C Semantic Web initiative, defines a protocol for creating, updating, and retrieving annotations using an RDF XML schema having 7 properties:

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Annotea Annotation Subclasses

Annotation is intended to be subclassed:– Advice– Change– Comment– Example– Explanation– Question– SeeAlso

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Simple Architecture

RDF Store

Annotea Web Service

OAI-PMH Web Service

Users

Systems

Web

HTTP/HTML

HTTP/XML

Black Box with well-known public API’s

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If it weren't for the Clients!

What browser and version on what platform? Firewall? Browser Plug-in compatibility? Website Widgits? Proxy? Portable Javascript! Uncooperative Data Providers! Intransigent sysadmins and their precious SOE!!

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Client Technology

Cost of Ownership+

“weight” of client

Richness of User Interface

Browser link(Delicious)

Custom Browser(Amaya)

Browser Plug-in(Annozilla)

Ajax script(Marginalia)

Proxy(Annotator)

Form based(AnnoChump)

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What About Mutability?

Loose coupling of annotation and annotated resource can result in temporal degradation.

If mutability is permitted, do you harvest the annotation body, or the reference to the body?

A chain of immutable annotations provides an audit trail, but lengthy, out of date sequences may be perceived as just noise.

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UQ eResearch Lab Papers and Demos Collaborative Annotation of 3D Crystallographic Models A Synchronous Annotation System for Secure Collaborations Annotating Relationships between Mixed-Media digital objects by extending

Annotea Implementing a Secure Annotation Service HarvANA – Harvesting Community Tags to Enrich Collection Metadata Collaborative, Semantic Tagging and Annotation Systems Implementing a Secure Annotation Service Open Repositories 2.0: Harvesting Community Annotations to Enhance

Discovery Services VIRGIL: Yet Another Approach for Archiving and Playback of Access Grid

Sessions Vannotea: A Collaborative Video Indexing Annotation and Discovery System for

Broadband Networks A Synchronous Multimedia Annotation System for Secure Collaborations

http://itee.uq.edu.au/~eresearch

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Key People

University of Queensland – Prof Jane Hunter

Principal Investigator

– Dr Stephen Crawley Senior Research Fellow

– Mr Ron Chernich Principal Research Fellow

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Sponsors

Australian National Data Service (ANDS) Australian Research Collaboration Service (ARCS) Australian Collaborative Research Infrastructure

Strategy (NCRIS) National eResearch Architecture Taskforce (NeAT) CSIRO and the ALA

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Questions?

chernich@itee.uq.edu.au scrawley@itee.uq.edu.au jane@itee.uq.edu.au