Annotationsfor the ALA
Ron ChernichPrincipal Research Fellow
University of Queensland, Australia
2
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
3
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.
4
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
5
Delicious Bookmarks
6
Delicious annotation tool
7
Annozilla Side-Bar
8
Vannotea
9
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:
10
Annotea Annotation Subclasses
Annotation is intended to be subclassed:– Advice– Change– Comment– Example– Explanation– Question– SeeAlso
11
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
12
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!!
13
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)
14
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A chain of immutable annotations provides an audit trail, but lengthy, out of date sequences may be perceived as just noise.
15
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
16
Key People
University of Queensland – Prof Jane Hunter
Principal Investigator– Dr Stephen Crawley
Senior Research Fellow– Mr Ron Chernich
Principal Research Fellow
17
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