The document provides an update on the Open Annotation Collaboration (OAC) and its work to develop standards for annotating scholarly resources. It summarizes the OAC data model, which aims to enable interoperability of annotations across systems through a common model. It describes elements of the model including the basic components of annotations, relationships, types, and ways to represent segments or constraints. It discusses ongoing work by OAC in Phase 2 to engage with users, deploy implementations, and refine the model based on experience.
1. Annotating Scholarly Resources
An Update from the Open
AnnotaHon CollaboraHon
h"p://www.openannota-on.org/
Robert Sanderson rsanderson@lanl.gov
azaroth42@gmail.com
Herbert Van de Sompel herbertv@lanl.gov
hvdsomp@gmail.com
Tim Cole t‐cole3@illinois.edu
Jane Hunter jane@itee.uq.edu.au
This research was funded by the Andrew W. Mellon FoundaHon.
Acknowledgements: Anna Gerber, Tom Habing, Bernhard Haslhofer, Ray Larson, Cliff Lynch,
Michael Nelson, Doug Reside
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2. Overview
• Introduction to the Open Annotation Collaboration
• OAC Data Model
• OAC Transfer Model
• Phase 2 Work in 2011
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3. Open Annotation Collaboration
• Project Partners:
• Los Alamos National Laboratory
• University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• University of Queensland
• University of Maryland
• George Mason University
• Funding: Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
• Discussion Group:
http://groups.google.com/group/oac-discuss
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4. Current Scholarly Annotation
• Annotations stuck in silos:
• Only consumable by client that created it
• Many clients offline/single user only
• Annotations not shareable beyond original environment:
can not create cross system services based on (enriched &
merged) annotations
• Online Annotations are Repository-centric, not Web-centric;
• Identification in terms of local identifiers, not global URIs
• Annotations stored in repository along with annotated content
• Need to rethink in terms of the Web
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5. Interoperability via OAC
• Focus on interoperability for annotations in order to allow sharing of
annotations across:
• Annotation clients
• Content collections
• Services that leverage annotations
• Interoperability is at the data model level, not protocol level
• Focus on annotation for scholarly purposes. But desire to make the
OAC framework more broadly usable.
• In order to gain adoption, we need tools, communities, integration
of scholarly communication with other areas of discourse.
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6. OAC Data Model
• Attempts to be comprehensive
• Research into existing applications
• Real world use cases
• Validated and refined via experiments
• Changes for latest version from community feedback:
• Identifiers for resource segments to enable use in RDF
• Annotation is a document
• Your continued feedback is very welcome!
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7. Basic Model
• The basic model has three resources:
• Annotation (an RDF document)
• Default: RDF/XML but others possible
• Body (the content of the annotation, in any format)
• Target (the resource the body is about, in any format)
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8. Basic Model Example
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9. Additional Relationships and Properties
• Any of the resources can have additional information attached
• Links can be added to further clarify relationships
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10. Additional Relationships and Properties Example
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11. Annotation Types
• The type of the Annotation can be made more precise
• Communities can develop their own types for their requirements
• Example: Replies are Annotations on Annotations
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12. Annotation Types Example
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13. Inline Information
• It is important to be able to have content contained within the
Annotation document.
• Clients may be unable to mint new URIs for every resource
• Clients may wish to transmit only a single document
• Third parties can generate new URIs even if the client cannot
• The W3C has a Content in RDF specification for this:
• http://www.w3.org/TR/Content-in-RDF10/
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14. Inline Body
• We introduce a resource identified by a non resolvable URI, such
as a UUID URN, as the Body.
• The data is embedded within the Annotation document using the
'chars' property from the Content in RDF ontology.
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15. Inline Body Example
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16. Multiple Targets
• There are many use cases for multiple targets for an Annotation:
• Comparison between two or more resources
• Making a statement that applies to multiple resources
• Making a statement about multiple parts of a resource
• …
• The OAC Data Model allows for multiple targets by simply having
more than one hasTarget relationship.
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17. Multiple Targets Example
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18. Segments of Resources
• Most annotations are about part of a resource
• Different types of segment for different media types:
• Text: paragraph, arbitrary span of words
• Image: rectangular or arbitrary shaped area
• Audio: start and end time points
• Video: both area and time
• Other: slice of a data set, volume in a 3d object, …
• We introduce a method of constraining resources:
• Can be applied to either Body or Target resource
• Use media-specific fragment identifiers; eg XPointer for XML
• Use W3C Media Fragments for segments of image/audio/video:
http://www.w3.org/TR/media-frags/
• Introduce an approach for arbitrarily complex segments
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19. Segments of Resources: Fragment URIs
• The Fragment part of URIs allows the creation of subsidiary URIs
that identify part of the main resource
• eg: http://www.example.org/page.html#para1
• The syntax is defined for several media types:
• X/HTML: named anchor or identified element
• XML: XPointer to the element
• PDF: page number and rectangular area within
• Plain Text: character position or line position
• For all types of Fragment URI, the Annotation must also create a
dcterms:isPartOf link to the full resource for discovery purposes
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20. Segments of Resources: Media Fragments
• Media Fragments allow anyone to create URIs that identify part
of an image, audio or video resource.
• The most common use case is for rectangular areas of images:
• http://www.example.org/image.jpg#xywh=50,100,640,480
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21. Media Fragments Example
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22. Complex Constraints
• We introduce a ConstrainedTarget resource that identifies the
resource with constraints applied to it in order to fully identify the target
of the Annotation
• Constraint resource describes how target resource is being used in
the context of the Annotation
• The type of description is
dependent on the nature of
the target resource
• Different clients may
support different types of
description
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23. Complex Constraints Example
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24. Inline Constraints
• We can also use inline information in the same way as for the Body
resource to include the Constraint data.
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25. RDF Constraints
• The information could instead be linked to the Constraint, within the
Annotation document.
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26. Constrained Body
• The Body may also be constrained in the same way as Targets
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27. Web-Centric Annotation: Information Changes
Google Sidewiki Annotation on http://news.bbc.co.uk/ as of 2010-06-14
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28. Web-Centric Annotation: Past Not Integrated
Archived page from:
http://www.dracos.co.uk/work/bbc-news-archive/2010/03/08/07.05.html
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29. Web-Centric Annotation: Desired Integration
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30. Uniform Annotations
• If a single point in time is applicable to all resources, we attach it
to the Annotation using the oac:when predicate
• This timestamp can be used to discover appropriate, archived
copies of the resources
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31. Varied Annotations
• If different timestamps are required for each resource, we use
oac:when from an oac:TimeConstraint.
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32. Serialization of the Data Model
• All of the nodes in the data model require URIs as identifiers
• HTTP URIs are always preferred
• Dereferencing the URI of the Annotation should return a description,
following Linked Data principles
• UUID URNs are a good alternative for clients that cannot generate their
own HTTP URIs
• Servers that find a UUID can replace it with an HTTP URI they
control, and serve the information from it
• The server must also retain the original UUID and assert that it is the
same as the new HTTP URI
• This allows for deduplication, when the client's original UUID is
discovered by multiple servers independently
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33. Network Model: No Protocol, Just HTTP
• The client stores the Annotation document
in at least one online system
• It is just a document / web resource
• No special protocol necessary
• An Annotation service accesses it:
• Using regular harvesting techniques
• Upon request of a client
• By being one of the places the client
sends the annotation to
• Access control uses existing mechanisms
• Plan to refine model in Phase 2
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34. OAC Phase 2
• Aim: Will focus on Deployment and Refinement
• Attempt to fully engage with scholars requirements and work with
early adopters to help deploy implementations
• Use those experiences to further refine the model, as needed, to
cover missing functionality
• Approach is to execute multiple small scale experiments in
conjunction with new collaborators
• Dates: January 2011 through Spring 2012
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35. Phase 2: Initial New Collaborators
• 4 pre-selected experiments to start immediately:
• Stanford University
Using Annotations to transcribe medieval manuscripts
• AustLit
Using Annotations to support collaborative scholarly editions
• Alexander Street Press
Annotation of streaming video
• Herzog August Bibliothek & University of Illinois
Annotation of digital emblem books at multiple FRBR levels
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36. Phase 2: Additional Experiments RFP
• 4 further experiments to be selected from an RFP:
• $30-45k per experiment from June '11 to May '12
• At least one partner from OAC will play an active role in each
selected experiment to ensure the value of feedback, and to
assist with modeling and questions
• Scholarly use cases that exercise the model in interesting ways
will be favored. The use cases should:
• Have existing content collection(s)
• Already be web based via persistent URIs
• Have an established scholarly audience of annotators
• Demonstrate the benefits of a Web based scholarly
annotation system
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37. Phase 2: Using OAC Workshop
• OAC will host a funded workshop March 24, 25 in Chicago:
• Aim: provide attendees with an in depth introduction to using
and implementing OAC
• Up to 20 attendees will be selected based upon the submission
of a 1-2 page description of a relevant use case
• At the workshop, attendees will evaluate the applicability of the
OAC data model to their submitted use case
• Accommodation and up to $900 towards flights will be provided
• Participation in the workshop IS NOT required for responding to
the RFP, but is likely to be useful
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38. Phase 2: Dates of Note
• 01 Dec 2010: Call for Workshop Participation issued
• 17 Jan 2011: Preliminary Use Case briefs due
• 07 Feb 2011: Invitations issued
• 01 Mar 2011: Final Use Cases due from attendees
• 24 Mar 2011: Workshop
• April 2011: RFPs due
• May 2011: Additional experiments selected
• June 2011: Beginning of Experiments
• May 2012: End of Phase 2
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39. http://www.openannotation.org/
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