the Open Annotation Collaboration phase I:

towards a shared, interoperable data model for scholarly annotation

Tim Cole (t-cole3@illinois.edu)Myung-Ja Han (mhan3@illinois.edu)

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Chicago Colloquium on Digital Humanities and Computer Science

21 November 2010Evanston, IL

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CIRSCIRSSS

Center for Informatics Research in Science and ScholarshipGraduate School of Library and Information ScienceUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

http://www.OpenAnnotation.org

OAC goals & objectives

• Facilitate emergence of a Web and Resource-centric interoperable annotation environment that allows leveraging of annotations across boundaries of clients, services, and content repositories.

• Seed widespread adoption & infrastructure development by deploying applications conformant with the OAC interoperable annotation environment across ubiquitous and specialized services, tools, and content used by scholars

• Demonstrate benefits of interoperable annotation environment in settings characterized by a variety of annotation client/server environments, content collections, and scholarly use cases.

21 Nov 2010 – CCDHCS, Evanston, IL Open Annotation Collaboration http://www.OpenAnnotation.org/2

some motivating questions

• Can we describe a broadly useful model of annotation not tied to repository design or type of content being annotated?

• Using this model, can we enable new opportunities for digitally-based scholarship built around annotation & annotation interoperability?

• What are the defining scholarly use cases and can we embed our model in existing applications to demonstrate benefits for these use cases?

• Are there additional benefits to be had by treating annotations as first-class Web Resources?

3321 Nov 2010 – CCDHCS, Evanston, IL Open Annotation Collaboration http://www.OpenAnnotation.org/

OAC project phase 1

• Tasks:– Create OAC data model and a guide for its use– Integrate (MITH) AXE Libraries into Zotero– Initial analysis of scholarly annotation practices– Develop initial use cases to gauge potential of data model

• Timeline:– 18 months: June 2009 through December 2010

Funding for OAC Phase I provided bythe Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Scholarly Communications & Information Technology program

421 Nov 2010 – CCDHCS, Evanston, IL Open Annotation Collaboration http://www.OpenAnnotation.org/

OAC phase I project team

• Herbert Van de Sompel (PI), Rob Sanderson -- Research Library, Los Alamos National Laboratory

• Timothy Cole (PI), Thomas Habing, Carole Palmer, Allen Renear -- University Library & GSLIS-CIRSS, U of Illinois at UC

• Neil Fraistat (PI), Douglas Reside -- MITH, U of Maryland

• Jane Hunter (PI), Anna Gerber, Stephen Crawley, Ron Chernich -- eResearch Lab, School of ITEE, U of Queensland

• Daniel Cohen (PI) -- CHNM, George Mason University

• John Burns -- JSTOR

521 Nov 2010 – CCDHCS, Evanston, IL Open Annotation Collaboration http://www.OpenAnnotation.org/

OAC Advisory Board• Maristella Agosti

Professor of Computer Science, Department of Information Engineering University of Padua

• Geoffrey Bilder Director of Strategic Initiatives CrossRef

• John Bradley Senior Analyst for Humanities Computing, Centre for Computing in the Humanites King's College London

• Gregory Crane Professor of Classics Tufts University

• Paul Eggert Australian Research Council Professorial Fellow Australian Scholarly Editions Centre

• Julia Flanders Director, Women Writers Project Brown University

• Cliff Lynch (Chair) Executive Director Coalition for Networked Information

• Cathy Marshall Senior Researcher Microsoft Research

• Martin Mueller Professor of English & Classics Northwestern University

• Geoffrey Rockwell Professor of Philosophy and Humanities Computing University of Alberta

• David Ruddy Director, E-Publishing Technologies Cornell University Library

• Joyce Rudinsky Associate Professor, Communication Studies University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

• Mackenzie Smith Associate Director for Technology MIT Libraries

• Amanda Ward Head of Platform Technologies Nature Publishing Group

• John Wilbanks Vice President Science Commons

621 Nov 2010 – CCDHCS, Evanston, IL Open Annotation Collaboration http://www.OpenAnnotation.org/

some guiding principles for our work

• OAC is focused on interoperability across clients, tools & collections; not on prescribing client interfaces or internal architecture

• Consistent with prior work, we model an annotation as a resource linking an annotation body (content) to an annotation target

• Contrary to some prior work, annotation & annotation body are separable resources with separate identities on the Web

721 Nov 2010 – CCDHCS, Evanston, IL Open Annotation Collaboration http://www.OpenAnnotation.org/

guiding principles – page 2

• Contrary to some prior work, annotation body (content) is not limited exclusively to text types and formats

• OAC data model must accommodate annotations involving multiple body and/or multiple target resources and specific segments, representations and/or versions of resources in these roles

• OAC data model defines classes, entities, properties & relationships that facilitate interoperability, but whichare also extensible

821 Nov 2010 – CCDHCS, Evanston, IL Open Annotation Collaboration http://www.OpenAnnotation.org/

basic, unadorned OAC data model

921 Nov 2010 – CCDHCS, Evanston, IL

Where:

A-1 is an oac:Annotation, a document identified by an HTTP URI that describes, at least, the Body and Target resources involved in the annotation.

B-1 is an oac:Body, the body of the annotation. The Body is somehow about the Target resource. It is the information which is annotating the Target.

T-1 is an oac:Target, the resource that is being annotated.

http://www.openannotation.org/spec

Open Annotation Collaboration http://www.OpenAnnotation.org/

more complex illustrations (1)

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additional annotation metadata

a constrained target

annotation body is a separately identified resource embedded within the annotation document

more complex illustrations (2)

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an svg-constrained target

multiple X-Pointer text targets; xhtml annotation body

a concrete example in RDFa

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a concrete example in RDFa

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a concrete example in RDFa

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a concrete example in RDFa

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a concrete example in RDFa

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1721 Nov 2010 – CCDHCS, Evanston, IL

output of RDFa distiller

Open Annotation Collaboration http://www.OpenAnnotation.org/

graph for the RDFa

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image as annotation body

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image as annotation body

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From:

Quarles, Francis, 1592-1644

Francis Quarles' Emblems and Hieroglyphics of the life of man, modernized: in four books (1773)

London: Printed for J. Cooke, at Shakespear’s Head, in Pater-Noster-Row

image as annotation body

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an emblem pictura reused on a gravestone

annotation of annotations

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annotation of annotations

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annotation of annotations

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Herzog August Bibliothek

New multi-target Annotation: These examples show the divergent ways that Renaissance authors and engravers could make use of closely related depictions of everyday objects.

annotation of annotations

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ontological annotation & annotation in context

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ontological annotation & annotation in context

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annotation of image in context

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Iconclass terms assigned to this pictura:

31A25111 arms raised, with fingers closed

31A22210 heart symbolism + 41B121 burning as a process -- flame

57A8(+4) Gratitude; 'Gratitudine', 'Memoria grata de beneficii ricevuti' (Ripa) (+ emblematical representation of concept)

OAC phase II

will focus on deployment – i.e., to test & refine OAC data modelwill engage new collaborators in demonstration-experiments

Stanford Universitytranscriptions & other annotations of digitized medieval mss.

AustLitannotations to facilitate creation of collaborative scholarly editions

Alexander Street Pressannotations of segmented targets in streaming media on the Web

Herzog August Bibliothek & U. of Illinoisannotation of digitized emblematica

4 other demonstration-experiments to be selected via RFP in May 2011

demonstrate value & utility of OAC approachseed development of infrastructure for & use of shared annotations

Using OAC workshop

an in-depth introduction to use of the OAC data model & ontologyMarch 24 & 25, 2011 at the Illini Center in downtown Chicago

participants will provide use cases & will examine how well and to what extent OAC data model supports these use cases

goal: to enable attendees to apply the data model in practice

 Important Dates (tentative)01 Dec. 2010: call for workshop participation is posted 17 Jan. 2011: Preliminary statements of interest & use case briefs due10 Feb. 2011: Invitations issued, including 15 with commitments to reimburse for lodging (2 nights) and for airfare (up to $900 US)01 Mar. 2011: Final use case briefs due & posted to Workshop Website

Open Annotation Collaboration http://www.OpenAnnotation.org/3021 Nov 2010 – CCDHCS, Evanston, IL

sample use cases (from OAC wiki)

• Citation of Non Print Media• Commentary on Remote Resources• Shared Annotations Across Interfaces• Harvesting, Aggregating, Ranking and Presenting Annotations• Annotating Relationships Between Multiple Mixed-Media Resources• Annotations which Capture Netchaining Practices• Annotations with Compound Targets

Contact info:t-cole3@illinois.edutrainor1@illinois.edujgjett@gmail.com

Open Annotation Collaboration http://www.OpenAnnotation.org/3121 Nov 2010 – CCDHCS, Evanston, IL