Annotating Scholarly Communication

Open Annotation AAHEP5, 22nd of September 2011, Ithaca, NY 1
Open Annotation: Annotating Scholarly Communication on the Web Robert Sanderson [email protected] Los Alamos National Laboratory @azaroth42 Herbert Van de Sompel [email protected] Los Alamos National Laboratory @hvdsomp http://www.openannotation.org/ This research is funded, in part, by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

Overview •  Motivation •  Open Annotation Model •  Basics •  Segments •  Resources Changing over Time •  Machine Annotations •  Network Model •  Quick Demo

Scholarly Communication Scholarly Communication is increasingly: •  Online •  Open •  Distributed •  Collaborative •  Data-Oriented Annotation is a scholarly primitive, spanning discipline and level. Need to ensure that Digital Annotations fall under these headings! •  Apply the standards and architecture of the World Wide Web to the Annotation use case. •  Even if scholar doesn’t share annotations with others, she will want to access them from different tools and environments.

Open Annotation Collaboration http://www.openannotation.org/ Focus on interoperable sharing of annotations •  Web-centric and open, not locked down silos •  Create, consume and interact in different environments •  Build from a simple model for simple cases, to more detailed for complex scholarly annotation requirements The Collaboration: •  Los Alamos National Laboratory •  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign •  University of Queensland •  University of Maryland •  George Mason University •  … plus many adopters and partners

Open Annotation Data Model Design Guidelines: •  Based on the Architecture of the World Wide Web •  … and on Linked Open Data •  Should be general enough for ease of adoption •  … and rich enough to cover scholarly use cases Status: Beta, with 9 ongoing funded experiments to inform 1.0 Hardest part: Define what an Annotation is! •  "Aboutness" is key to distinguish from general metadata A document that describes how one resource is about one or more other resources, or part(s) thereof.

Basic Model The basic model has three resources: •  Annotation (an RDF document) •  Body (the ‘comment’ of the annotation) •  Target (the resource the Body is ‘about’)

Basic Model Example

Additional Relationships and Properties Any of the resources can have additional information attached, such as creator, date of creation, title, etc.

Additional Properties Example

Annotation Types There can be further types of Annotation, such as a Reply. Example: Replies are Annotations on Annotations.

Annotation Types Example

Inline Information It is important to be able to have content contained within the Annotation document for Client Autonomy: •  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 if the client does not The W3C has a Content in RDF specification: •  http://www.w3.org/TR/Content-in-RDF10/

Inline Information: Body •  We introduce a resource identified by a non resolvable URI, such as a UUID URN, as the Body. •  We then embed the data within the Annotation document using 'chars’ from Content in RDF.

Inline Body Example

Multiple Targets There are many use cases for multiple targets for an Annotation: •  Comparison of two or more resources •  Making a statement that applies to all of the 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.

Multiple Targets Example

Segments of Resources Most annotations are about part of a resource Different segments for different media types: •  Text: paragraph, arbitrary span of words •  Image: rectangular or arbitrary shaped area •  Audio: start and end time points, track name/number •  Video: area and time points •  Other: slice of a data set, volume in a 3d object, …

Segments of Resources Web Architecture Segmentation: •  A URI with a Fragment identifies part of the resource: •  IETF Mime-type fragment identifiers; eg xpointer •  W3C Media Fragments URI specification for simple segments of media: http://www.w3.org/TR/media-frags/ We introduce a method of constraining resources: •  Introduce an approach for arbitrarily complex segments that cannot be expressed using Fragments •  Can be applied to Body or Target resource

Segments of Resources: IETF Fragment URIs URI Fragments are a syntax for creating subsidiary URIs that identify part of the main resource The syntax is defined per media type: •  X/HTML: The named anchor or identified element •  XML: An XPointer to the element(s) •  PDF: Many options, especially page and viewrect •  Plain Text: Either by character position or line position

Segments of Resources: W3C Media Fragments Media Fragments allow anyone to create URIs that identify part of an image, audio or video resource. The most common case is for rectangular areas of images: •  http://www.example.org/image.jpg#xywh=50,100,640,480 Link to the full resource as well, for all Fragment URIs

Media Fragments Example

Complex Constraints Fragment URIs are not always possible •  Introduce a Constraint that describes the segment of interest •  And a ConstrainedTarget that identifies the segment of interest •  Constraints are entire resources, so can be more expressive •  Constraints may also describe 'contextual' information

Constraint Example

Constrained Body The Body may also be constrained in the same way as Targets

Web-Centric Annotation: No Persistence Google Sidewiki Annotation on http://news.bbc.co.uk/ as of 2010-06-14 2

Web-Centric Annotation: No Annotations Archived page from: http://www.dracos.co.uk/work/bbc-news-archive/2010/03/08/07.05.html 2

Web-Centric Annotation: Desired Cross-Linking 2

Annotations and Time There are three different types of Annotation with respect to Time: •  Timeless Annotations •  These are always relevant, regardless of the current state of the resources. This is the base model. •  Uniform Annotations •  There is a single timestamp at which all of the resources should be considered. •  Varied Annotations •  Each of the resources (Body, Targets) should be considered at a different time. 2

Uniform Annotations If the same time is applicable to all resources, we attach it to the Annotation using the oac:when predicate. 2

Uniform Annotation Example 3

Varied Annotations If different timestamps are required for each resource, we use oac:when from an oac:WebTimeConstraint. 3

Varied Annotation Example 3

Finding Archived Resources with Memento 3

Annotations for/by Machines? •  The Body consists of one or more Statements •  Human understandable: Text, Image, Video, Symbols, … •  Machine understandable: Data •  Humans can infer relationships and context, Machines cannot •  Need to be as explicit as possible •  Need structured information •  When would we do this? •  Attaching data to another resource •  Nano-Publications: publication of data for further processing •  Semantic Annotations 3

Semantic Annotation: Single Named Entity 3

Semantic Annotation: Entity Relationships 3

Advantages of this Approach 3 •  Only uses existing OAC constructions •  No new ‘isTopicOf’ or similar shortcut relationships •  Creator of Body is not confused with Creator of Annotation! •  Aligns very closely with human annotation practices •  Consistent model that scales from resource to part of resource •  Can annotate data extracted at most appropriate level •  Could extract from sentence/paragraph/section/entire text •  Consistent model that allows association of any amount of data: •  From Single Entity •  To scholarly discourse extraction from entire document

Annotation Protocols Protocol: publish, subscribe, consume tied together Unlike previous systems, Open Annotation does not mandate a protocol. No reliance on a client/server combination gives the client autonomy. Instead we promote a publish/ subscribe methodology, where annotations may be stored and consumed from anywhere.

Publish/Subscribe Method publish 3 We don’t specify how this transfer should occur

publish subscribe 4 Publish/Subscribe Method Nor this.

publish subscribe consume 4 Publish/Subscribe Method Nor this.

4 Publish/Subscribe Advantages •  Client can use most appropriate method for transferring annotation to storage service •  May already be specified in certain domains •  Can use existing services without requiring direct adoption •  Annotations are web resources in their own right •  Can be protected for limited access using existing technology •  Have their own URIs by necessity, not good-will of service •  Promotes a market-place of services •  Archiving Annotations and resources for preservation •  Enriching with additional metadata and information •  Aggregation and curation to provide trusted annotation feeds

4 Demo! http://www.shared-canvas.org/impl/demo3/ •  Took the PDF of Dirac’s thesis on Quantum Mechanics and split into individual page images •  Allow transcription by annotation, and commentary by annotation •  Allows storage at different services, both public and private

Thank You Robert Sanderson [email protected] [email protected] @azaroth42 Web: http://www.openannotation.org/ Paper: http://arxiv.org/abs/1003.2643 Slides: http://slidesha.re/qolpwI

Annotating Scholarly Communication

Annotating Scholarly Communication

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