Cover art for Annotation Working Group Charter by Doug Schepers

Annotation Working Group Charter

Jan. 3, 20141 viewer

Annotation Working Group Charter Lyrics

W3C

This DRAFT charter is under development; it has currently no formal standing, and has not been reviewed by the w3c Advisory Committee, the Director, or W3M. It may be improved, finalized, or abandoned, depending on feedback.

The goal of this text is to provide a framework for a public discussion on the creation of an annotation working group at w3c. We also anticipate getting community perspectives on the scope of this proposed charter AT a Workshop on Annotation that w3c plans to organize on April 2nd, San Francisco, co-located with the I Annotate conference. The current plan is to revise and finalize the charter soon after that event.

Once the charter is finalized, it will be reviewed by the director and W3M and then sent to w3c members for formal approval.
Annotation Working Group Charter

The mission of the Annotation Working Group, part of the Digital Publishing Activity, is to define a generic data model for Annotations, and define the basic infrastructural elements to make it deployable in browsers and reading systems through suitable user interfaces.
Scope

Annotating, which is the act of creating associations between distinct pieces of information, is a widespread activity online in many guises but currently lacks a structured approach. Web citizens make comments about online resources using either tools built into the hosting web site, external web services, or the functionality of an annotation client. Readers of ebooks make use the tools provided by reading systems to add and share their thoughts or highlight portions of texts. Comments about photos on Flickr, videos on YouTube, audio tracks on SoundCloud, people’s posts on Facebook, or mentions of resources on Twitter could all be considered to be annotations associated with the resource being discussed.

The possibility of annotation is essential for many application areas. For example, it is standard practice for students to mark up their printed textbooks when familiarizing themselves with new materials; the ability to do the same with electronic materials (e.g., books, journal articles, or infographics) is crucial for the advancement of e-learning. Submissions of manuscripts for publication by trade publishers or scientific journals undergo review cycles involving authors and editors or peer reviewers; although the end result of this publishing process usually involves Web formats (HTML, XML, etc.), the lack of proper annotation facilities for the Web platform makes this process unnecessarily complex and time consuming. Communities developing specifications jointly, and published, eventually, on the Web, need to annotate the documents they produce to improve the efficiency of their communication.

There is a large number of closed and proprietary web-based “sticky note” and annotation systems offering annotation facilities on the Web or as part of ebook reading systems. A common complaint about these is that the user-created annotations cannot be shared, reused in another environment, archived, and so on, due to a proprietary nature of the environments where they were created. Security and privacy are also issues where annotation systems should meet user expectations.

Additionally, there are the related topics of comments and footnotes, which do not yet have standardized solutions, and which might benefit from some of the groundwork on annotations.

The goal of this Working Group is to provide an open approach for annotation, making it possible for browsers, reading systems, JavaScript libraries, and other tools, to develop an annotation ecosystem where users have access to their annotations from various environments, can share those annotations, can archive them, and use them how they wish.

In order to address these needs, this working group will work on deliverables chiefly focused in the following approaches:

Abstract Data Model: An abstract data model for annotations
Vocabulary: A precise vocabulary describing/defining the data model
Serializations: one or more serialization formats of the abstract data model, such as JSON or HTML
RESTful API: A RESTful API specification to create, access, and manage annotations through HTTP
Robust Link Anchoring: An algorithm defining a set of heuristics to determine a selected passage of text or portion of media that may serve as the target for the annotation within an HTML5 DOM, in a predictable and interoperable manner with allowance for some degree of document changes
Client-side API: A script interface and events to ease the creation of annotation systems in a browser, a reading system, or a JavaScript plugin
This work will take the form of several specifications as Recommendation Track documents.

The Abstract Data Model and the Vocabulary will be informed by the Open Annotation Data Model, developed by the W3C Open Annotation Community Group.

As many annotations will be viewed (and even stored) in HTML, one of the serialization of the data model may be in HTML (decorated with Microdata or RDFa), and another might be in a format suitable for embedding as metadata into media.

The Robust Link Anchoring may define an algorithm that can be expressed as components of a URL or as a set of parameters on a hyperlink element, and may have CSS property considerations for styling the selection through a pseudo-element.

The Client-side API may consist of DOM events and a possible script interface.

These work items will be loosely broken down into two informal Task Forces, the Data Task Force and the Client Task Force, each with their own mailing list to help focus discussions and address distinct communities. It is expected that many participants will be active in both areas. Over the course of the Working Group, this organizational structure may be changed to meet the needs of the group.

Data Task Force

The Data TF will focus on the Abstract Data Model, Vocabulary, and Serializations, and RESTful API.
Client Task Force

The Client TF will focus on the Robust Link Anchoring, Client-side API, and some aspects of the Serializations and the RESTful API.
Out of Scope

This working group will not produce Recommendation track documents on the user interface aspects of annotation management. Note that the Group may decide to publish user interface guidelines.
Dependencies and Liaisons
W3C Groups

Digital Publishing Interest Group
To ensure that the use cases gathered by the Digital Publishing Interest Group are properly addressed by this group.
HTML Working Group
To discuss issues of markup, APIs, media, and events.
CSS Working Group
To discuss issues of selection and styling.
SVG Working Group
To ensure annotatability of SVG documents, including shapes as well as text.
Linked Data Platform Working Group
For coordination on LDP 1.1 as the basis of the RESTful API item, if that is the chosen approach.
Open Annotation Community Group
For feedback and general community discussion.
Web Applications Security Working Group
To discuss issues of security and privacy.
WAI Protocols and Formats Working Group
To ensure the accessibility of annotation services, in reading and creating.
Internationalization Activity
[Replace this text] Nature of coordination
Privacy Interest Group
[Replace this text] Nature of coordination
Furthermore, Annotation Working Group expects to follow these W3C Recommendations:

QA Framework: Specification Guidelines.
Character Model for the World Wide Web 1.0: Fundamentals
Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume I

External Groups

IDPF EPUB Working Group
The Working Group has a project looking at ways to adapt the Open Annotation Community Group Draft for usage with EPUB 3. That work may reveal new requirements on the technical design of annotations that the Annotation Working group should take into account.

Communication

This group primarily conducts its work on the mailing list public-annotation@w3.org with public archives. Discussion on data topics will take place on public-annotation-data@w3.org (archives), and discussion on client-side and browser topics will take place on public-annotation-client@w3.org (archives); other topic-specific mailing lists may be added as needed. Administrative tasks may be conducted in Member-only communications.

Information about the group (deliverables, participants, face-to-face meetings, teleconferences, etc.) is available from the Annotations Working Group home page

The role of dependencies and liaisons with various external groups is fundamental to the success of this Interest Group; the group will therefore set up active liaisons early in the process to ensure that the use cases and requirements are provided to other groups in a timely manner.
Ivan Herman, W3C, and Doug Schepers, W3C

$Date: 2014-02-03 17:15:44 $

How to Format Lyrics:

  • Type out all lyrics, even repeating song parts like the chorus
  • Lyrics should be broken down into individual lines
  • Use section headers above different song parts like [Verse], [Chorus], etc.
  • Use italics (<i>lyric</i>) and bold (<b>lyric</b>) to distinguish between different vocalists in the same song part
  • If you don’t understand a lyric, use [?]

To learn more, check out our transcription guide or visit our transcribers forum

About

Have the inside scoop on this song?
Sign up and drop some knowledge

Q&A

Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning

Credits
Release Date
January 3, 2014
Tags
Comments