The W3C Web Annotation Working Group is part of the
Publishing@W3C,
but the scope is more than just publishing; Web annotation is for all content
on all devices.
A detailed list of this group's
publications
is available in the working group's specification repository.
The W3C Web Annotation Working Group is
chartered
to develop a set of specifications for an interoperable,
sharable, distributed Web Annotation architecture.
Over the course of its charter, this group has created the following Recommendations:
The HTTP API for publishing, syndicating, and distributing Web Annotations
The Working Group has also published a separate note on Embedding Web Annotations in HTML, exploring various ways annotations can be added to an HTML file using current specifications like JSON-LD or RDFa.
Finally, the selectors and states defined in the
Web Annotation Data Model
specification has also been extracted into a Working Group Note, which is intended
to make the use of these classes easier and more broadly usable by other
specifications.
The needs of a Client-Side API for Annotations as well as
the topic of Robust Anchoring were under exploration, but
not output were produced during the current charter.
The third face-to-face (f2f) meeting of the Web Annotation WG
will be at W3C's TPAC
(Technical Plenary and Advisory Committee) Meetings Week, in
Sapporo, Japan.
For working group members interested in attending, please
complete the registration
form.
The second face-to-face (f2f) meeting of the Web Annotation
WG will be collocated the day before the I
Annotate 2015 conference, at Fort Mason, San Francisco,
CA.
For working group members interested in attending, please
complete the registration
form.
The first face-to-face (f2f) meeting of the Web Annotation WG
will be at W3C's TPAC
(Technical Plenary and Advisory Committee) Meetings Week, in
Santa Clara, California, USA. The entire event will take place
27-31 October 2014, and will involve meetings with most of the
active W3C working groups. See the agenda
for more details.
The Web Annotation Working Group has just published a Recommendation for Web Annotation in the form three documents:
Web Annotation Data Model—specification describes a structured model and format, in JSON, to enable annotations to be shared and reused across different hardware and software platforms. Common use cases can be modeled in a manner that is simple and convenient, while at the same time enabling more complex requirements, including linking arbitrary content to a particular data point or to segments of timed multimedia resources.
Web Annotation Vocabulary—specifies the set of RDF classes, predicates and named entities that are used by the Web Annotation Data Model. It also lists recommended terms from other ontologies that are used in the model, and provides the JSON-LD Context and profile definitions needed to use the Web Annotation JSON serialization in a Linked Data context.
Web Annotation Protocol—describes the transport mechanisms for creating and managing annotations in a method that is consistent with the Web Architecture and REST best practices.
The group has also produced two additional Working Group Notes:
Embedding Web Annotations in HTML—describes and illustrates potential approaches for including annotations within HTML documents. Examples also are included illustrating the use within an HTML document of annotation Selectors as fragment identifiers.
Selectors and States—selecting part of a resource on the Web is an ubiquitous action. This document does not define any new approach to selection; instead, it relies on the formal specification and the semantics in the Web Annotation Data Model. The current document only “extracts” Selectors and States from that data model; by doing so, it makes their usage easier for applications developers whose concerns are not related to annotations.
Web Annotation Data Model: This specification describes a structured model and format, in JSON, to enable annotations to be shared and reused across different hardware and software platforms. Common use cases can be modeled in a manner that is simple and convenient, while at the same time enabling more complex requirements, including linking arbitrary content to a particular data point or to segments of timed multimedia resources.
Web Annotation Vocabulary specifies the set of RDF classes, predicates and named entities that are used by the Web Annotation Data Model. It also lists recommended terms from other ontologies that are used in the model, and provides the JSON-LD Context and profile definitions needed to use the Web Annotation JSON serialization in a Linked Data context.
Web Annotation Protocol: This specification describes the transport mechanisms for creating and managing annotations in a method that is consistent with the Web Architecture and REST best practices.
Web
Annotation Data Model: This specification describes a
structured model and format, in JSON, to enable annotations
to be shared and reused across different hardware and
software platforms. Common use cases can be modeled in a
manner that is simple and convenient, while at the same time
enabling more complex requirements, including linking
arbitrary content to a particular data point or to segments
of timed multimedia resources.
Web
Annotation Vocabulary: specifies the set of RDF
classes, predicates and named entities that are used by the
Web Annotation Data Model. It also lists recommended terms
from other ontologies that are used in the model, and
provides the JSON-LD Context and profile definitions needed
to use the Web Annotation JSON serialization in a Linked
Data context.
Web
Annotation Protocol: This document describes the
transport mechanisms for creating and managing annotations
in a method that is consistent with the Web Architecture and
REST best practices.
The Web Annotation
Working Group has published a Working Draft of Web
Annotation Data Model. Annotations are typically used to
convey information about a resource or associations between
resources. Simple examples include a comment or tag on a
single web page or image, or a blog post about a news article.
The Web Annotation
Working Group has published a Working Draft of Web
Annotation Protocol. Annotations are typically used to
convey information about a resource or associations between
resources. Simple examples include a comment or tag on a
single web page or image, or a blog post about a news article.
Learn more about the Digital
Publishing Activity.
The Web Annotation
Working Group has published a First Public Working Draft
of Web
Annotation Data Model. Annotations are typically used to
convey information about a resource or associations between
resources. Simple examples include a comment or tag on a
single web page or image, or a blog post about a news article.
The Web Annotation Data Model specification describes a
structured model and format to enable annotations to be shared
and reused across different hardware and software platforms.
Learn more about the Digital
Publishing Activity.
W3C announced today the launch of the Web
Annotation Working Group. 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 photos, videos, audio tracks, people's posts on
social media, or data, but these comments are stuck in silos.
The mission of the Web Annotation Working Group, part of the
Digital Publishing Activity, is to define a generic data model
for authoring and sharing annotations, and define the basic
infrastructural elements to make it deployable in browsers and
reading systems through suitable user interfaces. See the Web
Annotation Working Group Charter for more information.
Annotation, the act of creating associations between distinct
pieces of information, is a widespread activity online in many
guises but currently lacks a structured approach. People
comment about online resources using tools built into the
hosting web site, external web services, or the functionality
of an annotation client. When reading eBooks, people make use
the tools provided by reading systems to add and share their
thoughts or highlight portions of texts. Comments about
photos, videos, and audio tracks, questions or clarifications
about data, maps, and social media posts or mentions are all
forms of annotation.
However, annotation currently lacks a structured approach.
Comments are siloed inside the blog or comment system hosted
and controlled by the publisher of the original document, or
inside an eBook reader. They aren’t readily available for
syndication or aggregation, and it’s difficult to find more
comments by an insightful author if they are scattered around
different places on the web. Worthwhile commentary is obscured
by trolling, spam, or trivial comments. These are challenges
both social and technical.
In April, W3C convened a Workshop
on Annotations to discuss these challenges. Today W3C
published a Workshop
summary with links to slides, videos, and position
papers.
Today W3C also invites review of a draft
charter for a new Web Annotation Working Group based on
the Workshop discussion. The group will develop 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.
Annotating is the act of creating associations between
distinct pieces of information. Annotation is a ubiquitous
activity online in many guises: comments on articles,
footnotes, sticky notes, “hot spots” on images, timestamped
notes on video or audio tracks, highlighted text passages in
ebook readers, evocative pictures attached to song lyrics,
quotes and links on social media, and even tagged bookmarks,
are all forms of annotation. One of the most common and
engaging Web activities for the average person is discussion
of a document or piece of media.
Many projects and companies are now turning to annotations to
solve a variety of issues with communication on the Web, and
is of particular interest to the education, research, and
digital publishing industries. To address these needs, W3C’s
Web Annotations workshop will focus on identifying
standardization priorities for chartering a potential Web
Annotation Working Group, on such topics as:
Robust anchoring to dynamic third-party documents
Styling selections and annotations
Data models
Federation and syndication
Web storage and management of annotations
Client side APIs and methods for the implementation of
annotation systems
