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Draft of Blog Entry in HTML
Upload current draft of a potential W3C Blog entry that will be posted day after Web Annotation Recommendations are published.
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‎admin/AnnoRecsPublished-BlogEntry.html

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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
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<head>
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<title>Making it Easier to Share Annotations on the Webtitle>
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<style>
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.title{
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font-family: "Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;
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font-size: 200%;
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font-weight: normal;
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padding: 10px 20px;
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background: #dbe7f0;
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color: #000;
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text-transform: uppercase;
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}
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.entry-meta{
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font-family: "Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;
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font-size: 90%;
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line-height: 1.41667;
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margin: 0;
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padding: 0;
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color: #333;
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}
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.entry-content{
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font-family: "Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;
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font-size: 108%;
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line-height: 1.41667;
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margin: 0;
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color: #333;
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}style>
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head>
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<h1 class="title">Making it Easier to Share Annotations on the Webh1>
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<header class="entry-header">
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<div class="entry-meta">
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<p>
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<span class="date"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2017-02-22T12:00:00+00:00"
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>22 February 2017time>span> by <span class="author vcard"><a
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class="url fn n" href="https://www.w3.org/blog/author/tcole/"
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title="View all posts by Timothy Cole" rel="author">Timothy
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Colea>span> | Posted in: <span class="categories-links">
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<a href="https://www.w3.org/blog/category/technology/annotation/"
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rel="category tag">Annotationa>, <a
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href="https://www.w3.org/blog/category/digital-publishing/"
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rel="category tag">Digital Publishinga>span>
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p>
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div>
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header>
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<div class="entry-content">
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<p>The W3C has announced the <a href="">publicationa> of three new standards aimed to
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enable an ecosystem of interoperable products that let the world comment on,
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describe, tag, and link any resource on the Web. Many websites already allow
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comments, but current annotation systems rely on unique, usually proprietary
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technologies chosen and provided by publishers. Notes cannot be shared easily across
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the Web and comments about a Web page can only be saved and viewed via a single
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website. Readers cannot select their own tools, choose their own service providers
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or bring their own communities. The adoption of the Web Annotation standards will
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spell the end of the phrase "Don't read the comments!", returning power to the
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readers decide where and how they provide and consume such feedback. p>
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<h2>What the Web Annotation Standards Doh2>
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<p>The three new standards describe how to precisely identify the target of an
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annotation within a Web resource. They provide a basic data structure and protocol
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to ensure interoperability among annotation systems, but they do not dictate how
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annotation tools and services are realized in terms of user interface features and
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functionality. Each of the standards serves a specific purpose: p>
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<ul>
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<li>The <a href="https://www.w3.org/TR/annotation-model/">Annotation Data Modela>
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provides the structure and details for any web developer to quickly build out
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compatible tools and content. It gives use cases and examples for the JSON
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structures to create and consume.li>
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<li>The <a href="https://www.w3.org/TR/annotation-vocab/">Annotation Vocabularya>
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projects the data model into Linked Data, providing a solid and future-proof
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foundation to enable extension and semantic understanding. In fact, the JSON
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structures of the Data Model are already semantic as well as easy to implement,
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via the magic of the <a href="https://www.w3.org/TR/json-ld/">JSON-LDa>
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specification.li>
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<li>The <a href="https://www.w3.org/TR/annotation-protocol/">Annotation Protocola>
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provides a simple RESTful HTTP API for communicating among annotation clients
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and servers, and builds upon the <a href="https://www.w3.org/TR/ldp/">Linked
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Data Platforma> specification. li>
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ul>
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<p>These specifications provide the foundational material for a new generation of
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annotation tools on the Web while still leaving developers free to address specific
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use cases with tailored interfaces and services. This will encourage new innovations
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and the emergence of community-based best practices. For example, The W3C Working
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Group Note on <a href="https://www.w3.org/TR/annotation-html/">Embedding Web
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Annotations in HTMLa>, published concurrently with the 3 Web Annotation
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Recommendations, describes and illustrates just a few of the potential approaches
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for including annotations within HTML documents and is intended to serve as a
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starting point for further discussion, experimentation and development. p>
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<h2>Getting This Far and What's Aheadh2>
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<p>The work on the annotation specifications started in 2009 with two independent
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groups, the <a href="https://code.google.com/archive/p/annotation-ontology/"
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>Annotation Ontologya> and the <a href="http://www.openannotation.org/">Open
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Annotation Collaborationa> (both of which built upon the early W3C project: <a
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href="https://www.w3.org/2001/Annotea/">Annoteaa>). In 2011, the two groups
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joined forces to help found the <a
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href="https://www.w3.org/community/openannotation/">W3C Open Annotation
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Community Groupa>. In 2013 this Community Group published a series of <a
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href="https://www.w3.org/community/openannotation/#group-reports">initial draft
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specificationsa>. 2014 saw the creation of the Web Annotation Working Group to
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take the work through the standardization process and further the engagement with
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the web community, resulting in the specifications published on February 21st, 2017. p>
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<p>As a diverse group of Web developers, publishers, and content creators note below,
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this work is and will be increasingly important as the volume and speed of
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information publishing continue to grow. The world has seen a dramatic increase in
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the spread of misinformation and "fake news", and the web previously lacked a
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decentralized, trustworthy mechanism for fact checking and public discussion. Cory
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Doctorow, of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the award-winning <a
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href="http://boingboing.net/">boingboing.neta>, describes the importance of
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annotation in this space: p>
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<blockquote>We are absolutely delighted to see these recommendations land and endorse
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them in full. Though much hard work remains to be done, a formal standard for a
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universal web annotation layer is a critical step in the development of this
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promising new paradigm.blockquote>
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<p>The potential breadth of Web annotation tools and services magnifies the impact of
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these specifications. As Dan Whaley, of Hypothes.is and the <a
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href="https://hypothes.is/annotating-all-knowledge/"> Annotating All
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Knowledgea> coalition, notes, the publication of these Recommendations means
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that:p>
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<blockquote>Annotation has now become a formal part of the Web —-- the importance of
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which cannot be overstated. Over seventy major publishers and platforms under the
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Annotating All Knowledge coalition have pledged to include interoperable annotations
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as a collaborative framework over their content, and these implementations can now
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move forward with confidence. More importantly, browsers can now consider enabling
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users to listen for conversations on every page on the Web as a native capability. blockquote>
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<p>Another domain that directly benefits from these standards is the
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multi-billion-dollar e-book publishing sector. Sharing annotations from your ePub
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reader — whether on your phone, computer, or dedicated device — and interacting with
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others regardless of their particular platform, enables massive and rapid
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improvements in teaching and learning at all levels. Patrick Johnson, Director of
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Information Modelling, at the publisher John Wiley & Sons, Inc. describes the
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importance of the work: p>
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<blockquote>We've used the Open Annotation Community Group’s Data Model at Wiley for
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some time. The Web Annotation specifications provide some needed improvements and
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additional guidance we're working to implement and look forward to continued
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collaboration around annotation in digital publishing.blockquote>
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<p>The traditions of scholarly discourse in sharing comments, annotations, etc., is a
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significant use case which can now be brought into the digital age of scholarly
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publishing. The same is true in areas like digital cultural heritage. Sheila Rabun
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is the Community and Communications Officer for the <a href="http://iiif.io/">IIIF
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Consortiuma> (International Image Interoperability Framework), currently
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consisting of 40 primarily academic and cultural heritage organizations including
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the national libraries of Britain, France, Israel, Norway, and Poland, and
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universities such as Stanford, Harvard, Cornell, Yale, Princeton, MIT, Oxford,
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Cambridge, and Tokyo. She describes the standards' importance in that community:p>
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<blockquote>The work done in IIIF could not happen without the groundbreaking
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specifications coming from the Open Annotation and Web Annotation groups. Annotation
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is a fundamental part of the IIIF model, and our most asked-for and discussed
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feature in implementations. It increases the visibility of digital cultural heritage
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and enables distributed online scholarship. blockquote>
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<p>We would like to thank everyone that has been involved throughout the process. In
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particular the previous co-chair, Frederick Hirsch; the W3C staff contacts, Ivan
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Herman and Doug Schepers; the other editors of the specifications, Benjamin Young
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and Paolo Ciccarese; the members of the Web Annotation Working Group, and the
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members of the Open Annotation Community Group. It has always been a community
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effort. We are grateful for the past, present, and future work underway around these
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specifications. p>
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<p>For further information please contact the Chairs of the Web Annotation Working
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Group, Dr. Robert Sanderson (J. Paul Getty Trust) and Prof. Timothy Cole (University
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of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign). To discuss uses of the Web Annotation
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Recommendations or to participate in the creation of implementations based on these
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Specifications, please join the Open Annotation W3C Community Groupp>
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div>
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body>
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html>

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