Notes Tags Used in Events

To create a new project in AVAnnotate, first ensure you are on the “My Projects” page. “Shared Projects” indicates projects that other users have created and shared access with you, while “My Projects” allows you to create new projects under your own GitHub account.

Select “Add Project,” and then we’re going to enter some information about your new project. First, use the dropdown to select the name of the GitHub Organization that the project will belong to. This will likely be your GitHub username, though it can also be a team repository.

Next, you’ll make a selection about the project’s public accessibility. Selecting a Private Repository ensures that the project is not published online. You can switch this access setting later.

Next, enter a title for your project, and a brief description. We copied this description from another version of this project, but you can type directly into the description field.

Then, select the language you’ll build the project in.

Now enter a project slug. A slug is the last part of a URL that serves as a unique identifier for the project. You want the slug to be relatively short and without spaces. Use alphanumeric characters only, though hyphens are fine.

Next add the names of any project contributors. This information will appear at the bottom of your completed AVAnnotate project, like an author byline.

Finally, you’ll have the opportunity to add other GitHub contributors to collaborate on your project. To do this, you’ll need your collaborator’s GitHub username. Adding collaborators lets other users have access to the backend of your project.

Finally, save this information and create the new project by selecting “Create Project.”

Once you’ve created your AVAnnotate project, the next step is to link your audiovisual events to the project. On this screen, you’ll notice that The AVAnnotate application interface is split into two primary sections: Data Manager and Site Builder, the latter is discussed in a later video.

In the Data Manager section, a project author can import, upload, edit, and add all of the data associated with Annotations, Events, and Tags. The Events tab allows users to upload, create, and edit Events. Events are a central conceptual element of an AVAnnotate project and may comprise one or more AV files, which may be associated with time-stamped annotations.

The Tags tab allows users to upload, create, and edit project-wide tags and tag groups. Tags are labels used in a published AVAnnotate project to index, organize, and discover topics in the annotations.

First, we need to add an event by selecting “Add,” then “Import.” When you import an event, you’re telling AVAnnotate that you already have a file that includes all of the necessary information for AVAnnotate to reference your audiovisual file.

To do this, we recommend using the AVAnnotate Event template, which you can find on our website. The Event template is a downloadable spreadsheet that provides space for you to input information about the Event label, item type, file label, file URL, and an optional citation and description.

Once you’ve filled out the event spreadsheet and selected it for upload to AVAnnotate, you’ll be prompted to configure the data from the file, which means you’re making sure AVAnnotate reads your event file correctly. Use the dropdown menus to match the information from your spreadsheet.

Once you’ve configured the data, the option to “Import” should appear. Select “Import,” and then select “Save Event.”

Video 1a demonstrates how to add an audiovisual event by uploading a completed spreadsheet that contains information about the event. This video will show you how to create an event directly in AVAnnotate without the spreadsheet upload. To “Create” an event, select Add, then “Create.”

To create an event in AVAnnotate, you need some information about the audiovisual event itself. If you already have a IIIF manifest for the audiovisual event, select “Import Manifest” and paste in the reference. If you do not have a IIIF manifest yet, we’ll create one now directly in AVAnnotate.

IIIF is a framework for delivering high-quality, attributed digital objects online at scale. Creating IIIF manifests allows for the metadata associated with an AVAnnotate project (e.g., rights information, audiovisual materials, annotations, etc.) to be easily shared and reproduced.

Select “Create Manifest” and provide a label for your event. Next, add at least one audiovisual item you’d like associated with the event. You should indicate whether the item is audio or video, include the label, and then paste the direct link to the media file. Unlike a URL to a webpage that may end in .com, for example, direct links should always end in the file format (.mp3, .mp4, .wav, etc.).

To access a direct link to event media, we recommend locating or uploading the file to the Internet Archive, and then copying the .mp3, .mp4, .wav, etc. from the gray “Download Options” box.

The exception to this rule concerns links from platforms such as Youtube; AVAnnotate can handle a URL to a YouTube video when creating an event.

Sometimes AVAnnotate can read the duration straight from the file link, though other times you may need to enter it manually using the hh:mm:ss format. This is all of the information that’s required to create an event, but you also have the option to add a description, citation, and select a copyright status or Creative Commons Rights Statement.

To finalize your event, select “Save.”

Once you’ve built a project and imported or added your audiovisual events, you’re ready to add Tags to the project. Tags are short, descriptive words or phrases that will help you categorize and filter your timestamped annotations across the entire project.

To import Tags, we’ll start in the Data Manager section, and then toggle over to Tags. As with the “import” option for Events, “Import” in this case means we have already filled out a Tag spreadsheet template and are ready to upload it into AVAnnotate.

Select “Import,” and then choose your Tag file. Configure the data so that the column headers match the data you’re importing, which should enable the “Import” option.

Double check that the preview of the imported data matches your spreadsheet, and then select “Save.”

Now your Tags section will be populated with Tag groups and individual tags.

You can edit a Tag group by selecting the three-dot menu, and edit individual tags by selecting the pencil icon. Here you can rename a tag or move it into a different tag group using the dropdown menu. You can edit tags at any time.