AVAnnotate Features

At its core, AVAnnotate is a web application that enables users to build digital exhibits that play audiovisual media alongside user-generated time-stamped annotations and tags.

The AVAnnotate application is split into several primary sections: project settings, “Data Manager,” and “Site Builder.” The project settings include high-level information like project author, project description, if the project is saved to a public or private repository, and project collaborators. The Data Manager allows users to link their audiovisual media with their associated annotations as well as manage project-wide tags. The Site Builder allows users to customize how their exhibit (including media and annotations) appears to audiences through building and designing webpages.

Below is a list of the AVAnnotate application features, organized in sections corresponding to features of the Data Manager, features of the Site Builder, and infrastructure and project settings.

This page will be most useful after users are familiar with the AVAnnotate glossary.

Infrastructure:

  • AVAnnotate is based on widely accepted standards (IIIF, web annotations, W3C guidelines, etc.).
  • AVAnnotate is low-cost and has a small technological footprint. There is no database.
  • AVAnnotate sits on top of a GitHub repository and relies on GitHub for authentication.
  • Users publish AVAnnotate projects through the AVAnnotate app interface, which modifies GitHub repositories and the state of the data.

Data Manager:

Events

  • Events may comprise a single audiovisual file (“single-AV Event”) or multiple AV files (“multi-AV Event”).
  • Single-AV audio and video Events can be created via:
    • Spreadsheet upload,
    • IIIF manifest import, and/or
    • Manually through AVAnnotate interface.
  • Multi-AV audio and video Events can be created via:
    • IIIF manifest import, and/or
    • Manual entry through the AVAnnotate interface.

Annotations

  • Annotations can be added to both single- and multi-AV Events via:
    • Spreadsheet upload,
    • IIIF manifest import, and/or
    • Manual entry through the AVAnnotate interface
  • Annotation spreadsheets can be added to the Event’s default annotation set or to a newly-created set.
  • Annotations can also be added, edited, or deleted via the AVAnnotate editing interface.
  • Annotation sets can be set as captions on a video file (note: this does not work for YouTube, which has its own captioning system).
  • Event pages allow users to choose how they view annotations (i.e., filter by annotation sets or sort by tag).

Tags

  • Tags can be added via:
    • Spreadsheet upload (if uploaded before annotations containing tags), and/or
    • Manual entry through the AVAnnotate interface (Index).
  • Tags and Tag Groups can be edited via AVAnnotate.
  • Event pages allow users to filter annotations by tags.
  • Index pages show when tags appear in different Events and AV files.

Site Builder:

  • Pages can be auto-generated or custom made.
  • Auto-generated pages give non-technical users a quick and easy way to produce AVAnnotate projects.
  • Custom pages provide options within the rich-text editor to control text and image layout.
  • Pages can contain text, images, links, full AV files, or clips of AV files.
  • When embedding an AV file in a page, there are options for whether or not to include the event labels, descriptions, and annotations.
  • Pages can optionally include a Table of Contents component.
  • A single page can contain multiple different embedded AV files.
  • Page names in the Site Builder interface are generated based on the page title.

Project Settings:

  • AVAnnotate projects can be saved in any organization that a GitHub user can edit.
  • Collaborators can be added via GitHub username in the Project Settings.
  • IIIF manifests are linked on the bottom of every project page.
  • AVAnnotate supports both AVAnnotate and Aviary players when publishing pages with media.
  • Offline/private projects with up to 3 collaborators can be created using GitHub private repositories.
  • AVAnnotate projects can be downloaded and used offline as a free-standing site not locatable on the internet.
  • “No media” AVAnnotate projects can be created via:
    • Spreadsheet upload (users will still need to denote “audio” or “video” in the spreadsheet and will be prompted to enter durations; enter any number and continue), and/or
    • Manual entry by changing the Event settings for the media file from “URL” to “offline.”

The Aviary player does not support AVAnnotate page structures or custom pages; instead, the manifest goes directly to the Aviary player to produce an Aviary “project.” Aviary does not support YouTube or other non IIIF-compliant media. If a YouTube (or other) link is included in the project, a “No public media” page will be produced. Removing these events will produce an Aviary project.