AVAnnotate: A Review

Trent Wintermeier

Collaboration

by Trent Wintermeier

Speaking to the pedagogical and technological aspects of AVAnnotate, the software's infrastructure encourages collaboration among learners interested in sustainable access to audio materials. Due to the software being built using Jekyll and GitHub pages—and also using IIIF [International Image Interoperability Framework]—users have the opportunity to fork any public project and edit it or add to it. Also, AVAnnotate allows for users to fork projects together, creating a larger exhibit out of smaller projects. Essentially, the software's infrastructure allows for projects to be infinitely collaborative.

Say, for instance, 10 students wanted to create an exhibit of 10 different audio materials, context pages, and total projects built with AVAnnotate. These are all separate, but public, GitHub repositories. These students could fork all of their repositories to a single GitHub account and create a larger exhibit which links to each single project. I've found this process to be relatively easy with minimal understanding of GitHub's functionality. The only issue is that once a project is forked, the original owner can't change their project. In other words, any updates won't translate to the forked repository in the larger exhibit. This would require forking, again, the updated repository of a larger project and repeating the process of integrating it into the larger exhibit. However, barring this issue, collaborating on a large, multi-user project is simple and fruitful. AVAnnotate's allowance of this type of communication creates an easy way for students to collaborate on topics of sustainability and access. Such a form of collaboration is truly innovative when working with this type of material.

Another opportunity for collaboration that AVAnnotate's infrastructure offers is collaboration on a single project via GitHub. GitHub allows for unlimited collaborators on a repository, which means that anyone with a GitHub account can be added to an exhibit someone has created with AVAnnotate. By pulling (viewing) and pushing (editing) an owner's repository, individuals can make changes to an AVAnnotate project in GitHub. Once a repository is shared, it becomes available in a user's AVAnnotate My Projects page, just under Shared Projects. This allows each collaborator to edit the GitHub repository via GitHub or AVAnnotate's interface. So, if there are two collaborators with separate annotation sets, each can upload their own set without having to send files to one another.

The last collaborative function of AVAnnotate that I think is critical is the use of IIIF manifests. As mentioned in an earlier section, AVAnnotate requires creation or integration of a IIIF manifest for each audio artifact being annotated. At the bottom of each page, and even this page, is the created IIIF manifest. This can be used by anyone with access to this page by copying and pasting the manifest into a view such as Universal Viewer or Aviary Viewer—both of which are tools for viewing IIIF manifests and are available for free. AVAnnotate's prioritization and requirement of IIIF manifests makes the software foremost a tool for collaboration. Any user with this manifest can not only listen to the associated artifact in a viewer but use the manifest to create their own AVAnnotate project with the same artifact. This is a really exciting function of AVAnnotate which is supported by IIIF. At the software's core, AVAnnotate is creating opportunities for collaboration on sustainability and accessibility of audio material. Its technological infrastructure supports the teaching and learning of where collaboration intersects with access.

Time	Annotation	Layer
0:40	Fork button in GitHub repository. Right click to open image file.	Image
3:12	IIIF (International Image Interoperability Framework) manifest of Collaboration section audio. Right click to open image file.	Image
0:13–0:36	My assistance with a large collaborative project for AVAnnotate and SpokenWeb has provided my experience of the software's ability to promote collaboration. As a use case for AVAnnotate, such a collaborative project was a successful test of the potential for students and peers to work together to create a large exhibit.	GRA Context
0:50–1:04	Researchers on the AVAnnotate project worked on documentation for creating a collaborative exhibit with AVAnnotate, and after reviewing it, there are complex procedures, but it is possible for users to create a similar collaborative exhibit. Being involved in the creation of this collaborative project has undoubtably informed by conception of AVAnnotate as a tool for collaboration, and I understand the software to prioritize this fact.	GRA Context
2:21–2:45	Part of my assistance with AVAnnotate's collaborative digital edition project involved troubleshooting issues with authors. This included working with an author's images and videos uploaded to a contextual page. In such a case, the author shared their repository with me via Github, and I was able to make changes in AVAnnotate's interface. In only minutes, I could fix the author's project, they could see my changes on their computer, and then they could confirm that my work was acceptable. In this way, I understand AVAnnotate to be intrinsically collaborative.	GRA Context
1:12–1:24	In my own experience with the software and GitHub, I've found that re-forking a repository is easy, but it can be a hassle if repeatedly required. I understand the process of forking to be similar to submitting drafts for an academic publication; making small changes and re-forking multiple times can be an annoyance for the owner and whoever the new repository is being submitted to. This requires a learning curve for new users of AVAnnotate and GitHub generally, but once the specific dynamics of forking are learned, each user can make this process easier to navigate for multiple parties.	Information
1:42–1:47	I understand AVAnnotate to be "innovative" because there are limited classroom tools which allow for students and instructors to collaborate on a large exhibit of multiple audio artifacts, especially with little technological knowledge and for free. Access to software like this, in my opinion, promotes new and unique learning opportunities and outcomes.	Information
3:24–3:48	The use of a IIIF manifest to create another project with the same material is not the only use case AVAnnotate emphasizes. The goal of the software is to promote the use of IIIF manifests in LAMs (libraries, archives, and museums), as discussed earlier. This will allow for the software's users to more easily work with audio materials. Until that point, it will be difficult for users to use audio with AVAnnotate, but hopefully use of the software will urge more institutions to use IIIF for their artifacts. This integration will foreground the collaborative potential for AVAnnotate, as users can more easily work with LAMs and other users interested in similar artifacts. Again, such a goal is far away, but it makes AVAnnotate an important tool for creating a future where audio artifacts are better accessible across digital spaces.	Information

Collaboration at Internet Archive.

IIIF manifest: collaboration/manifest.json