Public Annotation Systems Introduction

My paper is about the design of public annotation system. Before I go any further, I better define my terminology so that you know what I mean when I use the term `public annotation system.' The terminology used in my paper is:

Annotation: An annotation is some additional information that is attached to an original document without modifying the original. The additional information is usually, but not always, text.
Private annotation: A private annotation is one which is visible only to the person who authored it; nobody else can see it.
Public annotation: A public annotation is one that is shown to everybody who views the original document.
Local annotation: A local annotation is one that is stored at the same machine as the original document.
Remote annotation: A remote annotation is one that is stored on a machine that is different (i.e. remote) from the original document.
Embedded annotation: An embedded annotation is one where the contents of the annotation are expanded into the original document.
Indirect annotation: An indirect annotation is one where a hypertext link is inserted into the document and the actual text of the annotation is reached by following the hypertext link.
In-line annotation: An in-line annotation is one that is displayed in the middle of the original document next to a specific location in the original document.
Floating annotation: A floating annotation is one that is displayed at either the top or the bottom of the original document.

In my paper I describe a way to implement public annotations. My paper supports all permutations of embedded, indirect, in-line, and floating annotations.

The process of installing a public annotation consists of the following three basic steps:

Find the document to annotate.
Author the annotation.
Publish the annotation and make it readily available to the public.

Of these three steps, I only address the last two steps. The user is left to their own devices when it comes to actually finding a document that they wish to annotate. The annotation authoring step is discussed first, followed by the annotation publishing step.

The next section discusses related work.

This file, version 1.4 of intro.html, was last updated at 21:24:50 on 95/09/15.