Text and Web Annotation

Sunoikisis Digital Classics: Fall 2021

Session 8: Text and Web Annotation

Thursday Nov 25, 17:15–18:45 CET

Convenors: Monica Berti (Leipzig), Valeria Vitale (Alan Turing Institute)

Youtube link: https://youtu.be/sMElKoN51a4

Monica's slides

Session outline

In this session we present text and web annotation, expanding a topic introduced in Fall 2020 (Web Annotation). The goal of the session is twofold: 1) describe standards for annotations of historical texts returning to topics described in sessions 5 (Research with Treebanks) and 6 (Named Entity Recognition); 2) look at some common tools for collaborative annotation of digital and web resources. Dr. Berti will talk about INCEpTION and WebAnno, and their use in philological research. Dr Vitale will talk about the online annotation platform Recogito, developed by Pelagios, and how it can be used as a collaborative tool for the exploration and analysis of texts and images. The seminar will end mentioning briefly how semantic annotation can also be seen as a step towards further visualisations as well as further data processing. In particular, we will show how web annotation can become part of a machine learning workflow.

Seminar readings

• Thabet Slimani. 2013. "Semantic Annotation: the Mainstay of Semantic Web." International Journal of Computer Applications Technology and Research 2.6 (December 10, 2013), pp. 763–70. Available: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1312.4794.pdf
• Vitale, V., de Soto, P., Simon, R., Barker, E., Isaksen, L. Kahn, R., (2021), "Pelagios – Connecting Histories of Place. Part I: Methods and Tools". International Journal of Humanities and Arts Computing 15.1-2, pp. 5-32. Available: http://doi.org/10.3366/ijhac.2021.0260

Further reading

• Almas B. & Beaulieu M. 2016. "The Perseids Platform: Scholarship for all!" In Romanello M. & Bodard G. Digital Classics Outside the Echo-Chamber. Ubiquity Press. Available: https://doi.org/10.5334/bat.j
• Berti M. "Named Entity Annotation for Ancient Greek with INCEpTION" In Proceedings of CLARIN Annual Conference 2019. Eds. K. Simov and M. Eskevich. Leipzig, Germany: CLARIN 2019, pp. 1-4. Available: https://office.clarin.eu/v/CE-2019-1512_CLARIN2019_ConferenceProceedings.pdf
• Berti M. "Distributed Annotations of Fragmentary Texts." In Berti M. Digital Editions of Historical Fragmentary Texts. Heidelberg. DCB 5. Available: https://doi.org/10.11588/propylaeum.898
• Randa El Khatib. 2019. "Laying the Foundation for Community-Driven, Open Cultural Gazetteers." KULA: knowledge creation, dissemination, and preservation studies 3.1, pp. 21–. Available: https://kula.uvic.ca/articles/10.5334/kula.53/
• Patricia Murrieta-Flores & Ian Gregory. 2015. "Further Frontiers in GIS: Extending Spatial Analysis to Textual Sources in Archaeology." Open Archaeology 1.1. Available: https://doi.org/10.1515/opar-2015-0010
• David Nadeau. 2007. “A survey of named entity recognition and classification.” Linguisticae Investigationes. Available: http://www.islab.ece.ntua.gr/attachments/article/71/NER-SURVEY.pdf
• Eyal Oren et al. 2006. “What Are Semantic Annotations?” Relatório técnico. DERI Galway. Available: http://www.siegfried-handschuh.net/pub/2006/whatissemannot2006.pdf
• H. Lordick et al. "Digitale Annotationen in der geisteswissenschaftlichen Praxis." In Bibliothek Forschung und Praxis 40(2) 2016. Available: https://doi.org/10.1515/bfp-2016-0042
• Chiara Palladino. 2016. "New Approaches to Ancient Spatial Models: Digital Humanities and Classical Geography." In Digital Approaches and the Ancient World. Edd. G. Bodard, Y. Broux & S. Tarte. BICS 59.2, 56-70. Available: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.2041-5370.2016.12038.x/full
• Rainer Simon, Valeria Vitale, Rebecca Kahn, Elton Barker & Leif Isaksen. 2019. “Revisiting Linking Early Geospatial Documents with Recogito.” e-Perimetron 14-3, 150–163. Available: http://www.e-perimetron.org/Vol_14_3/Simon_et_al.pdf

Other resources

• INCEpTION
• WebAnno
• Recogito
• Recogito Tutorial
• Annotation Tools

Exercise

Option 1

1. Create an account on Recogito
2. Either
   1. Log into Recogito, and annotate one of the following historical texts that we have uploaded for you: The Seventh Book of the Peloponnesian War or The Travels of Ibn Battuta. All the annotations created by the various users will be visualised in the same document. You can also comment (kindly) on existing annotations. What have you learned through the annotation process? Were other users' annotations useful to you? Did they change your perspective?
   2. Upload on Recogito a document of your choice (either in text or image format) with a relevant number of place references. Think of a research question that you want to investigate, or a perspective that you want to highlight using map-based visualisation and tags. Perform the annotation and tagging and present your visualisation choices.

Option 2

1. Familiarize yourself with the User Guidelines of the INCEpTION project: https://inception-project.github.io/releases/21.1/docs/user-guide.html
2. Focus on the INCEpTION Structure of an Annotation Project