Tools of the trade (Voyant and Annotation Studio)

Annotation Studio is a tool much more to my liking than Voyant. It was easy to highlight passages and add comments. I did find that I was being selective in the comments I posted. Normally, I would make any comment that came to mind and add it to my e-book. Having my comments open to the class, there were several that I decided not to post. These were, more often than not, abusive, disgruntled, cuss-filled exclamations about Terry.

I did find that having access to classmates’ comments aided in my close reading of Herland. Quite often, I misinterpret a passage or completely miss subtle subtexts. Being able to see what others think about a passage helps reaffirm or realign my understanding of the text. The helpfulness of this is greatly dependent on the quantity and quality of comments added by the participants. Being able to see all the comments in the right pane is useful as we’re reading, although it would be beneficial if each contributor could be easily filtered and each contributor’s comments displayed with a uniquely colored background. As it is now, it looks like a wall of text that you must pick your way through to find something useful.

Being able to add tag to our comments is great functionality poorly implemented. The only way I’ve found to search for comments by tag is by going through the Tools menu and typing the key word you wish to filter. This is wholly dependent on that word being used as a tag. There needs to be a list of all tags available for the user to select. This would be a great feature if the user was writing a paper on a specific aspect of the book.

I did a little snooping and it seems Annotation Studio may be a forgotten project or at least no longer being enhanced. The most recent copyright I found was 2017 on the main page. This date may be for some background security updates to the code, but the last update to Annotation Studio was back in 2015. The site FAQ states that, “Annotation Studio is developed as an open source web application, bases on state of the art web design and development technologies.” It’s been awhile since I’ve looked into the open source copyrights, and even then not too deeply, but I would expect that anywhere a copyright is claimed that it must be stated as open source. If this is not being updated by MIT any longer, it would be great if a university took position at the helm that has been vacated.

Voyant and Annotation Studio are tools working in completely different aspects of literature. Voyant only looks at the data of the text. This is great for analyzing diction, finding correlations and viewing trends. The “reader” is absent from the text with Voyant. Annotation Studio’s usefulness is reliant on user input. The “reader” analyzes the texts and makes comments and markups on a digital copy. The plot, emotion, and subtext are absent from Voyant. If someone asked me to summarize Herland, I could do so easily from using Annotation Studio. This only after doing all the legwork that Annotation Studio displays. If I’d only had Voyant as a tool for summarizing Herland, I would get puzzled looks. Although I’m pretty sure it won’t come up in any literary conversation, I’m confident in stating that the two terms with the highest correlation to Terry are Jeff and can’t.

4 Comments

laujack

February 6, 2019 at 5:35 pm

With annotation studio I agree that it was helpful to read others’ comments. However I struggled as I read about whether I was commenting too much or too little. When I am reading by myself I tend to mark whatever I want but I didn’t want to monopolize the annotations section. I also mentioned that it would be extremely helpful if each commentator had a specific color associated with their highlights and comments. It would help me to notice who makes more or less comments and I wouldn’t have to spend time scrolling over lists of comments. I also agree that the application of tags is a good idea, however the way it is implemented now makes it a hassle. I honestly didn’t tag any of my comments just because I didn’t have a grasp over the benefits of it. Your idea of having a list of tags to select from is what I was thinking of. Then there wouldn’t be variants of the same concept and the comments about a certain subject would be much more accessible. I like how you made the distinction between Voyant and annotation studio as one being “reader based” and the other “textually based.” I had a hard time trying to word the difference between the two even though I could see it and when I read that a light went off in my head. That is why I find the blogs to be helpful as well for providing insights I probably wouldn’t have known otherwise.

cmorone

February 6, 2019 at 6:06 pm

While Annotation Studio is certainly my favorite tool we have used in class so far, I do agree that some sort of better filtering function should be added. Along with that, a better filter-function for tags should be added – if they are going to have tags as a function, they should make it functional. I like that you do a lot of research on the tools we are tinkering around with, as it is something at least I don’t think to do (I don’t know about everyone else). Considering the rather low quality of Annotation Studio in some aspects, it makes sense that it would be a forgotten project of sorts.

kcookso

February 9, 2019 at 3:21 am

I’m glad that you looked up the current state of Annotation studio, I didn’t even think to do that! If they have dropped that project I feel like they should put on their website that they are no longer developing it. It would be awesome if as you stated a University would take over the site and further develop it.

gaellis

February 9, 2019 at 5:06 am

I find that I also enjoy Annotation Study more than Voyant. Voyant is useful when analyzing a text, but I find that all of the information it gives out always confuses me a bit. After looking through Annotation Studio and through the annotations the rest of the class made, I came to the conclusion that Annotations Studio was much easier to navigate. This is a big plus in my book since I have trouble with technology and programs on an almost regular basis. I agree that having access to classmates’ views and opinions of a text makes it easier to understand in case I misinterpret something or don’t understand something I’ve read.

laujack

February 6, 2019 at 5:35 pm

With annotation studio I agree that it was helpful to read others’ comments. However I struggled as I read about whether I was commenting too much or too little. When I am reading by myself I tend to mark whatever I want but I didn’t want to monopolize the annotations section. I also mentioned that it would be extremely helpful if each commentator had a specific color associated with their highlights and comments. It would help me to notice who makes more or less comments and I wouldn’t have to spend time scrolling over lists of comments. I also agree that the application of tags is a good idea, however the way it is implemented now makes it a hassle. I honestly didn’t tag any of my comments just because I didn’t have a grasp over the benefits of it. Your idea of having a list of tags to select from is what I was thinking of. Then there wouldn’t be variants of the same concept and the comments about a certain subject would be much more accessible. I like how you made the distinction between Voyant and annotation studio as one being “reader based” and the other “textually based.” I had a hard time trying to word the difference between the two even though I could see it and when I read that a light went off in my head. That is why I find the blogs to be helpful as well for providing insights I probably wouldn’t have known otherwise.
cmorone

February 6, 2019 at 6:06 pm

While Annotation Studio is certainly my favorite tool we have used in class so far, I do agree that some sort of better filtering function should be added. Along with that, a better filter-function for tags should be added – if they are going to have tags as a function, they should make it functional. I like that you do a lot of research on the tools we are tinkering around with, as it is something at least I don’t think to do (I don’t know about everyone else). Considering the rather low quality of Annotation Studio in some aspects, it makes sense that it would be a forgotten project of sorts.
kcookso

February 9, 2019 at 3:21 am

I’m glad that you looked up the current state of Annotation studio, I didn’t even think to do that! If they have dropped that project I feel like they should put on their website that they are no longer developing it. It would be awesome if as you stated a University would take over the site and further develop it.
gaellis

February 9, 2019 at 5:06 am

I find that I also enjoy Annotation Study more than Voyant. Voyant is useful when analyzing a text, but I find that all of the information it gives out always confuses me a bit. After looking through Annotation Studio and through the annotations the rest of the class made, I came to the conclusion that Annotations Studio was much easier to navigate. This is a big plus in my book since I have trouble with technology and programs on an almost regular basis. I agree that having access to classmates’ views and opinions of a text makes it easier to understand in case I misinterpret something or don’t understand something I’ve read.