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          AA2: Allow end-user control over annotation to improve deposit rates

          Secure Annotation Server and Sidebar

          AA2 Report for review [PDF 776Kb]. 

          The Secure Annotation Server was developed as part of the AA2 DART workpackage. The goal of the AA2 workpackage is to allow end user control over who can annotate what, and who can access those annotations. To this end, this project has involved modifying Annotea to allow Shibboleth and XACML integration, as well as developing client tools to use the sever for annotation creations, viewing and management.

          Technologies

          • Annotea - a Web-based annotation server developed by the W3C as part of the Semantic Web initiative. Annotea uses RDF to model annotations. (License: W3C)
          • Annozilla - designed to view and create annotations associated with a web page, as defined by the Annotea project. (License: MPL)
          • Amaya - W3C's web editor that includes collaborative annotation support (License: W3C)
          • Shibboleth - an Internet2 middleware initiative that enables identity management and secure access to Web resources shared amongst multiple organizations (License: Apache 2.0)
          • XACML (eXtensible Access Control Markup Language) - XML-based language for defining and enforcing access control policies

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          System Architecture

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          Annotation Model

          The annotation model used by Annotea was extended to allow XACML policies to be described and attached to annotations.

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          Client applications

          Annotea Sidebar

          Although tools such as Amaya, Annozilla and Vannotea are suitable for attaching textual or hyperlink annotations to digital objects, none of these tools provide an interface that is suitable for specifying XACML access policies and attaching them to the annotations. Consequently we developed our own client-side application as an extension to Annozilla using Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML). An additional client side application has been developed using C# and .Net which appears as a side-bar to the Internet Explorer browser.

          Example of using the client application to annotate publications from the ePrints archive at UQ:

          The annotations are shown in the top left-hand frame, the details of the selected annotation are in the bottom left-hand frame, and the publication is displayed in the right-hand frame.

          Example of using the side-bar to define policies:

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          Software

          To install the Annotation Server:
          • Download the Annotation Server WAR file.
          • Deploy the WAR file in Tomcat using the Tomcat manager.
          • Instructions for deployment of annotation server.

          For more detailed instructions, consult the user documentation.

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          Demo

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          Secure Annotations

          Overview:

          Annotations have long been used as a a tool to facilitate collaborative scholarly discourse. They enable users to attach additional material such as comments, notes, queries, assessments, references to resources such as documents, images or datasets. When applied to digital resources shared via the Web, they provide a very powerful collaborative tool - enabling the easy capture and wide dissemination of individuals' and group opinions of particular digital resources.

          The main focus of this work is to provide annotation tools for collaborators within eResearch environments. A critical requirement for such a domain is the need to be able to restrict access to annotations attached to a particular collection of digital resources, to a particular group of trusted colleagues - for reasons of privacy, confidentiality or protection of intellectual property. Particularly in eScience, the annotation or interpretation of the raw document or data is often more valuable than the resource it annotates. Also by providing researchers with a robust, reliable security infrastructure, they may be more willing to engage in the exchange of views and ideas.

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          People:

          imrank
          Imran Khan           		jane
          Jane Hunter

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          Publications:

          Imran Khan, Ronald Schroeter and Jane Hunter. "Implementing a Secure Annotation Service", International Provenance and Annotation Workshop, Chicago, USA. 3 - 5 May 2006.

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          Presentations:

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          Links:

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