[MEI-L] Question for users of the <annot> element

[David Lewis]

Hi all,

As some of you may have noticed, Verovio has recently gained the ability to display annotations that refer to parts of a score (i.e. not the header information or commentary about the encoding itself).

In the process of adding this, we had a small discussion about how to characterise different uses of <annot> in MEI so that software can interpret them clearly. Since the guidelines are at times a little unspecific (or confusing), we’re interested in hearing from people who are _already using_ <annot> in their encodings.

As a preliminary step, we have used a particular @type value on <annot> (<annot type="score">) to specify the sorts of annotation that we actually want to display, but this is a temporary measure. @type is not intended to carry important semantics in this way, but we can use it without changing the current schema.

Before we propose a longer term solution, we’d like to check for unintended consequences. If you've used <annot> before or are using it now, we'd like to hear how the following options  would affect your work or your encodings.

 1. Introduce a @motivation attribute (informed by web annotation and TEI) with a fixed set of values – assessing, bookmarking, classifying, commenting, describing, editing, highlighting, identifying, linking, moderating, questioning, replying, tagging. New motivations would have to be created as part of external authorities linked using motivation.auth / motivation.url

   It has been suggested that we would distinguish annotations to display from others by the presence or absence of @motivation, or by the specific values of @motivation

 2. Use @func or some other relatively lightweight approach to distinguish (e.g. <annot func="score">

 3. Use a new, additional element for the things we need to distinguish (TEI uses <annotation> and <note>, which MEI can't for obvious reasons)

These options are not exclusive – we can have @motivation, @func _and_ different elements. Any one of them has the potential to help clarify things, but it could also complicate existing uses or make unclear what is currently clear.

We look forward to benefiting from the combined experience of the community.

Thanks for your input

David Lewis & Kevin Page
AHRC Annote Project