Time Stamps
Time stamps are used to mark annotations on recordings in AVAnnotate. Time stamps are used to tie annotation to specific moments. Time stamps may indicate a duration in time, like 1:30-2:00, or a moment in time, like 2:01.
Time stamps should be formatted as such: 0:00:01 would be one second; 0:01:01 would be one minute and one second; 01:01:01 would be one hour, one minute, and one second.
Often shorter intervals make it easier to find particular moments in a recording. However, longer intervals of time may be appropriate if, for instance, you do not want to break up an interviewee’s long reply to an interviewer’s question or if a recording is very long. The length of the interval may also depend upon the categories you select for your layers since time stamps correspond to both an annotation and a layer.
Marking a duration in time may be important if you want to find out where a speaker in a group begins and ends their portion of the dialogue. Durations may also be useful if you are remarking on the length of a particular cinematic sequence, a particular environmental sound in an audio recording, or really anything on a recording where the length of time is a factor in your analysis.
Layer
In AVAnnotate, layers will be the organizing principle for your annotations of a recording. This means that layers should be specific (for instance, a particular speaker, a type of editing, transcription as distinct from notes and vice-versa, etc.), but broad enough to relate to more than one annotation.
As the layer function organizes annotations in an AVAnnotate project, we suggest that users consider how they want to structure their annotations and select one or more layers that will organize them. Layers and annotations work together to make meaning in an AVAnnotate project, and deciding what meaning is being communicated to an exhibit’s audience is part of the initial conceptual work required when building a project.
The layer allows users to navigate an AVAnnotate project according to the themes, topics, and details the developer has recognized in their AV artifact. Not only is the layer a guide but an argumentative tool which facilitates engagement with certain ideas and meanings built into a project.
Annotation
Annotations are a basic scholarly method in the humanities for making notes within and alongside a text or artifact. Annotation is closely related to the concepts of paratext, marginalia, and mark-up since annotation always situates itself in relation to the object annotated (Clement and Fisher). What it means to annotate an artifact will look different depending on the artifact annotated. A film may be annotated by describing its editing techniques, cinematography, script, actors, or alt-text and image description for audiences with disabilities. An audio recording could be annotated based on speakers, environmental sounds, transcription, or distortion. Scholars across disciplines will annotate audiovisual artifacts with different goals in mind.
Annotation does not always involve transcription, but it can. Transcription, writing down the words stated by a speaker on an audio or video recording, can be one important mode of annotation that allows access to audio or video for audiences unable to view or listen to the artifact because of institutional rights or differing abilities. Transcripts are also searchable in a way that an audio or video recording cannot be.
AVAnnotate allows users to integrate text, images, and links in the “Annotations” column. This means that annotations can take multiple forms depending on the type of project being developed.
Annotation length may range from a single word, symbol, or image, to multiple paragraphs. The length of an annotation depends on the artifact being annotated and how annotations are being organized, such as in terms of the layer and index. It’s suggested that developers make shorter annotations as they are more accessible, searchable, and legible in AVAnnotate’s interface.
The time it takes to annotate will differ according to the goals of a project, length of an artifact, and the detail and experience of the developer. Generally, we’ve found that it takes three to five hours to annotate one hour of AV material.
Index
In AVAnnotate, the index is a separate page within a project that is generated from terms entered in the Index column on your spreadsheet. The index collects all references to a specific term within one or more annotated recordings in the same project. Like a book’s index, terms in the index must be specific, but can range from broader subjects to individuals. For instance, an index might contain the last names of speakers who are featured on several recordings in a project. This would allow other users to easily find all annotations that relate to each speaker. However, the Index could also be used to organize the main concepts that range across several recordings. For instance, in a project annotating recorded State of the Union Addresses by US presidents, we might find index entries fo recurrent topics like “economy,” “war,” or “middle class.”
The difference between index terms and layer names depends on the organization of your AVAnnotate project. If a layer is the organizing principle for annotations, then the index functions as a more granular roadmap to sort through any associated set of annotations and layers. The index can help viewers locate relationships between people, places, ideas, or themes which the developer deems significant. This feature provides another unique way to traverse connections in a single or multiple AVAnnotate project(s).
AVAnnotate’s index feature allows users to make connections between audiovisual artifacts, meaning that a project with two or more AV materials needs only a single index. If, for example, an exhibit contains more than one audio file covering a specific topic, location, or theme, the index allows for viewers to sort through each audio file according to predetermined terms.
As the index feature is not a requirement for building an exhibit with AVAnnotate, users may choose to include or exclude the feature. The index feature is suggested for projects which use multiple AV artifacts and/or include lengthy AV files which may be better accessed with both a layer and an index as methods of categorization.