COLLABORATIVE ONLINE ANNOTATION OF MUSICAL SCORES FOR E-LEARNING USING A.NNOTATE.COM
Christina Anagnostopoulou, F. Howell · 2009
In this paper we explore the use of a collaborative online annotation tool for enhanced teaching and research of music analysis in higher education. Manual annotation of printed scores on paper has long been the foundation of music analysis. However, collaboration between music analysts in different countries and discussions on a specific piece under analysis has always been problematic. Moving the process online offers the possibility for sharing and discussion with a group of students or researchers; more interactions; simpler publication; and a more permanent and readable record of analyses than is possible with paper methods. A.nnotate.com is an online web2.0 service designed for discussing documents; it lets several people attach notes to highlighted text or figures to a single copy of document using a web browser. Scores can be uploaded in PDF format and annotated in a web browser with no software installation. New comments can be added by highlighting text or particular notes or phrases of the score. Tags / keywords can be added to comments to help classify particular musical phrases; depending on the type of analysis. In this case these can be motivic (e.g. 'theme 1'), harmonic ('C minor'), structural (section A), paradigmatic (class 1), and many more. Other students can reply to any comment,