Identifiers and Scope/Context as defined in Web Annotation Data Model

[tcole3]

The Web Annotation Data Model (Working Draft) currently provides a means for talking about (as an annotation target) a resource in the context of another resource, e.g., annotating an image in the context of a Web page. See: http://www.w3.org/TR/2015/WD-annotation-model-20151015/#scope-of-a-resource. In this approach, when describing the annotation, the URL of the resource being targeted (e.g., the image) appears as the value of one property and the URL of the containing resource (e.g., the Web page) appears as the value of a different property. They are connected using the annotation SpecificResource structure. (A manifest might be a way of connecting these 2 properties in a publication.) The 2 resources need not be retrievable from the same site, and de-referencing is done in the usual way, no special mechanism need be provided to parse the identifiers used. Not clear this use case is relevant to the identifier issues raised for publications that 'contain' many components at various locations, but may possibly be of interest in thinking about this issue. In particular this makes it easy to recognize when 2 annotations (or potentially 2 publications) target (or contain) the same resource. As Ivan said on today's call it would potentially be a more attractive approach if the Annotation SpecificResource approach were generalized in a way that would allow it to be expressed as a fragment identifier, although this may be a bridge too far.

[iherman]

Actually, what I said on the call may not be usable for this. My idea was/is that the various selector mechanims in the Annotation Model (see the current selector model, although that model will become richer in the next release) should be expressable as fragment identifiers. But that would not include the context mechanism you are talking about...

[iherman]

There is a long discussion in the Annotation Working Group: w3c/web-annotation#110

[iherman]

There is an initial version of the relevant draft: “Selectors and States”