The EuropeanaConnect Annotation Suite - A tool that allows end-users to annotate digital images, maps, audio and video files.

The EuropeanaConnect Annotation Suite gives users the ability to annotate digital images and maps, as well as audio and video objects. Parts of the annotation suite have been integrated into Europeana, but some challenges will need to be overcome before it can be fully implemented: 1. It only makes sense to annotate full-scale images (maps), and full-length audio tracks or videos. Currently, Europeana does not have full access to most objects. 2. The audio and the video components use Flash, but Europeana currently does not support Flash.

Image and Map Annotations

The image annotation interface allows the user to annotate full-scale images; it is based on the Google Web Toolkit. The map annotation interface is a special variant of the image annotation one. It adds a number of several Geographic Information System (GIS) related features and uses tiled full-scale images, which allows for a user experience similar to that of services like Google Maps.

Audio and Video Annotations

The audio and video components of the EuropeanaConnect Annotation Suite use a modified Flash player. The audio annotation tool only allows for the annotation of time segments of an audio track or its entirety, while the video annotation tool adds features that are similar to those of the image annotation tool. For example, shapes can be drawn on the image to signify the area of the moving image that has been commented on.

See The EuropeanaConnect Annotation Suite Prototype: