Contraints of disk space and ownership mean that a system allowing
annotations to be written to other people's disk space or even to
large common areas are not likely to win favour in a University
environment. The closest thing we have considered to true
annotation then is building web space that links to other
people's documents, and in some cases, contains,
possibly modified, copies of them.
The owner of the referenced documents can be emailed (eg) to let
them know that their documents have been referenced, or maybe
they just discover the fact themselves while browsing/searching.
They are then at liberty to decide whether to add a link to the
referencing documents.
We too are investigating the possibilities of providing such
facilities using CGI scripts and NCSA Forms. It looks possible, but
fairly messy, requiring transmission of user name and passwords for
every update (security hole?!), and the use of hidden fields to
contain contextual information.
If this discussion is going elsewhere, I would like to know
where please.
Steven
The STILE (Students' and Teachers' Interactive Learning Environment)
Project is funded under the HEFCE (Higher Education Funding Council
for England) TLTP (Teaching and Learning Technology Programme) scheme.
----------------------------------------------------------
Steven Hayles - Computer System Developer, STILE Project
University of Leicester, University Rd, Leicester, LE1 7RH
Tel (0533) 522557 Fax (0533) 523604 Email sh23@le.ac.uk