Annotation As Writing Promising Technologies And Practices In Writing Studies

Social Annotation as Writing:
Promising Technologies and Practices in Writing Studies
Justin Hodgson, Indiana University Bloomington
Jeremiah H. Kalir, University of Colorado Denver
Chris Andrews, Indiana University Bloomington
Preprint of book chapter accepted for publication in C. Rapp, C. Anson, S. Antoneet, K.
Benetos, E. Cotos, & O. Kruse (Eds.), Handbook on Digital Writing Technology.
Please cite as:
Hodgson, J., Kalir, J., & Andrews, C. (in press). Social annotation as writing: Promising
technologies and practices in writing studies. In C. Rapp, C. Anson, S. Antoneet, K.
Benetos, E. Cotos, & O. Kruse (Eds.), Handbook on Digital Writing Technology.
Springer.
Correspondence concerning this preprint should be addressed to:
Justin Hodgson, Indiana University Bloomington, hodgson@indiana.edu

Title
Social Annotation as Writing: Promising Technologies and Practices in Writing Studies
Authors
Justin Hodgson, Indiana University Bloomington
Jeremiah Kalir, University of Colorado Denver
Chris Andrews, Indiana University Bloomington
Abstract
The act of annotation is intimately associated with reading, thinking, writing, and learning. From
book marginalia to online commentary, this centuries-old practice has flourished in
contemporary educational contexts thanks to recent advances in digital technologies. New
computational affordances, social media platforms, and digital networks have changed how
readers–as writers–participate in acts of annotation. Of particular interest is social annotation
(SA), a type of learning technology that enables the addition of notes to digital and multimodal
texts for the purposes of information sharing, peer interaction, knowledge construction, and
collaborative meaning-making. This chapter reviews prominent SA technologies, functional
specifications, key products, and insights from research, with particular attention to the use of
SA in writing studies and composition. The chapter concludes by discussing implications for
writing theory and practice, and suggests SA technologies can make a critical impact on student
reading and writing practices.
Overview
Annotation is the addition of a note to a text. This deceptively simple writing practice is
associated with a rich history of literature and literary studies (Barney, 1991; Jackson, 2001), is
relevant to many humanities and social science disciplines (Siemens et al., 2017; Unsworth,
2000), and affords the practices of multimodal composition expressed by a range of material
and digital technologies (Davis & Mueller, 2020; Jones, 2015). From rubricated medieval
manuscripts to book marginalia, underlined words to marked up blogs on the Web, annotation is
a genre of communication (Kalir & Garcia, 2021) that synthesizes reading with writing (e.g.
Wolfe, 2002), private response with public engagement (e.g., Marshall & Brush, 2004), and
cognition with composition (e.g., Traester, Kervina, & Brathwaite, 2021). In this chapter, we
consider annotation as a writing practice that has often been, and continues to be, expressly

social (e.g., Kalir, 2020; Sprouse, 2018), as indicated by readers who write and exchange their
notes with one another, make meaning together, and use interactive media to construct
knowledge about shared texts and contexts. More specifically, we borrow and build upon a
definition from Novak and colleagues (2012) that defines social annotation (SA) as a type of
learning technology enabling the addition of notes to digital and multimodal texts for the
purposes of information sharing, peer interaction, knowledge construction, and collaborative
meaning-making (e.g., Eryilmaz et al., 2013; Gao, 2013; Kalir et al., 2020; Zhu et al., 2020).
Given technological developments, pedagogical insights, and enthusiastic use of SA within both
composition and literature courses (e.g. Upson-Saia & Scott, 2013; Walker, 2019; Allred,
Hochstetler, & Goering, 2020; O’Dell, 2020; Sievers, 2021), it is pertinent to review how SA is
relevant to writing studies. In this chapter, we first examine the core idea of SA technologies and
practical specifications. We then identify key SA technologies, offering a brief examination of
specific affordances and constraints. Finally, we offer insight into existing SA research in–and
adjacent to–writing studies, and critically explore the implications of SA technologies for writing
pedagogy and practice. Much contemporary research about SA emerges from educational
studies, and specific domains like the learning sciences and literacy education. There are a few
investigations about SA within writing studies which, appropriately, we review later in this
chapter. Nonetheless, SA scholarship has primarily advanced SA as a learning technology–and
not just a writing technology–and has provided formative insights on the purpose, pedagogy,
and potential of SA technologies and practices.
In writing about SA technologies as relevant to writing studies, we recall Bryant’s (2002)
emphasis on the “fluidity” of written texts; namely, that processes of composition, revision,
publication, reading, analysis, and discussion are fundamentally collaborative endeavors.
Readers are writers, their writing is often social, and SA practices exemplify how textual
collaboration can thrive across formal and informal learning environments. Moreover, SA
technologies facilitate a range of meaningful feedback loops–from instructor to student, and
among learners–that are critical to writing pedagogy (Sommers, 2006), invite students to serve
in multiple roles (e.g., as tutor, expert, motivator, mentor, and collaborator), and that help
develop dynamic learning communities in courses.
Core Idea of Technology
SA is a type of learning technology predicated on two ideas about annotation as a writing
practice. First, readers are writers who, for centuries, have added both informal and scholarly
notes to their texts: manuscript glosses and scholia, book marginalia, and other forms of written
commentary (Jackson, 2001; Nichols, 1991; Stauffer, 2021). Second, readers in our
contemporary era have, not surprisingly, brought their everyday and academic writing practices
to the Web so as to mark up electronic texts, online resources, and other features of digital
environments (Cohn, 2021; Kalir & Garcia, 2021; Piper, 2012). From blog posts to wikipedia
entries to social media updates, there are many ways that readers write online and often do so
in direct response to other texts, topics, and social contexts. Indeed, the first Web browser,
Mosaic, included annotation functionality that was intended to support social reading and writing

practices (Andreessen, 1993). But our scope is necessarily more narrow. Whereas, for example,
wikis are social technologies that encourage groups to read shared documents, there are
categorical and pedagogical differences between the composition of new texts and commentary
added to existing texts. We approach SA as a learning technology that directly “anchors” (Gao
et al., 2013) written notes to digital primary sources, thereby creating a more proximal and
contextual environment for reader response, peer interaction, and shared meaning-making
(e.g., Chan & Pow, 2020; Mendenhall & Johnson, 2010). As we review below, there are a range
of SA technologies (e.g., Murphy, 2021), as well as extensive use of SA in both scholarly
publishing (e.g., Staines, 2019) and transparent qualitative inquiry (e.g., Kapiszewski & Karcher,
2021), with implementations that span elementary, primary, and secondary education. In this
chapter we are concerned with the use of SA in formal, higher education contexts and,
specifically, writing and composition courses.
Functional specifications
From a technical standpoint, SA technologies operate as browser extensions or applications,
with those applications also serving the purposes of formal coursework within Learning
Management Systems (LMS; e.g., Canvas, Blackboard). Broadly, SA technologies work with
Web-based texts that allow users to select key elements (primarily text) and add multimodal
comments. SA tools are dynamic as they allow for shared access to the same text-based
artifact, adding layers of interactivity to reading practices. In addition to adding notes to a text,
readers can also reply to comments, create threaded discussions, and anchor individual
comments and discussion threads within the text. This adds layers of interactivity to reading
practices and shifts reading from a solitary activity into one that is social, “Support[ing] social
reading, group sensemaking, knowledge construction and community building” (Zhu et al.,
2020, p. 262).
Zhu and colleagues (2020) provide the most comprehensive summary, to date, of the social,
technical, and pedagogical affordances of SA technologies. With concern for the use of SA in
both K-12 and higher education contexts, the authors reviewed 39 relevant studies and
identified five types of activities that are supported by SA. These include processing
domain-specific knowledge, supporting argumentation and knowledge construction (e.g.,
Morales, Kalir, Fleerackers, & Alperin, 2022), practicing literacy skills, assessment and (peer)
feedback, and connecting learning across online spaces. Perhaps more critically, however, is
that SA technologies enable rich parallels between the act of reading and the values
championed in the teaching of writing, as with process-oriented pedagogy, peer-to-peer focused
engagement, and other practices rooted in the social epistemic frame. SA technologies render
the act of reading visible among a group, thereby enabling socially situated “first draft thinking”
practices for learners to read and write together (Kalir, 2020).
While functional specifications and pedagogical affordances characterize many SA
technologies, not all are created equal. Indeed, some social reading technologies can be used
to surveil student reading (Cohn & Kalir, 2022) or inadvertently exacerbate inequitable power
relations (Bartley, 2022). In the next section, we explore prominent SA technologies with a focus

on those used in writing studies. Admittedly, different SA technologies have different functional
affordances. For example, Hypothesis allows readers to add hyperlinks and embed visual media
in annotations, and to determine whether annotations are public or private. Others, like Perusall,
include AI-powered functions, like automated grading. There are also other annotation
applications (like Adobe Acrobat Pro or PowerNotes) that are SA adjacent; they feature social
functionality despite other primary tool uses. In these cases, SA-adjacent annotation
technologies may include a range of additional features (e.g., editing annotated artifacts,
downloading notes with annotated texts), but often with less dynamic social functionality that
does not readily integrate within a LMS.
Main products
In a recent review, Murphy (2021) noted that SA, also commonly referred to as collaborative
annotation, has increased in popularity in the past few years. The advent of cloud-based
technologies, improvements in network structures, and greater degrees (and ease) of
access–as well as increased options within the technologies–have aided in SA technologies
being adopted across a range of instructional contexts (Ghadirian et al., 2018; Murphy 2021;
Seatter, 2019). Moreover, there is a wide array of SA (and SA-adjacent) technologies, stemming
from a distributed history of production, from university-supported designs, to non-profit tools, to
commercial applications. These technologies collectively feature a range of technical and social
affordances, with educators deploying various and complementary teaching strategies. It is
prudent, then, to categorically organize SA technologies to help identify core elements and
associated practices. Accordingly, we employ Murphy’s (2021) tripartite structure of SA
technologies–Open Web Collaborative Annotation tools; Document-based; and Publishing
Platforms–complemented by our original commentary and reference to relevant examples.
Open Web Collaborative Annotation tools allow readers to publicly and privately annotate the
Web. These technologies usually layer a minimal interface on top of Web content and require
browser plugins to access annotation layers. These SA technologies bring annotation to an
object to be annotated. The most common tools in this category are Diigo and Hypothesis.
Research about Diigo found that undergraduate students prefered this SA technology to
conventional discussion forums (in an LMS), as SA practices guided learners’ attention to
specific textual features and created more focused peer interaction (Sun & Gao, 2017).
Hypothesis is of particular interest as both the technology and non-profit organization have
actively shepherded efforts toward creating the open annotation standard and interoperability
between annotation tools (Whaley, 2017). What makes Hypothesis of additional interest, as Kalir
(2019) has demonstrated, is that it supports readers’ multimodal expression, turns texts into
discursive contexts, provides users with an accessible information infrastructure, and can help
learners visualize cognition and social interaction (see also Morales et al., 2022). Hypothesis
easily integrates with other open educational initiatives and integrates well with Canvas,
Blackboard, and Moodle, among other LMS.
Document-based SA technologies allow annotators to upload files, such as PDFs, into the
technology whereby documents are converted for annotation. In contrast to those in the former

category, document-based SA technologies require users to bring the object-to-be-annotated to
the technology. Common tools in this category include: Perusall, which is primarily used in
higher education contexts (e.g., Miller et al., 2018; Walker, 2019); NowComment, which
supports K-12 literacy education (e.g., Fayne, Bijesse, Allison, & Rothstein, 2022); and
HyLighter, which operates in both educational and commercial settings. HyLighter uses data
analytics to help annotators make sense of annotations in context, as well as across contexts,
allowing notes to be brought together from multiple sources. Perusall, much like Hypothesis,
integrates with major LMS, such as Canvas and Blackboard. This integration (as with Open
Web Hypothesis above) can help reduce instructor and student onboarding, make documents
more easily accessible, and aid the coordination of SA activities.
Publishing Platforms, particularly scholarly publishing platforms, are a third category of SA
technology that allows readers to participate in peer review activities associated with books
(e.g., Fitzpatrick, 2011) and journal articles (e.g., Staines, 2018). Publishing platforms that offer
SA functionality are similar to document-based SA technologies, but the annotation features are
built into the online platform: requiring that both the annotator and the object-to-be-annotated go
to the platform. Common tools in this category include MITs PubPub platform used to support
open peer review of Data Feminism (D’Ignazio & Klein, 2020) and Open Knowledge Institutions
(Montgomery et al., 2021).
Complementing Murphy’s categories, there are several other reviews of SA technologies and
research. For example, Ghadirian, Salehi, and Mohd Ayub (2018) track the rise in research
publications that focus on SA technologies, offer a critical distinction between text annotation
tools like Microsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat versus SA technologies, and offer a fairly thorough
overview of HyLighter, Margelina, and Diigo. Seatter (2019) reviewed Annotation Studio,
Hypothesis, NowComment, Prism, and Google Docs, evaluating each in terms of flexibility,
usability, and sociality to assess usefulness and applicability to pedagogical activities. Of
additional note, Seatter called for an increased focus on universal design and accessibility with
open SA technologies, seeing more inclusive features as helping make Open Web SA
technologies “more objectively open technologies” (p. 10).
Research
Having identified a range of SA scholarship across disciplines, this section focuses on research
in writing studies. There is a rich history of scholars in composition calling attention to the
importance of reading (e.g., Horning 1987; Haas & Flower 1988; Joliffe, 2003 & 2007; Wolfe,
2002 & 2008) and there has been renewed interest in recent years (Joliffe 2017; Sullivan et al,
2017; Horning & Kraemer 2013; Salvorti & Donahue, 2016; Carillo 2015). But the specific turn to
SA practices and technologies is relatively new, with only a handful of works fundamentally
rooted in SA considerations and/or their implications for student writing in composition and
English courses. Although we do not present a formal literature review, we identified the
following studies as being representative of recent efforts to incorporate SA in writing studies.
These collective works offer insight into

● the “multiple reading lenses” students employ in first-year composition (Sprouse, 2018),
● the impact of SA on student writing and course outcomes (Walker, 2019),
● how SA technologies and practices alter students’ perceptions of reading and writing
(O’Dell, 2020),
● how SA technologies create opportunities for readerly-writing practices and allow for
textual amplification through readerly additions (Davis & Mueller, 2020)
● how SA technologies foster active collaboration among students and leave visual traces
of critical reading practices (Traester, Kervina, & Brathwaite, 2021), and
● how SA technologies can help students situate writing in relation to knowledge building
practices (Sievers, 2021).
Sprouse (2018) identified reading as critical for students in composition, yet noted that the
practices students employ while reading remain invisible. Consequently, she integrated
Hypothesis into a first-year composition course and examined “multiple reading lenses” that
students employed to guide textual engagement. Analyzing more than 1200 annotations
generated by 18 students, Sprouse identified four reading purposes in student annotation:
reading for ideas, or understanding and use of ideas in a text; rhetorical reading, or analyzing
rhetorical choices and genre conventions; critical reading, or cultural values in sociopolitical
contexts; and aesthetic reading, or personal connection to the text. She found that students
often enacted multiple and “overlapping” reading purposes in attending to complex reading,
particularly in accounting for “writerly choices and their effects on readers” (p. 48). Sprouse’s
case documented how SA practices helped her, as the instructor, better assess the ways in
which students took up reading practices. Implications from her study suggest that the visibility
of student reading practices via SA allowed for better instruction and responsive feedback,
made students aware of their reading lenses, and strategically oriented them to the ways in
which they made sense of and used content from course texts.
While Sprouse (2018) investigated student reading practices, Walker (2019) studied the impact
of SA technologies on student writing and course outcomes. Over two academic years, Walker
included Perusall in four sections of sophomore-level English. Her study included 125
undergraduate students; 75 were in two course sections that included SA activities, and 54 were
in the control sections. Walker collected data from Perusall (through the LMS) and from student
surveys. The study goal was to determine the degree to which artificial intelligence (AI)
elements in Perusall operated as pedagogical learning agents and helped students engage with
course readings. Her view was that the more students engaged in course readings, the better
they would be at leveraging those readings in their writing. While there are some concerns with
this study (e.g., no substantive critique of “AI-robo” tools with heavy reliance on algorithms; little
statistical difference in course outcomes given AI-based grading), the main gesture of Walker’s
findings suggest a positive correlation between students’ use of Perusall and their final course
grades. Walker’s findings also echo related studies of SA technologies used in other disciplinary
contexts (e.g., Nokelainen et al., 2005; Gao 2013; Kalir et al., 2020) that demonstrate students’
positive statements about SA activities and technology in narrative reflections about their
learning.

O’Dell (2020) sought to better understand how SA technologies “alter student perceptions of
reading and writing” (p. 2), and, moreover, how this technology impacted creative and
collaborative writing practices in composition courses. From 2016-2019, O’Dell deployed Genius
in five First-Year Writing Seminars, choosing the tool because it was accessible, operated with
an attractive, aligned interface (i.e., Wolfe 2008), encouraged collaboration, and mirrored social
media practices familiar to students. O’Dell replaced traditional reading responses with
low-stake Genius activities and encouraged students to “write down what they noticed and what
interested them [in a reading], to bring in sources, to discuss their thoughts with others, and to
ultimately use these insights to help create an argument for their essays” (p. 16). SA practices
helped students to engage in close reading and gather textual evidence and information they
could consolidate and integrate into “long-form writing” (ibid). Her analysis of survey data found
that students perceived Genius favorably; the tool made “it easier [for students] to organize and
communicate their ideas” (p. 2). O’Dell also discusses considerations for bringing digital
technologies into the composition classroom, and provides a nuanced frame for thinking about
the inclusion of annotation technologies in writing courses.
Davis and Mueller’s (2020) essay considers the history of the page and the multimodality of
texts as central to students’ composition practices. They argue that shifts in materiality–and the
means of textual production over the past 500 years–gradually shifted reading from a
“readerly-writing” experience into more passive consumption. However, they observe that digital
technologies have “reinvigorated our attention to the page” (p. 112), alongside related practices
of interaction as with annotation. They discuss how SA technologies have created opportunities
for readerly-writing practices and how acts of textual amplification through readerly additions
invite a reorientation of reading and writing pedagogies. But the act and space of textual
amplification itself has been amplified by SA technologies, which make “social modes of
readerly interaction” (p. 117) available and at speeds and scales never-before encountered by
the printed page. Indeed, SA tools like Hypothesis are rooted in this idea of textual amplification
by creating space (and a text-based interface), for multiple users to extend the ideas of others’
writing, embed competing perspectives, and enable a complexity of understanding.
Traester, Kervina, and Brathwaite’s (2021) study explored tool- and pedagogy-based
interventions as a response to “the challenges associated with critical reading in the digital age”
(p. 330). Each author integrated Hypothesis into their composition courses at three different
institutional settings across the United States. The study rejected the idea that digital mediums
of reading “preclude critical reasoning” (p. 329). Moreover, the authors found that SA
technologies can aid in students building complex reading competencies and that annotation
invites movement between higher- and lower-order cognitive engagements. Further, SA
technologies facilitate understanding, situate differing viewpoints in-text, and enable situated
responses, enhancing cognitive engagement and helping to make meaningful connections with
texts / peers. Lastly, SA technologies can bridge close reading and distant reading practices,
blur the line between public and private domains, and lead to personal reflection and to valuing
reading as a way to (in)form a belief system.

Traester and colleagues (2021) further argued that the social dimension of Hypothesis can
“foster active and voluntary collaboration” among students, and that students were inclined to
“take on some of the more challenging tasks associated with expert reading” (p. 346).
Additionally, SA activities allowed students to leave “visible traces” of their engagement within
the text, “foreground[ing] the text in their conversations,” and thereby creating a space “for more
empathetic forms” of interaction (p. 347).
Sievers’ (2021) study of a general education literature course focused on the relationship of SA
practices to student writing. Sievers’ case focuses on analyzed data from a single
undergraduate course in 2016. She found that SA technology Hypothesis, “[w]hen used early in
a student’s career” can help better habituate students to “knowledge building through writing”
and to “the collaborative, social, discursive nature of interpretation” (p. 432). As course
instructor, she observed how Hypothesis moved up the work of interpretation and critical
engagement (to “first encounters” with a given text), allowed students to model critical reading
processes for one another, helped normalize the act of making inquiries and working through
challenges (and doing so in open [i.e., public] ways), and situated knowledge making as “a
community effort” (p. 447). Further, Sievers suggests students’ SA activities influenced
subsequent essay writing: “Triangulating their papers with their annotations and blog posts
revealed [...] close connections among these activities: their papers used textual quotations
more and in more precise ways, drawing closely on observations and ideas first articulated in
their annotations and short writing assignments” (p. 447). Additional research should
substantiate Sievers’ claim and determine how SA activities influenced student writing;
nonetheless, the overarching findings of her study have important implications for SA
technologies and practices in writing courses.
Implications of this technology for writing theory and practice
With the advent of better, faster, more accessible digital tools, applications, and infrastructures,
we have seen digital technologies have a major impact on how we teach composition.
Moreover, with an increasing attention on digital literacy and digital creativity in higher
education, we’ve also seen a shift in what we teach in composition, in our learning outcomes,
and in the architecture of our writing programs (Porter 2009). This augmentation, reflective of an
increasingly digital culture, places greater emphasis on digital ways of knowing, doing, and
making (Hodgson, 2019) and invites the development of new pedagogies rooted not only in
digital forms and functions, but also with a continued (and growing) interest in collaborative and
interactive methods of learning (Kim & Bagaka, 2005). Or, as Gao (2013) put it, we are
undergoing a shift in focus in higher education: moving from “learner-content interaction to
learner-learner interaction” (p. 76). The challenge then is not if writing teachers will embrace
digital technologies in the classroom, but rather how we come to understand the impact
particular technologies have on the range of practices, purposes, and pedagogies we employ.
To this end, there is a wide assortment of possibilities for how SA technologies may change
writing with respect to well-established characteristics and key considerations facing writing
studies and practices.

First, SA technologies are particularly well-suited for low-stakes assignments that provide
situated writing opportunities in texts as discursive contexts. Conventional reading responses,
such as posts to a discussion forum, can be replaced with SA activities that allow students to
move away from summative responses to analyze specific details, phrases, genre-specific
conventions, and authorial choices. Additionally, SA technologies do not do away with
discussion forums, but rather provide tools for anchoring threaded discussions in the text itself.
This creates an opportunity to invite more complexity in student reading and thinking, as
situating writing in-text offers a means for deeper reading engagements (O’Dell, 2020). When
peers and instructors work through student annotations, they can prompt additional exploration
by responding to an annotation, asking a question, pushing back against a particular
perspective, and constructing new insight together (e.g., Morales et al., 2022).
SA technologies, then, provide an avenue through which to invite more complexity in student
reading and thinking by (1) allowing writing teachers to situate rhetorical inquiries in-text for
students and (2) letting students respond to those inquiries in writing and, in some cases,
through networked and layered media, all anchored in textual context.
Second, SA technologies have the capacity to enable high-quality feedback and support.
Instructors can provide meaningful feedback about course readings by engaging with students’
annotations and by situating inquiries and commentary directly in the text for students. Doing so
can prompt further consideration, refocus analysis that may be off target, confirm lines of
thought, and offer additional insight and expertise. Moreover, while SA technologies are
primarily rooted in the kinds of reading practices students enact in writing classrooms, they can
also be used among learners to facilitate peer review of their writing, allowing reviewers to
anchor their feedback directly in the text as well.
Finally, SA technologies expand the physical margins of a text by adding a digital layer through
which student annotations can be placed in the text and into conversation with others’
annotations. As discussed, annotations may be multimodal and hyperlinked to other media or
resources, crafting a multimedia tapestry for meaning making practices. SA technologies create
new spaces for multimodal writing and composition, for content engagement, and for
peer-to-peer collaboration. When thoughtfully implemented in coursework, SA technologies can
effectively help readers to focus on writing quality as a part of their annotation process. Further,
the planned pairing of SA technologies and writing practices can help students better
understand texts, aid clarity and coherence in subsequent writing activities, and can expose
students to a range of writing styles and strategies. SA technologies can make a critical impact
on student writing and reading practices and have the potential to improve the quality and
complexity of student learning.
Definitions
Annotation: A note added to a text.

Social annotation: A type of learning technology enabling the addition of notes to digital and
multimodal texts for the purposes of information sharing, peer interaction, knowledge
construction, and collaborative meaning-making.
Open web annotation: A form of web-based annotation that relies upon an interoperable data
model, generates publicly accessible data, supports Creative Commons licensing of annotation
content, and aligns with open-source software and educational movements. These technologies
bring the annotation platform to the object users want to annotate.
Document-based annotation: A form of annotation technology that allows users to upload files,
such as PDFs, into a platform whereby documents are converted for annotation. These
technologies require users to bring the object-to-be-annotated (e.g., PDFs) to the platform.
Publishing platform annotation: A form of annotation features that are built into online publishing
platforms, requiring that both the users and the object-to-be-annotated go to the platform.
List of Tools
Hypothesis (https://web.hypothes.is/), open-source software that affords “a conversation layer
over the entire web that works everywhere, without needing implementation by any underlying
site.”
Perusall (https://perusall.com/), a social-reading platform that integrates with LMS and allows
students and teachers to digitally annotate texts.
Diigo (https://www.diigo.com/), an abbreviation for "Digest of Internet Information, Groups and
Other stuff," is an online platform that is intended to “streamline the information workflow”
through the organization, annotation, and sharing of online resources.
Genius (https://genius.com/), a music encyclopedia where users annotate song lyrics.
PowerNotes (https://powernotes.com/) a digital notetaking platform that allows for annotation of
digital texts, source management practices, and note-downloading capabilities.
NowComment (https://nowcomment.com/), a free platform primarily used in K-12 educational
contexts that provides a platform “for group discussion, annotation, and curation of texts,
images, and videos.”
Marginalia (http://webmarginalia.net/) is an open source web annotation system used to enrich
online discussion . It works with various web browsers and allows users to highlight text and
write margin notes. The program is a successor created by Geof Glass to Andrew Feenburg and
Cindy Xin’s TextWeaver.
HyLighter (https://www.hylighter.com/) a web-based annotation tool that allows for marking up
digital texts and sharing comments and notes with other users.

PubPub (https://www.pubpub.org/) is an “open-source, community-led, end-to-end publishing
platform for knowledge communities.”
Open Review Toolkit (https://www.openreviewtoolkit.org/) is “open source software that enables
users to convert book manuscripts into a website that can be used for Open Review.”
Prism (http://prism.scholarslab.org/) focuses on “crowdsourcing interpretation” by allowint for
shared annotation and textual mark-up, with each textual highlight being categorized and
creating a visualization of engagement with the text.
Annotation Studio (https://www.annotationstudio.org/) is a suite of collaborative web-based
annotation tools under development at MIT.
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