[ba-ohs-talk] Harvard's Open Code, Content, Law and Governance Projectswith free Annotation Engine:
About 8-months have elapsed since the Bootstrap Alliance website was
last updated .... so maybe we can use Harvard's new TWiki-based
Annotation Engine (open source) for discussion and collaborative editing
of new documents? (01)
* Annotation Engine <http://eon.law.harvard.edu/cite/annotate.cgi> (02)
(The Annotation Engine is Free Software. The source code in progress
is available here
<http://eon.law.harvard.edu/annotate/annotate.tar.gz>. It requires
Perl, the LWP::UserAgent package, HTTP::Parser, Date::Manip, and
mySQL. Visit the Sourceforge
<http://sourceforge.net/projects/annotate/> project page for more
development information.) (03)
* Webcast meeting tools <http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/meetingtools/> (04)
* Specs for self-organizing online Deliberative Discourse Reseach
Projects <http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/projects/deliberation>
<http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/projects/deliberation/#_Toc491257943> (05)
It ultimately aspires to be a tool for discussion and collaborative
editing of documents via an Annotation Engine that allows people to add
footnotes to pages anywhere on the web with a real-time polling system. (06)
Try testing it on the Bootstrap Alliance website by typing
http://www.bootstrap.org into the Annotate URL window.
< http://eon.law.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/annotate/main.cgi > (07)
For your convenience, below is instructions for the 1) Annotation Engine
2) info about how its applied in some interesting OpenLaw Projects with
3) TWiki-based collaboration tools. (08)
Happy New Year! (09)
Coheartedly,
- John Deneen (010)
P.S. Does anybody have any comments about possibly applying NetViz (aka:
Concept-Document-Extract-Network Visualization) to Doug's OHS Framework
for sharing with Ben Houston < http://www.exocortex.org/ben > and I?
< http://www.exocortex.org/netviz >
< http://www.exocortex.org/ben/netviz-mulvern.ppt > (011)
************** (012)
1) Annotator Instructions (013)
<
http://eon.law.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/annotate/main.cgi?view=http://eon.law.harvard.edu/openlaw/openaccess/library.shtml
> (014)
The Annotator allows you to mark pages on any website and view the
markups here. You may type notes, or simply add a link to an external
document. (015)
Insert a note: (check the "note" box)
Choose text to annotate from the document in the right-hand frame. Your
note will appear as a marker at the endNote of the text you select.
Highlight the text with the mouse, and copy it: CTRL-C (or Mac
Command-C). Paste the selection into the "Note placement" box on the
Annotation screen: CTRL-V (or Mac Command-V). Because the computer will
place your note marker based on this text, it is important that you copy
the text precisely. The selection should be unique in the document --
since the marker is placed at the end, select more text if you are unsure. (016)
Type your note into the text box or cut and paste this from another
application. You may include HTML, but faulty HTML may cause the note to
display incorrectly. (017)
Insert a link: (check the "link" box)
Follow the above procedure for selecting text and copy it to the second
"Note placement" box. A link markerLink in the document will link to
another web page. Type or copy the complete URL of the page you want to
link into the "link to" box. (018)
Note: (019)
The Annotation Master uses frames: The document to be marked is
displayed on the right side of the screen, and annotations are displayed
on the left. The hyperlinked [text] in the annotation screen calls up
the marked page at the point to which the note refers. Clicking the note
markersNote in the document will call the corresponding note. (020)
You can resize the reading and annotation by grabbing the bar between
them and dragging it right or left. The annotation display is most
effective at a screen resolution of at least 800 x 600 pixels. The back
button should work correctly in recent versions of Netscape, Internet
Explorer, and other browsers. If you are using an older browser, right
clicking in a frame will allow you to go back within the frame. (021)
You may add annotations to the document you are reading by clicking the
Annotate hyperlink in the bottom bar. In place of the notes screen, you
will get a form in which to add your notes or comments. If your new
annotation is displayed when you hit the "Submit" button, it has been
entered. You may have to hit "reload" before it appears in the window. (022)
Background <http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/projects/annotate.html> on the
Annotation Engine and its Perl source code
<http://eon.law.harvard.edu/annotate/annotate.tar.gz> are also
available. The Annotation Engine takes inspiration from the CritLink
Mediator <http://crit.org/>. (023)
This stuff is still an early release. Barring the project being
"embraced and extended" by your favorite software company, however,
please give me your feedback and bug reports. Although the Master tries
to fix all graphics and relative links in the pages it serves, it may
not always be successful. If you encounter a problem page, please send
me the URL. (024)
2) OpenLaw Project (025)
What is Openlaw? (026)
Openlaw is an experiment in crafting legal argument in an open
forum. With your assistance, we will develop arguments, draft
pleadings, and edit briefs online. You are invited to join the
process by adding thoughts to the "brainstorm" bulletin boards,
drafting and commenting on drafts in progress, and suggesting
reference sources, (027)
Why Openlaw? (028)
Building on the model of open source software, we believe that an
open development process best harnesses the distributed resources of
the Internet community. What we lose in secrecy, we expect to regain
in depth of sources and breadth of argument. (029)
Can I add a case to Openlaw? (030)
As a general rule, the Berkman Center does not (and cannot) provide
individual legal assistance. The Openlaw project is still in its
formative stages as we determine how open legal collaboration can
work. If you have a case that you believe fits with the Berkman
Center's public interest focus (see our mission
<http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/mission> and projects
<http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/projects> pages), and feel that an
open discussion forum would be useful, you may contact
<http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/contact> a Berkman Center faculty
member or fellow, or contact the Openlaw project coordinators
<mailto:openlaw@eon.law.harvard.edu>. Note that we cannot host
independent forums here. (031)
How else can I support the project? (032)
The first case we are litigating with Openlaw is Eldred v. Ashcroft
<http://eon.law.harvard.edu/%0Aopenlaw/eldredvashcroft/> (formerly
Eldred v. Reno), a challenge to the Sonny Bono Copyright Term
Extension Act that added 20 years to the copyright exclusion period.
As well as crafting legal arguments here, you can support our fight
for the public domain by joining Copyright's Commons
<http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/cc/>, a coalition against the
copyright extension, and by marking your works with a
counter-copyright <http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/cc/cc.html>, [cc]. (033)
March 13, 2002 -- Eldred Legal Defense Fund
While the lawyers in this case are donating their time, there are
significant expenses the community could help us meet. If you want
to help, please send a check to:
Eldred Legal Defense Fund
c/o Carinne Johnson
Stanford Law School
Crown Quadrangle
559 Nathan Abbott Way
Stanford, CA 94305-8610 (034)
or via PayPal <https://www.paypal.com/> to free.mickey@foobox.com (035)
Any money left over will be contributed to an appropriate charity. (036)
In Openlaw/DVD <http://eon.law.harvard.edu/openlaw/DVD/>, we are
helping the Electronic Frontier Foundation <http://www.eff.org/>, to
defend public freedom to use digital media. We are developing
arguments in defense of the individuals and web publishers being
sued by the movie industry for posting DeCSS code, allegedly to
break the access controls on DVD, and earlier submitted an amicus
brief <http://eon.law.harvard.edu/openlaw/DVD/amicus.html> in the
New York case. (037)
In our next case, open access
<http://eon.law.harvard.edu/openlaw/openaccess/>, we will assist
four Massachusetts communities in an ongoing legal battle with AT&T
<http://www.att.com/> over open access. The communities filed a
request <http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/openlaw/openaccess.pdf> with
the Commonwealth's Department of Telecommunications and Energy's
(DTE <http://www.state.ma.us/dpu/>) Cable Television Division for
full hearings on whether open access is in the public interest. The
communities earlier refused to allow transfer of cable licenses from
MediaOne <http://www.mediaone.com/> to AT&T <http://www.att.com/>
unless AT&T agreed to offer Internet Service Providers
non-discriminatory access to the broadband network. (038)
Openlaw is also hosting discussions
<http://eon.law.harvard.edu/msdoj/> of the ongoing Microsoft Case
<http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/msdoj>. (039)
3) Collaboration Tools (040)
Openlaw is an experiment in process, as well as product. We are
continually testing different tools to facilitate collective discussion
and collaborative development of argument. Different modes, including
web, email, and chat, help at different stages of the development. (041)
* Website <http://eon.law.harvard.edu/openlaw/>, with htDig
<http://htdig.org> search engine (042)
Openlaw is organized by cases, each with its own website. The
website serves as document file, resource library, archive,
and collection of links relevant to the case. The search
engine can be set to index only pages within the case site. (043)
* FAQs, e.g. dvd-discuss FAQ
<http://eon.law.harvard.edu/openlaw/DVD/dvd-discuss-faq.html>
Frequently Asked Questions documents (FAQs), generated from the
online discussions, provide a knowledge base and an introduction
for new visitors.
* Majordomo <http://majordomo.greatcircle.org/> and MHonarc
<http://mhonarc.org> or Mailman <http://mailman.gnu.org/> mailing
list and web archive
Mailing lists (listservs) often provide rapid feedback (and high
volume) discussion, as mail from all participants goes to everyone
else. Archiving by date and message-thread helps keep a record of
past discussion. The lists are used for brainstorming, news
updates, and exchange of drafts. In most cases, they are
structured in levels:
o discuss: general discussion, unmoderated
o digest: daily compilation of the discuss list
o announce: moderated list for relatively infrequent
announcements
o dvd-discuss archives
<http://eon.law.harvard.edu/archive/dvd-discuss> (044)
* TWiki collaborative web <http://twiki.sourceforge.net>
The TWiki is a web sub-site in which users can edit and add pages.
The Twiki preserves a record of changes to its pages, enabling us
to annotate documents and update drafts, while comparing pages
with their earlier versions.
o Openlaw/DVD WikiWeb <http://eon.law.harvard.edu/twiki>
* Annotation Master <http://eon.law.harvard.edu/cite/annotate.cgi>
The Annotation Master (still in alpha release) allows users to add
notes to existing web pages on this server or elsewhere. Readers
can suggest changes to a document or overlay corrections to
propaganda from the other side.
o Responses to the MPAA FAQ
<http://eon.law.harvard.edu/cite/annotate.cgi?view=http://mpaa.org/faq.html> (045)
* HyperNews <http://hypernews.org> bulletin board
Message boards enable long-term exploration of topic "threads."
o Openlaw/DVD bulletin board
<http://eon.law.harvard.edu/HyperNews/get3/opendvd.html>
o Eldred v. Reno outline
<http://eon.law.harvard.edu/HyperNews/get3/openlaw.html>,
(login as guest, guest)
* Phorums threaded messaging (e.g. MS-DOJ discussion
<http://eon.law.harvard.edu/msdoj/discuss>)
* Rotisserie exchange of comments and responses
* Hosting of drafts and commentary (046)
Odds and ends: (047)
* Lawcite <http://eon.law.harvard.edu/cite/udrp.cgi> UDRP decision
linker
* LinkOut <http://eon.law.harvard.edu/cite/nolink.cgi>
* LinkItAll <http://eon.law.harvard.edu/linkit.html> (048)