Augmenting Scholarly Reading with Cross-Media Annotations

TL;DR

This paper explores a new cross-media annotation tool that enhances scholarly reading by linking PDFs with diverse media like audio, video, and web pages, aiming to improve understanding and collaboration.

Contribution

It introduces a novel design for a cross-media annotation tool that supports multiple media types, expanding beyond traditional PDF annotations.

Findings

Design exploration of a cross-media annotation system

Potential to enrich scholarly reading practices

Supports linking PDFs with multimedia content

Abstract

Scholarly reading often involves engaging with various supplementary materials beyond PDFs to support understanding. In practice, scholars frequently incorporate such external materials into their reading workflow through annotation. However, most existing PDF annotation tools support only a limited range of media types for embedding annotations in PDF documents. This paper investigates cross-media annotation as a design space for augmenting academic reading. We present a design exploration of a cross-media annotation tool that allows scholars to easily link PDF content with other documents and materials such as audio, video or web pages. The proposed design has the potential to enrich reading practices and enable scholars to guide and support other researchers' reading experiences.