Shakespeare Video Annotation Project
|
Peter Donaldson - LiteratureUnder the MIT-Microsoft iCampus Initiative, engineers from Microsoft research have collaborated with the MIT Shakespeare Electronic Archive, headed by Prof. Peter Donaldson in developing a next-generation text and video annotation system that allows students to compare multiple versions of Shakespeare plays in performance, annotate text or performance, and create on-line commentaries and discussions that can be shared remotely. The project builds on previous work at Microsoft on video annotation and on digital collections of texts, images and filmed performances of Shakespeare created by Donaldson's group in collaboration with the Folger Shakespeare library and other partners.
The Shakespeare Video Annotation System (SVAS) interface includes a scrolling text, two video windows with controls for locating material and defining segments, and a bulletin-board style annotation space which can be used individually to prepare multimedia notes, commentaries and annotations, or collaboratively for group work, class discussion, or one-on-one tutorials.
The Shakespeare Video Annotation System is an important step in making cross-media digital collections more useful in teaching and learning for the humanities. Initially used in the MIT Shakespeare class 21L009 , SVAS has now been used to support a distance seminar for the Shakespeare Association of America (April, 2001) and in Fall term classes in Shakespeare and in Literature and Film (21L435) at MIT. Plans are under way for collaborations involving Cambridge University and the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Work in the SVAS environment allows students to be as precise in their reference to moving image materials as to text, because video citations can be defined precisely and rapidly; it allows students to specify and illustrate wide-range of interpretive strategies in performance that are otherwise difficult to describe or communicate. SVAS supports the close reading of film and text in conjunction, and thus helps us to connect the study of the classics of the literary tradition to their adaptations in contemporary media as well as advancing the development of flexible annotation and collaboration tools that can be used in wide range of educational and other applications.
