[RNLD] Current best practices of presenting ELAN based annotations online

[Meikal Mumin]

Hi everyone,

I've been looking to show online some annotations in the ELAN format of
(for now audio only) files to select people, and I've been wondering what
is currently the preferred way of doing that using a web browser. I found
the following solutions, but maybe you could add to it, and provide some
feedback if you have made use of those solutions or if you are aware of
further methods:


   - CuPED ('Customizable Presentation of ELAN Documents')

http://sweet.artsrn.ualberta.ca/cdcox/cuped/
The application seems to be work, but the clickable elements do not work in
my browsers, and units are not correctly aligned, where the ELAN file has
split up glossings into two tiers (A_morph-gls-en & A_morph-glsAppend-en -
default export behaviour of FLEX for variant forms, such as portmanteau
morphemes). Judging from the changelog, this might not be developed anymore
- I contacted the developers anyhow but haven't received a reply as of yet.



   - wavesurfer.js

http://wavesurfer-js.org/
Seems the most modern solution, without the need for plugins, but I was
unable to find the documentation regarding the ELAN API (It was developed
by a Russian team of researchers, and their website is in Russian, which I
don't understand), and I would have to manually write some Javascript and
HTML...



   - Ethnographic E-Research Online Presentation System (EOPAS)

http://www.eopas.org/
>From the first look, this seems to force users to submit files under a CC
license or as public domain, but for now I would like to just present
things to select individuals, without committing to a particular license



   - http://ideophone.org/subtitles-in-elan-and-beyond/

In 2009, Mark Dingemanse blogged about creating subtitles from ELAN
annotations. ELAN seems to have such capabilities out of the box by now,
however this requires plugins for display in a browser or a download of
files. AFAIK and more importantly, subtitles are simple and cannot show
aligned multi-layered annotations.



   - Languages Archive Cologne & Cologne Language Archive Services (CLASS)

https://lac.uni-koeln.de/de/ & http://class.uni-koeln.de/webapp/

Accidentally, a different research unit of my own university seems to be in
the process of developing a language archive, which features some kind of
waveform rendering of .eaf files based on wavesurfer.js (e.g.
https://lac.uni-koeln.de/de/node/MPI6927/#, as well as
http://class.uni-koeln.de/webapp/elan_player/). However, in the case of LAC
this seems to be restricted to materials deposited with them, and a quick
test shows it is less reliable and the interface less simple than e.g.
CuPED or the wavesurfer.js demo. Meanwhile CLASS seems to access data
stored in the browser, with no possibility to share such presentations,
plus I couldn't really figure out all elements of the interface (which
probably means that other users won't get it either). Regarding LAC,
without having tested the system, I don't know about any obligations
regarding access right and accessibility. I contacted the developers anyhow
but haven't received a reply as of yet.


So those are the solutions I could find. CuPED still seems to be the
simplest way, but it is not fully compatible with modern browsers, and has
occasional problems. wavesurfer.js and solutions based on that seem to be
the future, but for now there seems to be no simple way of using them
without writing HTML & Javascript.

But maybe readers of this list know of further solutions or work-arounds
for the described issues.

Best wishes,

Meikal
--
Meikal Mumin, M.A.

http://www.afrikanistik.phil-fak.uni-koeln.de/mumin.html

Institute for African Studies and Egyptology
Section African Studies
University of Cologne
Germany
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