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Annotation Management in an XML CMS

A Case Study

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Who is this guy?

• David Price– Consultant for Isogen International, LLC– Technical lead on this project– Experienced in content management

system implementation, customization, and tool integration

– Focused on implementations and practical applications

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Presentation Goals

• To describe an instance of annotation management within a large CMS

• Demonstrate what can be done with annotating XML, and how

• To show what it took us, resource and time-wise, to implement it

• To present lessons that were learned in the development process

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What is an annotation?

• Annotations are a kind of metadata with three distinguishing characteristics:– Fine granularity– Created and viewed outside the normal

authoring process– Stored and managed separately from the

annotated content

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Why manage annotations?

• Changing / Versioned content• Access Controls• Speed• Special Applications

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What does this have to do with XML?

• XML lends itself particularly well to annotation for several reasons:– Structured content– Human-readable, machine parsable– Existing linking technologies– Broad tool set

• The system as built exploits these properties

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System Requirements

• A tool for reviewers to add annotations to content over the web

• A tool for authors to read and respond to annotations made by reviewers

• Integration of both tools with process workflow

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• Annotation must work in a versioned environment

• Limited time frame and resources

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Environment

• Documentum 4i / Oracle as a CMS

• Arbortext Epic 4.2 as an editor

• iPlanet 4 as a web application server

• Custom link management solution

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Environment (cont.)

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Language

• Java was decided on as the language of choice for three reasons:

– Familiarity with the language

– Available APIs and a Java-friendly environment

– Availability of Java XML tools

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Difficulties

In this case, there were only two difficult problems:

– Managing the relationship between annotations and content

– Integrating annotation management with workflow

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Linking == Annotation

• Any content that is linkable can be annotated

• Annotation has all of the problems associated with link management

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<task name=“blah” objectId=“AGXxF192rU”>

<step objectId=“G9fc83UIcD13”>

<para>Blah! Blah blah

blah blha blhab</para>

</step>

<step objectId=“889GkwlE9”>

<para>BLAH! BLAH!</para>

</step>

</task>

Annotation

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Architecture & Implementation

Annotation Manager Core

Annotation Manager GUI

Annotation Manager Web

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Annotation Manager Core

• Handles the creation, deletion, modification, and querying of annotations

• Consists of abstract classes, interfaces, and specific implementations

• Abstraction of the core was intended to allow multiple back-end implementations, but was only partially successful

• Poor integration of workflow damaged the abstraction

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Web Interfaces

• A set of Java Servlets that allow access to the annotation manager

• Provides a web interface to the core components, along with basic access controls

• Includes a SAX application to transform XML documents within the system into reviewer-friendly HTML on the fly, including transclusions

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Java Interfaces

• A Java Swing application with some Epic-specific customizations

• Allowed authors to search for and view annotations on the document currently being edited

• Did not permit editing of the annotation beyond workflow state changes

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Project Timeline

• Project began in Mid-September, 2001• System was substantially complete by

mid-October• First client review – 17 October 2001• Second client review – 9 November

2001• Code Complete – 19 November 2001• Installed at the client site one week later

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Implementation

• Project started in mid September of 2001

• Two core team members, with a third programmer being brought in to write the SAX portion of the web interface

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• Work was started simultaneously on the Core components and web interfaces.

• Once the core interfaces were defined, an initial implementation based on MS Access was built, which was used for testing while the Documentum implementation was still in progress

• A significant amount of this time was devoted to learning the APIs needed to access the CMS

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Successes

• Completed two weeks ahead of schedule

• Completed under budget• Customer was satisfied with product

and used it for the duration of the project

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Failures

• Code reusability• User interface look and feel• Extensibility of system• Use of SAX for dynamic rendering of

documents• Workflow interaction too rigid

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Improvements / Extensions

• Refactor code for re-use and multiple databases

• Abstract workflow• Use XML for annotation content as well• Improve user interface• Use a more agile development process

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Conclusions

• Adding a customized annotation solution to a CMS is not necessarily a difficult task

• If a linking solution is in place, the main work of an annotation system is done. Creating an annotation system means creating a link manager

• More customer interaction is better

• Workflow might not be as trivial as it seems

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Questions & Contact Info

David Price

davidp@isogen.com

+1 214.954.5107