Marginalia is an open source Javascript web annotation system that allows users of web applications to highlight text and write margin notes. Marginalia has been integrated into several web applications:
- An extension to Moodle adds annotation to Moodle discussion forums.
- A plug-in for Open Journal Systems allows readers to annotate journal articles.
- Marginalia is part of the Bungeni parliamentary and legislative information system.
- A stand-alone demo implementation provides a minimal sample implementation as a demonstration of how to integrate Marginalia with other web applications.
The annotation feature supports recent versions of major browsers (Firefox, Safari, and IE), but works best and fastest in Firefox. The features are integrated into and work with a host web application with no need for special browser or other client software.
If you have seen other web annotation systems (e.g. Diigo), Marginalia is different. First because it actually displays annotations in a margin next to the annotated text, which is highlighted; second because of its close integration into the host application. For example, Marginalia uses your login name and permissions from the application. In Moodle, Marginalia can search for and filter annotations by discussion, by forum, by course, and by user, and there's a button that will paste an annotation (author, quote, margin note) into a forum post reply or start a new post if necessary.
Note that as of December 2008 Marginalia includes significant feature changes, such as support for Internet Explorer and the quote feature mentioned above. It is currently in Beta. It is in need of testing and likely has bugs, especially when it comes to upgrading existing annotations. I appreciate anyone who is willing to take the time to try it out. You can reach me with questions and bug reports at email geof geof net (add appropriate punctuation: @ and .). I also appreciate hearing from anyone who installs it successfully and finds it useful.
Check the ReleaseNotes page for bugs fixed in the latest release.
