Helpful Tips

  • Logging in and using AVAnnotate requires a GitHub account.

  • AVAnnotate does not store uploaded media; instead, it references media files via URL or IIIF manifest. Collect the project’s audiovisual media URLs, file paths, and manifests in a document, preferably in a spreadsheet, before pasting them into AVAnnotate. See Audiovisual Material for a list of supported AV file paths/URL types, and AVAnnotate’s Privacy and Permissions Statement for information about GitHub’s privacy policies.

  • It is highly recommended that project authors create spreadsheets for events, tags, and annotations using spreadsheet software (Excel, Google Sheets, etc.) to upload before customizing a project via AVAnnotate’s Data Manager. See Spreadsheet Templates for spreadsheet templates, documentation, and examples.

  • GitHub can be slow and generating web pages can take time and be finicky. If uploading several unique annotation sets to a single project, it is recommended to upload one set at a time, build the associated project page(s), and assess if the page build has been successful before uploading more annotation sets. Once it is determined that tags and annotation pages are building successfully, users can toggle off Auto Generate Pages under a project’s Settings, make multiple changes, and toggle it back on when ready for the application to build the online project pages. See Projects for more information.

  • Tags are a powerful way for users to sort, filter, and discover annotations across an entire project. Tags should be clear, succinct, and triple-checked for typos and capitalization errors before adding them to a project. Ideally, tags and tag groups are uploaded before any annotations that use those tags.

See Frequently Asked Questions for answers to the most common questions about using AVAnnotate.