From paper-and-pen annotations to artefact-based mobile learning

Making annotations on books and learning materials is part of students' everyday life. Although there are many computer-based annotation systems, many people prefer to print digital documents and make annotations on physical paper. We introduce a classification scheme for computer-based annotation systems and provide an overview of different systems using this scheme. During our investigations, we identified several shortcomings in existing annotation systems: limitation to single document formats, no capturing of relations to reflect lateral reading, loss of context information an annotation was created in and limited sharing capabilities among collaborative users. To overcome these shortcomings, we introduce the concepts of Anchor Points, Artefacts and Spaces. Anchor Points define locations in arbitrary documents. Artefacts capture annotations on multiple Anchor Points in several documents, allowing students to map their current working context that typically contains several open documents and a relationship between them. Spaces are repositories for the learning materials and annotations that are automatically replicated among collaborative mobile users.