Below are a few comments about MarkUp, a web annotation tool - 1/3/2022 - Brad Skopyk
In the last few days, I spent some time with a number of platforms that are designed to record feedback on webpages.
My primary objective was to record comments on undergraduate (college-level) student work that was submitted as a web page. The ability to copyedit was not important. Rather, I am interested in providing feedback on higher-level tasks such as composition, argument, research, and design. Additionally, a markup tool would be very useful for group collaboration projects, within or outside of course work. Ideally, I wanted something that could satisfy all these conditions:
Markup the web page (i.e. highlight/identify assets/referents on the web page)
Provide feedback with typed notes, stylus, and/or video/audio
Archive feedback (i.e. keep a record of markups and comments even when the assets have moved or have been deleted)
Simple to use
Simple to sign up
Free without cost
Non-Monetized
Shareable with certain persons, groups, or with the public at large
Exportable
This was a major wish list. I researched many different platforms and tried a select few of them, namely:
I can say that the winner, by a long shot, was 'MarkUp'. It doesn't accomplish everything on my wish list, but it does most of it except being exportable and except being compatible with a stylus.
MarkUp is simple, absolutely free without any marketing or intent to monetize, and is slick and professional, not to mention incredibly speedy. The basic function is to leave numbered dots on a web page that are associated with text, images, links, and even videos that you offer as feedback to students. This is then shared with stakeholders (authors, web designers, research collaborators, etc.) who are invited as collaborators. Markups can be added to web pages, pdfs or images (the latter two must be uploaded).
Best of all, in my opinion, is that the Chrome extension (which is not required but which enhances functionality) takes a contextualized screenshot of the place in the paper to which your feedback is referencing. As such, an archive of the project's evolution is preserved.
Almost as good, the platform allows you to record video/audio recordings of feedback that can include a video of your screen (similar to Zoom screen share). This means that you can talk and walk through the student's work, scrolling and highlighting to make your points. Video is attached to specific markups. This powerful functionality is achieved with integration with Loom.
Finally, markups are stored per webpage/pdf/image-collection (which MarkUp calls 'projects') which are then collected in 'workspaces'. So, you can create a workspace for each course, project, or group of collaborators and invite them to join the workspace. In my case, I plan to ask undergraduates to create the workspaces themselves and to send me an invitation to join the workspace. Again, in my case, giving each student a workspace helps to organize the mess of markups that will result from giving feedback to multiple students, for multiple assignments, in multiple courses.
I should note that my research was far from exhaustive. Nevertheless, MarkUp seems to accomplish the task well. MarkUp will work well for UG courses and even better for actual DH collaborations. I plan to use it in both my UG course and my grad course this term.