Interact with an Annotation Server (experimental)

It is now possible to upload annotations to a Web Annotation server that is compliant with the W3C Web Annotation data model and protocol (currently based on Elucidate Server). This can become another way of sharing your annotations with other researchers using ELAN or any other tool supporting the web annotation format and protocol. Once analysis and presentation tools become available for collections in a Web Annotation server, this features provides alternative ways of exploring your data. The format of this export is similar to the file based export to WebAnnotation JSON

Exporting to Annotation Server

To export annotations to the Annotation Server go to File > Annotation Server > Export Annotations to Server. The following window appears:

Figure 1.176. Export to Annotation Server

Export to Annotation Server


  1. Select the tiers you wish to export to the server
  2. Click the Export to Server button to start the export.
  3. At the end of the process a message window will show how many tiers and annotations have been exported.

    Figure 1.177. Export results

    Export results


Listing the Collection ID's from the server

Tiers that are exported to the Annotation Server are stored as AnnotationCollection's and are given a collection ID by the server. ELAN stores the mapping of tier name to collection id in a local database, per annotation document. With an ELAN document open, it is possible to see a listing of previously exported tiers by choosing File > Annotation Server > List Collection IDs from Server. A window appears showing the mapping:

Figure 1.178. List of Collection ID's

List of Collection ID's


Each tier can occur multiple times in the table, if it has been exported more than once. The collection ID and the creation date and time should be different in that case. The collection ID is a unique identifier which eventually will be one of the properties that can be used to retrieve the web annotations from the Annotation Server.