[annotator-dev] Integrating with Moodle for collaborative PDF annotation?

Tue Nov 4 15:00:57 UTC 2014

Hey Hari,

Hypothes.is uses a fork of AnnotatorJS that provides PDF annotation:
http://hypothes.is/

We're working to upstream our changes and plugins and hope to make
them available for Annotator 2.0.

On the Moodle front, Moodle 2.6 ships with PDF Annotation. Here's the
intro video to PDF Annotation in Moodle 2.6:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgsA-9qMBdY

It's more limited (from what I can tell) than what's provided in the
Hypothes.is app and code:
http://github.com/hypothesis/h

A simple option (perhaps) is to use the pdf.js+hypothes.is project
which is some simple static HTML, JavaScript, and CSS app that can be
added to any website:
https://github.com/hypothesis/pdf.js-hypothes.is

You could reconfigure it to use your own hosted copy of hypothes.is
(aka "h") or use the public hypothes.is service (depending on your use
case needs).

Hosting it looks like uploading the static files in the `viewer`
directory in that repo alongside your  Moodle installation (as a
plugin, or anywhere under the same domain name). Then add links within
Moodle (perhaps with a plugin) to link uploaded PDFs to the viewer.

For instance (theoretic example):
 - moodle.example.org <-- main moodle site
 - moodle.example.org/annotate/ <-- folder that pdf.js+hypothes.is lives in
 - moodle.example.org/annotate/?file=/uploads/reading.pdf <-- viewer
loads PDF uploaded via Moodle

Afaik, Moodle uses cookie authentication, so the viewer will send the
same cookies when retrieving the PDF from the Moodle URL, so all the
permissions stuff from Moodle would apply.

The one "hard part" is getting links added to the Moodle UI. If you
have someone in your department who's built basic Moodle plugins, this
should be fairly trivial.

If you make one, we'd be happy to help promote your work and encourage
others to use it!

We're continuing to push all our AnnotatorJS related code back
upstream, so we can all benefit from the the combined efforts we're
making. :)

Thanks for bringing this topic up, Hari!
Benjamin
--
http://hypothes.is/

On Wed, Oct 29, 2014 at 1:42 PM, Hari Kumar <hkumar at amherst.edu> wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> I’m looking to use annotatorjs for collaborative PDF annotation within
> Moodle. The use case is for college courses where an instructor uploads PDF
> readings into a Moodle course and asks students to collaboratively annotate
> the readings according to various criteria. For example, students could add
> a comment or question on a specific page of the PDF (such as at a paragraph
> or on a chart) and respond to other marked up comments in the PDF.
>
> Does anyone know if there is an annotatorjs plugin for Moodle and/or PDF
> annotation? Has anyone worked on such a plugin or use case?
>
> Thanks! Take care,
> hari
>
> —
> hari stephen kumar
> Instructional Designer
> Academic Technology Services
> Amherst College
> 413-542-2578
> Twitter: @hariteach
>
>
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