Managing Groups and Group Annotations in MADCOW

An important feature for annotation systems of Web pages is the possibility to create and manage users groups focused on specific topics. This allows the users belonging to a given group to access both meta information (annotations) and information (related Web pages) in order to establish a common shared knowledge. The increasingly complex activities involved in the life cycle of a group (e.g. e-learning groups, students groups, scientific groups) have highlighted the need for advanced tools supporting heterogeneous operations, such as: research of authoritative contributors, trust evaluation of Web page contents, research of relevant additional digital resources, research of related groups, and so on. While most annotations systems have ordinary group functionalities (e.g. searching, invitation, sharing), MADCOW 2.0 offers a proof of concept for advanced group management, based on trust and content’s research criteria, aimed at supporting group formation and enlargement policies.