Frequently Asked Questions
- What is ATI?
- ATI, or Annotation for Transparent Inquiry, is a form of annotation that facilitates transparency in qualitative research. For more information on ATI, check out our documentation on the QDR website at https://qdr.syr.edu/ati .
- What is Anno-REP?
- Anno-REP is an open-source, web-based tool developed by QDR that facilitates ATI and other annotation-based workflows. For more information on Anno-REP, check out our documentation here or the introduction on the Anno-REP website
- What advantages does ATI have over traditional footnotes and endnotes?
- Because footnotes and endnotes are a permanent part of your manuscript, their use comes with practical limitations. For example, longer annotations may adversely affect your word count, and publishers' choices to limit or relegate your footnotes/endnotes may threaten the transparency of your work. As a supplement to traditionally-limited footnotes and endnotes, ATI allows authors to more freely explain, digress, cite, share, and link in ways that can bolster an author's transparency and credibility without the drawbacks of traditional citations. ATI annotations are also closely linked to any underlying data or materials to help you further enhance the transparency of your work.
- How do I know what information should go in a footnote versus an ATI annotation?
- It depends on your personal choice as an author. For example, authors who usually keep their footnotes concise may find that ATI provides an previously-inaccessible opportunity to expand and explain that the otherwise might not have had. On the other hand, authors who usually write long footnotes might find ATI to be a suitable replacement, either to save space in the manuscript or to expand even further on existing footnotes.
- Can I update my manuscript after starting to annotate it in Anno-REP?
- Yes! You can re-upload your manuscript in Anno-REP at any time, and your annotations will be preserved. If extensive edits are made, some annotations may become “orphaned”; simply copy and paste their contents into a new annotation to re-attach them.
- For best results, you may choose to begin annotating in the later stages of drafting your manuscript rather than sooner.
- If <em>all</em> of your annotations become orphaned on re-upload, try toggling the Hypothes.is application off and on.
- Yes! You can re-upload your manuscript in Anno-REP at any time, and your annotations will be preserved. If extensive edits are made, some annotations may become “orphaned”; simply copy and paste their contents into a new annotation to re-attach them.
- How many annotations is the correct amount?
- This is up to the author's discretion: existing projects range from 10 to more than 100. We suggest the following guidelines as you annotate:
- The manuscript should never be dependent on ATI. ATI should always be supplementary; anything critical to the paper should go in the main body as not all readers (or reviewers) will read the annotations.
- Try to avoid repetition in annotations. Unlike footnotes, for example, you don't necessarily need to link to a source multiple times, even if it appears more than once in the paper.
- Feel free to experiment with annotations. ATI can be used for both authors’ and readers’ benefit in a number of different ways. Multiple types of ATI can be, and often are, combined in a single annotation.
- This is up to the author's discretion: existing projects range from 10 to more than 100. We suggest the following guidelines as you annotate:
Anno-REP Troubleshooting
- The links to get my API tokens don't work.
- Make sure you're logged in to both QDR and Hypothes.is through their websites before you try obtaining the API tokens.
- Alternatively, follow the detailed instructions here to manually navigate to the keys.
- As a last resort, try clearing your browser cookies/cache and re-logging in to the website you're having trouble with.
- The annotations that I uploaded do not appear on Anno-REP, or they all appear orphaned.
- Make sure that the Hypothes.is extension is enabled, that it is active for the page you are on, and that you are logged in.
- Try clicking the Hypothes.is browser extension button off and on to toggle the extension. This sometimes fixes missing annotations.
- If you see the "Sign up/Log in" button on the Hypothes.is sidebar, try clicking it even if you think you are logged in already.
- The annotations that I uploaded lose some formatting when they appear on Anno-REP
- Because of limitations with the Hypothes.is application and differences between that and other word processors, such as Microsoft Word, some formatting loss may occur on upload. Some formatting may need to be manually fixed on Anno-REP after upload.