Social reading is considered to be one of the big trends that could be catalysing learning by reading. Features could include:
- Highlighting or annotating paragraphs or single steps in a proof for yourself (ok, this is not yet social reading), e.g. in a proof you could add to the sentence "Therefore we have ..." of the original work a more detailled explanation, thus "zooming in".
- Publishing those of your own annotations you consider helpful for others
- Reading all or a selection of the other reader's published annotations via a "show helpful annotations" button
- Thumbing up other's annotations.
- Asking questions to specific paragraphs or steps in a proof.
- Answering questions asked by others and thumbing up questions and answers.
- The original text would always keep the same, only being annotated
Thus all the insights or questions you have while reading a paper or a textbook could be shared with others and learning could be far more efficient. Authors of textbooks could take into account the annotations/questions/answers, thus optimizing their text in future editions (or developing different versions or an annotated version).
Questions: a) Is there any tool that can provide these features, e.g. LaTeX-tools or pdf-tools? b) Would the Math overflow be a good starting point to build such a platform? c) Does anybody know of such a platform that is already in place?
(Edit: Changed to community wiki)
