Mark-UP: Facilitating Reading Comprehension Through On-Line Collaborative Annotation

This paper describes the theoretical foundation, design philosophy, and development process for a product to assist in the development of students’ cognitive self-regulatory skills when engaging in reading activities at a tertiary level. Mark-UP is an on-line tool, developed using MySQL and PHP and delivered in an OS X server environment, to facilitate students’ engagement with academic texts. Students annotate, discuss, and add resources to on-line readings within a pedagogical framework of reciprocal teaching, designed to promote metacognition and develop students’ independent skills in reading and understanding academic texts.