Presentation introducing AnnoMarket which I gave at the Open Data Institute, Women in Data meetup, on 3rd December 2013

1. Extracting value from data:
Introducing AnnoMarket - the cloud-based text
annotation marketplace
Helen Lippell, Press Association
The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Community's
Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement n°296322”

2. Getting started
 AnnoMarket is a European research project
 PA part of a consortium with the University of Sheffield,
French start-up IMR and Bulgarian semantic specialists
Ontotext
 I work as a data wrangler within the PA technology team,
working with linked data curation and semantic modelling
 Agenda:
 Brief overview of text analytics
 Introducing the AnnoMarket platform
Women in Data: NLP edition, Open Data Institute, 3 December 2013
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3. Text analytics isn’t that new
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People have been trying to make sense of
unstructured data for a long time
Rosetta Stone an early use case!
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Experts compared patterns in the 3 texts and
eventually could identify entities in the previouslyincomprehensible hieroglyphics
This 1950s definition startlingly accurate:
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H.P. Luhn, IBM Journal, 1958:
"...utilize data-processing machines for auto- abstracting
and auto-encoding of documents for creating interest profiles
for each of the 'action points' in an organization. Both
incoming and internally generated documents are
automatically abstracted, characterized by a word pattern,
and sent automatically to appropriate action points”
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Now there’s an unprecedented buzz around
text analytics
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Big Data movement
Semantics gaining traction in business applications
Women in Data: NLP edition, Open Data Institute, 3 December 2013
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4. Who uses text analytics?
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Anyone who wants to derive value
from unstructured data at scale
Not just spooks…
Scientific and technical
Media and publishing
Open data community
Researchers
Data-driven businesses
Customer experience
Women in Data: NLP edition, Open Data Institute, 3 December 2013
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5. What text analytics can do
 Named entity recognition
 Disambiguation
 Eg Iceland!
 Entity types
 Eg People, places, things, organisations
 Relevance
 Pattern-identified entities
 Eg amounts of money, postcodes
 Co-occurrence
 Classification and categorisation
 Sentiment analysis
Women in Data: NLP edition, Open Data Institute, 3 December 2013
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6. AnnoMarket
 The marketplace -
An “App store” for text analysis services
 Breaking down barriers to entry for SMEs (developers and endusers alike)
 Built on robust, mature GATE applications (open-source with global
community supported by the University of Sheffield)
 Benefits to end-users
 Affordable, pay-for-what-you-need model
 SaaS, cloud-based
 Flexible input and output formats
 Benefits to suppliers
 Payments system
 Access to user base
 (A note on look and feel: It is basic at the moment!)
Women in Data: NLP edition, Open Data Institute, 3 December 2013
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7. Running an annotation job
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Find a service
Test it on site
Upload documents or
specify a custom crawl
Manage server (GATE
Teamware or Mimir)
Platform handles
execution of job, keeps
user updated
Download results or
export to a GATE Mimir
instance
Formats include XML,
HTML, PDF, DOC
- GATE Teamware – web-based
management platform for annotation
- GATE Mimir – open-source
framework for integrated semantic
search
Women in Data: NLP edition, Open Data Institute, 3 December 2013
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8. Uploading pipelines
 Straightforward process
 Standard components:
 Pipeline – GATE saved application state
 Supporting files (eg gazetteers)
 Metadata for the platform and user-facing pages
 Files checked then put live
 Platform tracks usage and handles payments
Women in Data: NLP edition, Open Data Institute, 3 December 2013
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9. AnnoMarket screenshots
Browsable portal
Tag-based filtering
Input config
Output config
Women in Data: NLP edition, Open Data Institute, 3 December 2013
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10. News pipeline tool
- Customised pipeline which annotates named entities in the news domain (optimised for the UK)
- Leverages PA’s knowledgebase and Linked Data references, also other entity types
Women in Data: NLP edition, Open Data Institute, 3 December 2013
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11. Get involved
 Public beta
 Register your interest now
 We’ll email when it’s open
 Free credit to early registrants
 Ultimate aim:
 A sustainable platform that generates revenue for
contributors who wouldn’t have an outlet otherwise
 Play with the platform
 Feed back to us – bugs, functionality, finding
resources, what more you’d like to see, etc!
Women in Data: NLP edition, Open Data Institute, 3 December 2013
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12. Get in touch
 Public beta – http://annomarket.com
 Project site – https://annomarket.eu
 @AnnoMarket
 helen.lippell@pressassociation.com
 @octodude
Women in Data: NLP edition, Open Data Institute, 3 December 2013
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