Getting Started
Introduction to the Universal Annotation Tool
Overview
The Universal Annotation Tool is a comprehensive platform for creating, managing, and collaborating on text annotations. It supports multiple annotation types including entities, relations, events, and attributes, making it ideal for NLP research, data labeling, and knowledge extraction projects.
Built with modern web technologies, the tool provides a seamless experience for annotators, reviewers, and administrators working on annotation projects of any scale.
Quick Start
1. Sign Up
Create an account by clicking the "Sign Up" button on the homepage. You can sign up with your email address.
2. Create an Organization
After signing up, you'll be prompted to create an organization. This is your workspace where you'll manage collections, documents, and team members.
3. Create a Collection
Collections help you organize related documents. Click "Create Collection" on your dashboard to get started.
4. Upload Documents
Upload text files, PDFs, or DOCX documents to your collection. You can also paste text directly into the editor.
5. Create Annotation Configuration
As an admin, create an annotation configuration to define entity types, relation types, and other annotation schemas.
6. Start Annotating
Open a document and start annotating by selecting text and choosing an entity type. Use keyboard shortcuts for faster annotation.
Key Concepts
Organizations
Organizations are the top-level workspace containers. Each organization has its own collections, documents, annotation configurations, and team members. Users belong to one organization and can only access resources within their organization.
Collections
Collections are groups of related documents. They help organize your annotation projects. Collections can be public (visible to all organization members) or private (only accessible to the owner and explicitly shared members).
Documents
Documents contain the text you want to annotate. They can be uploaded as files (TXT, PDF, DOCX) or created by pasting text directly. Documents support versioning, so you can track changes over time.
Annotation Configurations
Annotation configurations define the schema for your annotations. They specify which entity types, relation types, event types, and attribute types are available. Configurations are versioned, allowing you to track schema evolution.
Annotation Sets
Annotation sets are collections of annotations on a single document. Multiple annotation sets can exist on the same document, allowing different annotators to work independently or for comparison purposes.
Entity Annotations
Entity annotations mark named entities in text (e.g., PERSON, ORGANIZATION, LOCATION). They can span single or multiple discontinuous text spans. Each annotation is linked to an entity type defined in the annotation configuration.
Roadmap
The Universal Annotation Tool is actively being developed. Current features include:
- ✅ User authentication and management
- ✅ Organization and collection management
- ✅ Document upload and management
- ✅ Annotation configuration management
- ✅ Entity annotation creation and editing
- ✅ Multi-span entity annotations
- ✅ Keyboard shortcuts and undo/redo
Upcoming features include:
- Relation annotations
- Event annotations
- Attribute annotations
- Annotation tasks and workflows
- Inter-annotator agreement
- AI-powered annotation suggestions
- Export to various formats (BRAT, CoNLL, JSON)
Community
We welcome contributions and feedback! If you encounter issues or have feature requests, please reach out through the appropriate channels.
For technical documentation and development guides, see the Development Guide.