EasyTree: A Graphical Tool for Dependency Tree Annotation

Alexa Little, Stephen Tratz

Abstract
This paper introduces EasyTree, a dynamic graphical tool for dependency tree annotation. Built in JavaScript using the popular D3 data visualization library, EasyTree allows annotators to construct and label trees entirely by manipulating graphics, and then export the corresponding data in JSON format. Human users are thus able to annotate in an intuitive way without compromising the machine-compatibility of the output. EasyTree has a number of features to assist annotators, including color-coded part-of-speech indicators and optional translation displays. It can also be customized to suit a wide range of projects; part-of-speech categories, edge labels, and many other settings can be edited from within the GUI. The system also utilizes UTF-8 encoding and properly handles both left-to-right and right-to-left scripts. By providing a user-friendly annotation tool, we aim to reduce time spent transforming data or learning to use the software, to improve the user experience for annotators, and to make annotation approachable even for inexperienced users. Unlike existing solutions, EasyTree is built entirely with standard web technologies–JavaScript, HTML, and CSS–making it ideal for web-based annotation efforts, including crowdsourcing efforts.
Anthology ID:
L16-1371
Volume:
Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC'16)
Month:
May
Year:
2016
Address:
Portorož, Slovenia
Venue:
LREC
SIG:
Publisher:
European Language Resources Association (ELRA)
Note:
Pages:
2343–2347
Language:
URL:
https://aclanthology.org/L16-1371
DOI:
Bibkey:
Cite (ACL):
Alexa Little and Stephen Tratz. 2016. EasyTree: A Graphical Tool for Dependency Tree Annotation. In Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC'16), pages 2343–2347, Portorož, Slovenia. European Language Resources Association (ELRA).
Cite (Informal):
EasyTree: A Graphical Tool for Dependency Tree Annotation (Little & Tratz, LREC 2016)
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PDF:
https://preview.aclanthology.org/paclic-22-ingestion/L16-1371.pdf
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