TIARA is an interactive tool for annotating discourse and argumentative structure. Annotation tasks such as these, which are based on relations between large textual objects, are inherently hard to visualise without either cluttering the display and/or confusing the annotators. TIARA deals with the visual complexity during the annotation process by systematically simplifying the layout, and by offering interactive visualisation.
There are many great annotation tools available out there. However, some (if not many) require complicated steps (and dependencies) to install. Hence, people without a programming background may find it difficult to use them. TIARA considers the ease of use in mind, even for people without a programming background.
We designed the tool to be as generic as possible, that is, supporting a wide range of tasks. It can be used to annotate:
Tree-shaped discourse structure
Tree-shaped argumentative structure
Reordering sentences
Content editing.
Aspect (3) and (4) make this tool unique compared to existing tools. If you are a teacher, you can use this tool to analyse students' writing. You may then provide feedback, telling them where to improve their texts. Students then can directly revise their texts in TIARA. One of our team members came from an educational background and has used TIARA to analyse argumentative texts and encourage revisions. Please read our paper and the tool's manual for a more detailed explanation.
Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any question.