merge EAF files
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merge EAF files
Hi,
We have a use case where multiple coders (humans) annotate the same Elan file at the same time (basically for reliability evaluation). The Elan files have quite a number of tiers (up to 20). So the solution for coder-reliability test would be to rename all tiers in one file, then merge the files by importing these renamed tiers into the other file, and then run the comparison ...
Since we have a number of coders, this process is rather laborious. Also, every now and then we extend the annotation template, or share the annotation by multiple coders or we generate annotations for some tiers externally. So, what we need is a tool, which merges multiple Elan files.
Since I couldn't find an efficient way for doing this using Elan alone (I might have missed something, though), I built a small tool, which does exactly this. By means of a mapping table the names of tiers within the files are changed and the resulting eaf-file then contains all tiers from all source files but now with the new names. The mapping table is basically a csv-text file.
Let me know if someone is interested and I am happy to share it. It actually might be useful for some.
btw: The tool uses Elan's classes for parsing and writing the eaf-files.
Cheers
Thomas
Re: merge EAF files
Concerning this use case there are a few things that we plan to do in ELAN:
- add an option to the Merge Transcriptions feature to rename all tiers that are being imported e.g. by adding a prefix or suffix to the tier name. So that manually renaming tiers won't be necessary anymore.
- extend the Multiple File Edit function by allowing to add depending tiers as well. Now this function can be used to add, remove and rename tiers and types and modify tier properties in multiple files.
But this may still not be enough to meet all needs so it will be very useful to have tools and utilities created by others available for the community. There are two ways to achieve this in which we can play a role:
- we can add your software to our "third party resources" page (http://www.lat-mpi.eu/tools/elan/thirdparty). It'll need a bit of a description of what the tool does and ideally the download package contains some instructions for the user.
- we could integrate the software in ELAN if it is generic enough and if it is ok with you
Either way, contributions like these are much appreciated.
-Han
Release of ELAN 4.3.0
