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textAnnotatoR: Interactive Text Annotation Tool for R

R-CMD-check CRAN status Lifecycle: experimental

Overview

textAnnotatoR is a comprehensive text annotation tool built with Shiny, designed to facilitate qualitative data analysis through an intuitive graphical user interface. It provides researchers, analysts, and qualitative data scientists with a robust environment for coding text documents, managing code hierarchies, creating memos, and analyzing coding patterns. The package supports collaborative research through standardized annotation formats and provides powerful tools for comparing two coding sets, analyzing code co-occurrences, and visualizing coding patterns.

Key Features

  • Interactive text selection and annotation
  • Hierarchical code organization with themes
  • Real-time memo creation and linking
  • Code co-occurrence analysis and visualization
  • Multi-coder comparison tools
  • Project management capabilities
  • Export options for annotated text and analysis results

Installation

You can install the development version of textAnnotatoR from GitHub using:

# Install textAnnotatoR
- From CRAN: 
install.packages('textAnnotatoR')
- From Github:
remotes::install_github("chaoliu-cl/textAnnotatoR")

Quick Start Example

Here’s a basic example of how to launch the annotation interface and start coding your text:

library(textAnnotatoR)

# Launch the annotation interface
annotate_gui()

This will open the Shiny application in your default web browser. From there, you can:

  1. Import your text document (supports .txt, .docx, and .pdf)
  2. Select text using the cursor tool
  3. Apply codes and create memos
  4. Organize codes into themes
  5. Analyze coding patterns and co-occurrences

Package Components

The package is structured around several main components:

Core Interface

  • annotate_gui(): The main function that launches the interactive interface
  • Project management tools for saving and loading annotation projects
  • Text import and display functionality

Code Management

  • Hierarchical code organization with themes
  • Code merging and renaming capabilities
  • Color-coded visualization of annotations

Analysis Tools

  • Code frequency analysis
  • Co-occurrence analysis with network and heatmap visualizations
  • Pattern recognition for code sequences
  • Multi-coder comparison tools

Export Capabilities

  • Export annotations in CSV or JSON format
  • Save annotated text with highlighting
  • Generate analysis reports and visualizations

Documentation

For more detailed information, please refer to the package vignettes:

# View available vignettes
browseVignettes("textAnnotatoR")

Key vignettes include: - Getting Started with textAnnotatoR - Managing Code Hierarchies - Analyzing Coding Patterns - Comparing Multiple Coders

Ecosystem Integration

textAnnotatoR is designed to work seamlessly with the broader R ecosystem for qualitative data analysis:

  • Imports text from common document formats using readtext
  • Utilizes data.tree for efficient hierarchy management
  • Leverages shiny and shinydashboard for the interactive interface
  • Integrates with DT for data display and manipulation

The package fills a gap in the R qualitative analysis ecosystem by providing a user-friendly GUI while maintaining programmatic access to all functionality.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request. For major changes, please open an issue first to discuss what you would like to change.

License

This project is licensed under the GPL-3 License - see the LICENSE file for details.

Citation

If you use textAnnotatoR in your research, please cite it as:

citation("textAnnotatoR")

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