Open Access

This paper presents NLP Lean Programming framework (NLPf), a new framework for creating custom natural language processing (NLP) models and pipelines by utilizing common software development build systems. This approach allows developers to train and integrate domain-specific NLP pipelines into their applications seamlessly. Additionally, NLPf provides an annotation tool which improves the annotation process significantly by providing a well-designed GUI and sophisticated way of using input devices. Due to NLPf’s properties developers and domain experts are able to build domain-specific NLP applications more efficiently. NLPf is Opensource software and available at https:// gitlab.com/schrieveslaach/NLPf.

Often, research results from collaboration projects are not transferred into productive environments even though approaches are proven to work in demonstration prototypes. These demonstration prototypes are usually too fragile and error-prone to be transferred easily into productive environments. A lot of additional work is required. Inspired by the idea of an incremental delivery process, we introduce an architecture pattern, which combines the approach of Metrics Driven Research Collaboration with microservices for the ease of integration. It enables keeping track of project goals over the course of the collaboration while every party may focus on their expert skills: researchers may focus on complex algorithms, practitioners may focus on their business goals. Through the simplified integration (intermediate) research results can be introduced into a productive environment which enables getting an early user feedback and allows for the early evaluation of different approaches. The practitioners’ business model benefits throughout the full project duration.