Annotation Services – Outsourcing, Crowdsourcing and Freelancing – Pros and Cons

Imagine the scenario: you have a brilliant concept for a new AI development. It might be a tiny start up idea or a multi-million project. The challenge is the execution, how will you make your vision a reality?

This choice might determine whether your concept succeeds or fails. And this is where it acts as the tip of the iceberg regarding how the project will come out. AI projects requires trained data and almost all the time the data is not available readily. You need to annotate data for your business concept and which demands high human work force. The choices are hire and use your own team or outsource to a professional annotation company or use crowdsource teams or engage freelancers to accomplish the task. Who should be selected? Many things influence the outcome.

One of the most crucial procedures in any machine learning or artificial intelligence project is data annotation. It involves preparing essential training datasets by labeling or tagging the necessary information for the robots to learn. Because there are many sorts of data annotations that may be done, depending on the organization’s needs and requirements that are generating it. Annotating datasets is a time-consuming operation, which is why many companies opt to outsource it. In this post, we’ll go through all of the benefits and drawbacks of using the various models, be it in-house, outsourced, crowdsourced or freelancers for the data annotation projects.

In most cases, data annotation projects are implemented using one of three methods if you are not using your own, in-house teams.

·        ‌Outsourcing data annotation to a service provider

·        ‌Crowdsourcing

·        ‌Freelancing

OUTSOURCING ANNOTATIONS

Outsourcing your data annotation duties is a much better option since you can get more annotation work done for less money. You will not have to pay for additional office space, recruiting fees, or other overhead expenditures because the labor cost is meager. Additionally, an experienced service provider shall help you through the implementation process by providing best-practice insights based on years of successfully implementing data annotation projects. Let’s get deeper into data annotation outsourcing.

Furthermore, the approach provides:

‌ « Excellent flexibility.

‌ « Ease of establishing an agile workflow.

‌ « Reduced reaction times when something has to be fixed quickly.

PROS :

«  ‌A high degree of annotation accountability;

«  ‌Errors are quickly corrected;

«  ‌Personal commitment to the process and final product;

«  ‌Good results are predictable, and you have control over the process.

«  ‌Cost-cutting possibilities

«  ‌Improved scalability

«  ‌Availability at all times

«  ‌Internal prejudice is minimized.

«  ‌Data security is enhanced.

CONS

·        ‌Difficulty picking the best service provider with so many options.

·        ‌Linguistic challenges may arise.

·        ‌Complete annotation control cannot be obtained.

CROWDSOURCING ANNOTATIONS

Why waste time on recruitment when you can use a crowdsourcing platform to get right to work? Crowdsourcing has been around for a long and has just been given a new moniker. Many such crowdsourcing platforms even offer big prizes for solving an issue. Yet, the cost is less compared to hiring your own team.

Companies currently hire in-house annotation teams and publicize the challenges they’re working on in the hopes of receiving assistance from anybody. Or say crowdsourcing is an excellent alternative for organizations that can’t afford to hire their annotation team. When using this method, knowing how to pick a crowdsourcing partner is crucial. The following are some points to think about its benefits and drawbacks when considering it.

PROS

«  ‌Quick and cost-effective.

«  ‌Structured approach.

«  A larger pool of options.

«  Wider knowledge.

«  Equality in entries.

CONS

·        Poor quality

·        Data spinning

·        Hidden charges

·        Communications voids.

FREELANCING ANNOTATIONS

You may hire data labelers worldwide as freelancing annotators are highly available at a lower cost. And it is one of the most cost-effective methods that allows you to label data quickly. But what matters, in the end, is the worker’s productivity and quality assurance may differ from one individual to the next. As a result, when hiring a freelance annotator, it’s a good check their previous experience and the tools they can use for annotations. Like let’s look for the pros and cons as follows

PROS

«  ‌Flexibility to engage more freelancers

«  ‌Cost-effective

«  ‌Work under control

CONS

·        ‌Poorer quality annotation

·        ‌It can be risky at times

·        ‌Undependable

·        Data Security

The verdict!

As you can see, there are several things to consider when choosing an annotation service. Depending on your needs and constraints you can select the option. However, outsourcing is a preferable option. Working with them in a professional setting will allow you to work with a specialized team to annotate a large volume of material, such as texts, videos, and photos, with the most significant degree of accuracy. With scalable and comprehensive security for a low-cost, dependable annotation solution, outsourcing is a reliable source for all your annotation needs.

We will provide great support for all your Annotation needs. We are expertise in various types of annotations.

Our Website: www.annotationsupport.com

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