Image Annotation – Key Use Cases, Technologies, and Types [2024]

expertise

One of the key factors to consider is the expertise of the vendor or team you are hiring for your machine learning project. The team you choose should have the most hands-on experience with data annotation tools, technologies, domain knowledge, and working experience across multiple industries.

In addition to the technical aspects, you also need to implement workflow optimization methods to ensure smooth collaboration and consistent communication. To understand better, ask questions about the following aspects:

• Projects similar to yours among the projects they have worked on previously
• The years of experience they have
• An arsenal of tools and resources to deploy for annotation
• How to ensure consistent data annotation and on-time delivery
• How comfortable and prepared are you in terms of project scalability, etc.

Data Quality

Data quality has a direct impact on the outcome of your project. Years of hard work, networking, and investment depend on the performance of your modules before they are released. So make sure that the vendor you are working with provides the highest quality data set for your project. To give you a better idea, here is a simple guide to follow.

• How does your vendor measure data quality? What are the standard metrics?
• Details of our quality assurance protocols and complaints handling process
• How do they ensure that knowledge is transferred from one team member to another?
• Can data quality be maintained as volumes increase?

Communication and Collaboration

Delivering high-quality results doesn’t always mean smooth collaboration. It also involves good communication and maintaining good relationships. You can’t work with a team that doesn’t provide updates throughout the collaboration process or that suddenly delivers projects on deadlines without you being able to keep them out of the loop.

That’s why balance is essential, and you need to pay close attention to their behavior and overall attitude toward collaboration. So ask them about their communication style, their adaptability to changes in instructions and requirements, their willingness to scale back on project requirements, etc. to ensure a smooth journey for both parties involved.

Terms and Conditions of the Agreement

In addition to these aspects, there are some inevitable angles and elements in terms of legality and regulation. These include pricing terms, duration of collaboration, terms and conditions of association, assignment and specification of job roles, clearly defined boundaries, etc.

Before you sign the contract, make sure you have everything in order. To give you a better idea, here are some things to consider.

• Ask about payment terms and pricing models. Ask if the pricing is per hour or per note.
• Are payments made monthly, weekly or bi-weekly?
• Impact of pricing model when project guidelines or scope of work change

Scalability

Your business will grow in the future and the scope of your projects will expand exponentially. In such cases, you need to be confident that your supplier can provide the volume of labeled images your business requires at scale.

Do they have enough talent in-house? Are they exhausting all data sources? Can they customize the data according to their unique requirements and use cases? These aspects ensure that the vendor can pivot when more data is needed.