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NEXT is a system that allows crowd-sourcing active learning. We cover some of the features NEXT provides in the Introduction section below, then start a dive into development docs.

Talk given by Lalit Jain that explains high level features of NEXT to active learning researchers:

After launching NEXT, be sure to visit [next-url]:8000/home which provides links further app argument documentation, the experiment list and dashboards!

• Introduction, which describes some of the motivation and features of NEXT

  • Introduction: an introduction to the NEXT system and how to use it for active learning experiments. This includes links to video that explain NEXT to active machine learning researchers.
  • NEXT overview including basic terminology, a basic overview of the 5 necessary functions, the built-in apps/interfaces and the folder layout.
  • Experiment Monitoring provides an overview of the tools NEXT provides to help you to monitor experiments in real time.

• Running NEXT. There are several options available to run NEXT available. visit http://[next-url]:8000/home! This provides more documentation, access to the dashboards and system monitors.

  • via local, the recommended method to debug
  • via EC2 AMI (the easiest option but doesn't allow customization)
  • via EC2 with an EC2 account quickstart

• Experiment launch, method to initialize an experiment.

  • Launch Basics which describes the files necessary to launch (and used below).
  • CLI launch. We also provide a detailed launch guide, launching from the command line
  • GUI Launch, launching from the built in GUI
  • Distributing the experiment

• Development basics, the dataflow and debug process

  • Basic-Algorithms a description of the 4 key functions needed
  • New-Application. Do you need to develop a new application or interface for your users? Read this first.
  • Detailed data flow: what gets called when with what arguments?
  • Debugging

• Development.

  • NEXT overview that we will use when describing the below points.
  • Locations of a particular app (what files live where?) and a description of each file.
  • Interface to the apps and the Algorithm-Interface.
  • Framework-Apps walks through app development and the necessary functions
  • Framework-Algs walks through algorithm development and the necessary functions
  • Dashboard development, including how to customize and view visualizations
  • Widgets or the user facing HTML
  • Testing, how we validate and time each algorithm
  • Summary
  • Checklist for developing your own app/alg in NEXT.

• Advanced Features

  • Using Redis: butler.memory
  • Diving a bit deeper: Celery workers

• Examples

  • Application-Example
  • Algorithm-Example
  • Butler-Example

• Reference

  • Butler-API
  • Base-Interface
  • Constants
  • Database Layout

• FAQ

• Crowdsourcing Tips

• Glossary