The Public Comment Analysis Toolkit (PCAT) is a cloud computing platform. It enables efficient and scalable Web-based collaborative text analysis. PCAT uses automation, clustering, search, peer networks, credentials, an internal architecture for evaluation, and a streamlined annotation work flow to improve human judgments about text. This initial version of the system is specifically tailored to handle many forms of public comments submitted to US federal agencies during regulatory rulemaking and related public comment-generating activities. PCAT is a customizable platform for accurate, reliable and valid classification of any digitized text collection. Single users, expert teams, and wider crowd-sourced groups can browse, search, sift, sort, annotate and report on large collections of text data. In PCAT, the owner of the data (the person who uploads it) has complete control over who in the system can see or work with any particular archive or dataset. The same is true of every aspect of an individual user's credentials. Each PCAT user decides whether and to what extent to be a part of PCAT' public Directory of Peers. The goal of the directory is to create a network of expert and lay users who can collaborate to share data, findings and annotations.

1. Create a new account
   
2. Establish your credentials
3. Form a peer network
   
4. Create a new project
   
5. Upload FDMS public comment or other text data
   
6. De-duplicate an archive
   
7. Create clusters of similar comments
   
8. View archives that you have permission to work with
   
9. Browse an archive
   
10. Search for key concepts
    
11. Create buckets
    
12. Create datasets
    
13. Assign coders
    
14. Additional toolbox features
    
15. Code your data
    
16. Work with bookmarks
    
17. Validate the work of coders
    
18. Generate summary reports
    

• Read the press release from the official PCAT launch
  
• Visit http://pcat.qdap.net to register for a free account
  
• Watch the online tutorial (updated May 28, 2010)
  

Why would I use this system? | Where do I get FDMS bulk downloads? | Does PCAT identify duplicates? | What is QDAP?

© 2009 - 2010 Qualitative Data Analysis Program (QDAP), in the University Center for Social and Urban Research, at the University of Pittsburgh, and QDAP-UMass, in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. As of 2010, PCAT and this PCAT Help Wiki are maintained and improved by personnel from Texifter, LLC, which is a software start-up located in North Amherst & Springfield, MA and online at http://texifter.com.

Content on this website was made possible with the following grants from the National Science Foundation: III-0705566 “Collaborative Research III-COR: From a Pile of Documents to a Collection of Information: A Framework for Multi-Dimensional Text Analysis” and IIS-0429293 “Collaborative Research: Language Processing Technology for Electronic Rulemaking.” We are also grateful for financial support from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the National Science Foundation.

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