Design and Development of the MERLIN Learner Corpus Platform

In this paper we report on the design and development of an online search platform for the MERLIN1 corpus of learner texts in Czech, German and Italian. It was created in the context of the MERLIN project, which aims at empirically illustrating features of the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) for evaluating language competences based on authentic learner text productions compiled into a learner corpus. Furthermore, the project aims at providing access to the corpus through a search interface adapted to the needs of multifaceted target groups involved with language learning and teaching. This article starts by providing a brief overview on the project ambition, the data resource and its intended target groups. Subsequently, the main focus of the article is on the design and development process of the platform, which is carried out in a user-centred fashion. The paper presents the user studies carried out to collect requirements, details the resulting decisions concerning the platform design and its implementation, and reports on the evaluation of the platform prototype and final adjustments.