LINGUIST List 8.607

Sat Apr 26 1997

Calls: Speech and Language Technology (SALT)

Editor for this issue: Ljuba Veselinova <ljubalinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Robert John Gaizauskas, Speech and Language Technology (SALT) Club Workshop on EVALUATION IN

		 SPEECH AND LANGUAGE TECHNOLOGY

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 *** OF ELECTRONIC SUBMISSION PLEASE RESUBMIT ***


 2nd Call for Abstracts
 and
 Registration Information

 Speech and Language Technology (SALT) Club Workshop
 on

 EVALUATION IN SPEECH AND LANGUAGE TECHNOLOGY

 June 17-18, 1997
 Halifax Hall, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

 Sponsored by
 Department of Trade and Industry
 and
 Institute for Language Speech and Hearing (ILASH)
 and
 Department of Computer Science
 University of Sheffield

Evaluation is now an issue no speech and language researcher can
afford to ignore. The new empiricism in speech and language
research, occasioned by the massive increase in on-line corpora,
together with the need for well understood system performance
characteristics implicit in the very concept of language
engineering, have pushed the topic of evaluation onto the
agendas of most researchers. Current evaluation metrics may be
incomplete, simplifying, distorting, or just plain irritating,
but they are here to stay and our best option is to make them
better. This workshop aims to bring together researchers in
speech and language with an interest in evaluation in order to
reflect on their experiences with evaluation to date and to
discuss how to improve metrics and how to introduce metrics into
areas where they have not yet evolved.

Abstracts of up to 500 words describing proposed presentations are invited on
topics including (but not limited to):
 * the role, significance, and limitations of evaluation in speech and
 language research
 * critical analysis of existing evaluation regimes or metrics
 (e.g. MUC,TREC,ATIS,CSR)
 * discussion or presentation of the EU-sponsored EAGLES proposals on
 evaluation and standardisation
 * how to foster small-scale, low overhead evaluation (e.g. in the
 the upcoming EPSRC-sponsored Speech and Language programme)
 * proposals for new evaluation regimes or metrics for language systems
 that carry out tasks such as:
 - speech recognition
 - information extraction
 - information retrieval
 - machine translation
 - natural language generation
 - speech synthesis
 - spoken language understanding
 - topic spotting in spoken language
 or for component technologies used in these systems, such as:
 - tagging
 - parsing
 - coreference
 - proper name recognition and classification in text
 - discourse segmentation
 * results of evaluation studies carried out on speech or language
 systems or component technologies
 * tools for evaluation -- scorers, visualisation tools, markup tools
 * data provision for evaluation -- proposals for corpus markup

In the tradition of relatively informal SALT workshops, authors of accepted
abstracts will be invited to give a presentation of roughly 30 minutes.
Abstracts, or complete papers, should authors choose to submit them (length
limit 3500 words), will be published in an informal workshop proceedings.
Abstracts will be reviewed by a local programme committee consisting of:
 Dr. R. Gaizauskas (chair)
 Prof. Y. Wilks
 Dr. S. Renals
 Dr. P. Green

Abstracts due: May 1
Notification to authors: May 15
Camera-ready: June 1
Early registration deadline: May 15

For review abstracts should be submitted in ASCII, postscript, or LaTeX
(single, self-contained file only, please). Final abstracts/papers
should be in LaTeX -- authors of accepted presentations will be given
more detailed instructions on formatting later.

Registration and accomodation details will follow shortly.

Further information may be obtained by contacting:

Dr. Robert Gaizauskas
SALT Steering Committee

email: R.Gaizauskasdcs.shef.ac.uk
phone: +44 (0)114 222 1827
fax: +44 (0)114 222 1810/278 0972
www: http://www.dcs.shef.ac.uk

University of Sheffield
Department of Computer Science
Regent Court, 211 Portobello Street
Sheffield S1 4DP, U.K.

________________________________________________________________________

 GENERAL INFORMATION
________________________________________________________________________


VENUE

The venue for registration and the workshop is:

Halifax Hall of Residence,
Endcliffe Vale Road,
Sheffield,
S10 5DF, U.K.

The University of Sheffield's Halls of Residence are situated on
the western side of the city in a leafy residential area
described by John Betjeman as ``the prettiest suburb in
England''. Halifax Hall is centred on a local Steel Baron's
house, dating back to 1830 and set in extensive grounds. It was
acquired by the University in 1830 and converted into a Hall of
Residence for women with the addition of a new wing.

Halifax Hall is one mile from Sheffield's city centre, and is
easily reached from Sheffield Station by bus or taxi, and from
Manchester International Airport and train to Sheffield. The #
50 bus from the station will drop you off at the Botanical
Gardens but we recommend taking a taxi for around 3.50 pounds if
you have heavy cases.

ACCOMMODATION

Single en-suite room accommodation has been reserved for
conference delegates in Halifax Hall.


PARKING

There is ample free parking for approx. 50 cars in the vicinity
of Halifax Hall.

________________________________________________________________________

 REGISTRATION NOTES
_______________________________________________________________________

ADDRESS (for registrations)

Gill Wells,
Research Co-ordinator
Department of Computer Science,
Regent Court,
211 Portobello Street,
 Sheffield,
S1 4DP

Email: g.wellsdcs.shef.ac.uk
Fax: +44 (0) 114-278-0972
Phone: +44 (0) 114-22 21819

PAYMENT

Payment should be made by cheque or money order payable to
`University Sheffield' , drawn in pounds sterling on a British
clearing bank. Payment should be sent together with the
Registration Form to the above address.

CONFIRMATION

Confirmation of booking and a map with travel details will be
sent on receipt of this application form.

DISCLAIMER

The University of Sheffield and the Conference Organisers accept
no responsibility for injury to persons attending the
Conference, nor for loss of or damage to their property. The
Conference Organisers reserve the right to change the details
given in this document without notice.

________________________________________________________________________

 SALT Workshop on Evaluation in Speech and Language Technology

 Registration Form

________________________________________________________________________

Registration Details

Early registration (before Friday 16 May): #50.00
Late registration # 70.00

 Total: _____

Registration includes attendance, meals, proceedings and refreshments

Accommodation

Bed and Breakfast (ensuite bathroom) is available at #33.55 per
night (inc. VAT). Please specify in the table below which
night(s) you wish to stay. Accommodation will be available on
Monday 16 June (the night preceding the Workshop) and Tuesday 17
June.. Please note that there will be NO accommodation
available after the workshop closes.


Bed & Breakfast:
 16 June: _____ (33.55)

 17 June: _____ (33.55)

 Total _____

For special dietary considerations please contact Gill Wells
(g.wellsdcs.shef.ac.uk) giving full details of your requirements.

Personal Details

Name: ________________

Address: _______________

 ________________

 ________________

Phone: ________________

Fax: ________________

Email: ________________

WWW: ________________


I enclose a cheque or money order drawn in pounds sterling on a British
clearing bank for ______ pounds, payable to the University of Sheffield.


Signed: ___________________

Date: ___________________