NorFA

Minutes of the 1st meeting of the board of the Nordic Graduate School of Language Technology (NGSLT)

Version as of:
16 Jun 2004
Time:
26 May 2004, at 9:25 - 16:00
Place:
Seminar room 331, Department of General Linguistics, Siltavuorenpenger 20, University of Helsinki
Participants:
Pavel Skrelin, Nina Volskaya, Eirikur Rögnvaldsson, Inguna Skadina, Robin Cooper (chair), Ruta Marcinkeviciene, Mare Koit, Kimmo Koskenniemi, Torbjoern Svendsen, Daniel Hardt
participants
See a list on a separate page.
1. Formalia
Prof. Robin Cooper opened the meeting and was elected chairman and Hanna Westerlund secretary of the meeting. The minutes will be checked by passing it electronically to the board members for possible comments and corrections and accepted when the participants have no more suggestions for revisions. The agenda which was distributed in advance, was accepted as the agenda of the meeting (with minor additions).
2. Presentation of the participating countries
Each country had supplied in advance a summary of language technology PhD education, master's level education and research in the country, see the list of participants. In the following are some observations relevant for the NGSLT task of building cooperation and common infrastructure for the PhD education in language technology (hereafter LT).
Sweden: A large national graduate school with annual recruiting of PhD students. The PhD education in Sweden includes more course credits than most other countries. No research programs dedicated to the LT. Research programmes cover large and general concepts and include LT indirectly.
Finland: A small national graduate school which enrolled 6 paid students for 2002-2005 (but nothing secured after that).
NW Russia: The arrangements differ from the other European countries at present (two doctoral degrees) but in the near future these diffenrences will be eliminated as Russia has adopted the Bologna declaration.
Denmark: Some further Danish universities could be added to the preliminary list of graduate education with relevance to LT. Some differences in the structure and contents of the PhD training as compared to e.g. Sweden.
Norway: PhD education follows the 3+2+3 year structure (except for engineering it is 5+3). No national PhD programme, but LT students included in various programmes. Total of some 25 full time PhD students (with salary).
Iceland: LT teaching in Iceland started in 2002, no PhD training programmes.
Estonia: No PhD programmes in LT but in Tartu some 3 linguists PhD students study additional mathematics and computater science, and some 3 PhD students of computer science take additional courses in linguistics. No governmental research programmes for LT but some small projects receive funding from governmental organisations.
Latvia: LT is not offered as a major in the University of Latvia, but some master's theses of other disciplines are related to LT.
Lithuania: LT not offered as a major in Lithuania. Computer science and philology (linguistics) has the right to offer such and at PhD level, but these rights have to be renewed perioidically which makes long term plannig difficult.
It was decided that each country revises, as needed, the summary which then can be made available through the NGSLT web site. Also a summary (of the number of full-time PhD students among other things) would be valuable. The location of LT within the domains seems to vary a lot in the participating countries. Revised versions are to be sent to prof. Koskenniemi wihin two weeks. Html or plain text preferable formats, power point no problem but it will be converted to pdf before they appear on the NGSLT website.
3. Presentation of the NGSLT website
Robin Cooper showed the recently established website http://www.ngslt.org
4. Information about the Nordic General Seminar
Robin Cooper and Kimmo Koskenniemi will give a presentation of the NGSLT at the Nordic General Seminar in June 17-18 in Copenhagen.
5. Budget
The budget of NGSL comprising of ca. 1 million NOK (which has been revised according to discussions with NorFA) was presented. The board agreed that this is the basis for NGSLT operations (with possible modifications which turn out to be motivated).
According to the principles of NorFA, local teachers are expected to contribute the teaching as part of their normal duties. International guest lecturers will be paid honoraries and daily allowances according to normal practices. Travelling and accommodation costs for all teachers and NGSLT students are included in and will be covered by the budget.
6. Mailing lists
A mailing list for the board of the NGSLT will be established, and another larger list for distributing information about forthcoming courses for all potential PhD students will be compiled based on existing preliminary ones for GENST-NET.
7. Courses planned for 2004 (and later)
The first course (NLP1) was already delivered in the spring (although the participants were not yet formally registered to NGSLT).
Speech technology level 1 course shared by the NGSLT and the Swedish GSLT to be delivered annually.
Linguistics resources level 2 course planned to be given in Autumn. The plan will be still elaborated by Daniel Hardt.
Soft computing and data oriented methods, level 2 course to be delivered in Helsinki, December 2004 as an intesive course.
The board adopted the above courses as the curriculum of the NGSLT.
8. Registration of doctoral students for courses and for the school
Presently no students have been formally registered as students of the NGSLT. The board decided that there will be a formal registration using a form to be filled and signed by the applicant and his/her supervisor. Suprevisors are expected to contribute to the NGSLT in resonable ways. A draft was discussed and an improved version was agreed to be distributed to the board for final acceptance.
9. Examination of courses and crediting procedure
The official crediting will be made at each student's home university based on the credits awarded by the courses. A common understanding was that at least ECT credit equivalents should be included in the credits given by courses.
10. Reimbursement of students/teachers
The board discussed the procedures and principles of refunding the travel and accommodation costs of NGSLT students attending NGSLT activities. Following principles were agreed upon:
The board also discussed the criteria for accepting students to NGSLT courses. It was understood that in addition to PhD students having an official status with a supervisor, the NGSLT should also accept and refund research oriented Master's level students who have a supervisor to recommend them. This principle is necessary because in several of the participating countries, there is no PhD programme for language technology, and not even a formal discipline under that name.
The board also discussed whether researchers who have already completed a PhD degree would be eligible to the NGSLT courses. It was understood that they may apply and be accepted but not refunded for their expenses.
11. Planned internal conference/end of year workshop
It was decided that the planned final year internal conference in Iceland was not really feasible because of budgetary condiserations. Instead NGSLT would try to coordinate final sessions of the courses in the autumn with such an event so that students attending those final session would already be present at the location of the final seminar. A plan of inviting NorFA project participants to present their projects to the school at this event. Robin and Kimmo should discuss this possibility with Henrik Holmboe.
12. Election of student representatives to the board
The application to NorFA for the NGSLT states that the board of the graduate school ought to have two student members. As it is the task of NGSLT students to elect their representatives, the board has to wait until NGSLT formally recruits students. Possibly the election could take place in conjunction with a general meeting of the students held in conjunction with the final year meeting discussed under point 11.
13. A proposal to establish a Nordic Journal of Language Technology
There has been some previous discussion about a possible new journal, Nordic Journal of Language Technology (NJLT) which would be published mainly in electronic form according to Open Access Publishing principles. The board noted that there less need for such a journal in speech technology than in the rest of LT as there are plenty of established journals in speech.
The board understood that if such a journal could be established, it should be of high quality and be properly refereed. While such a journal could be closely connected to NGSLT it should be run by an independent editor in chief, editorial board and referees, even if NGSLT supervisors might be expected to volunteer as referees and editors.
In order to be realised, NJLT would need funding and some kind of a project. Koskenniemi will try to raise some funding, possibly by getting permissions to use some NorFA grants for that purpose, and any other possible sources.
14. Remote decision making procedures by the board
It was agreed that the board may meet via electronic mail and make decisions by distributing the proposed decision, and either (a) everybody replying and not objecting, or (b) none of those who reply, objects, and the remaining ones do not react within 14 days.
The board discussed the use of videoconferencing techniques which would be extremely useful in several areas of the NGSLT. The board should return to the advancement of such techniques in near future.
15. Date for next meeting
The next meeting will be arranged in conjunction with the seminar discussed under point 11. In addition, the board may have electronic meetings as necessary.
16. Any other business
The board briefly discussed the plan (included in the proposal for NGSLT to NorFA) that there should an advisory board consisting of three distinguished members of industry for Nordic countries and members of the board were encouraged to think of suggestions for suitable people.
Members of the board were also advised that additional funding relevant to NGSLT might be available from NorFA and members were encouraged to look at NorFA's webpages for up-to-date information.