Minutes of the 2nd
meeting of the board of the
Language Technology
(NGSLT)
Time: 17
May 2005 at 14:00 - 18:00
Place:
Meeting room H4,
Participants:
Robin Cooper, Mare Koit, Kimmo Koskenniemi, Mietta Lennes (student
representative),
Eirikur Rögnvaldsson, Peter Rossen Skadhauge (for Daniel
Hardt),
Torbjörn Svendsen, Anrius Utka (for Ruta Marcinkeviciene)
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 comments and revisions and accepted when
the
participants have no more suggestions or revisions. The agenda was accepted
as the
agenda of the meeting.
2. Information
2.1.All
board members were welcomed to attend the first part of the NGSLT
student
meeting at
2.2. The
number of NGSLT courses was 4 in 2004 and 7 in 2005. Further discussion
in 5.
3. Minutes of the previous meeting
3.1. (ref.
point 2 in the minutes) Each NGSLT country will be asked to update
the
information on LT in their countries annually. The reports will be published
at an area
on the NGSLT pages with the earlier versions.
3.2. (ref.
point 6 in the minutes) Four mailing lists exist at the moment, all
XXX@ngslt.org
These are board, announcements, info, areareps (also individual
aliases lie
arearep-ee etc.) Some of these can be found on the NGSLT pages and
the missing
ones will be added. A mailing list manager will be created under the
bnot
public area for the board members to update their addresses etc. There
should also be a bulletin board
and/or wiki
area or plone.
3.3. (ref.
point 13 in the minutes) The proposed Nordic Journal of LT has not
been accomplished
so far and remains a goal for NGSLT.
3.4. (ref.
point 16 in the minutes) Board representatives from the industry have
not been
actively nominated but Nokia which has shown interest in the subject.
Remains as
a task for 2005.
4. Budget 2005
The board
accepted the proposed NGSLT budget for 2005 as in appendix (pdf) The
NordForsk
comment on the question of using the funds for covering extra costs
caused by
the NGSLT students (exercises, reports, evaluation) for the teachers
whose costs
cannot normally be reimbursed from NGSLT (i.e. Nordic) was discussed
and the
board understood that no options to reimburse in such cases was a
serious
problem to be addressed. The motivation for further discussion is not
being able
to enhance Nordic competence as it is not possible within the present
framework
for any nordic researcher to offer new, non-syllabus courses based on
his or her
research. The directors will take the matter to NordForsk. It was
agreed that
the kind of teaching that the project is currently able to
cover
should be increased unless the discussion with NordForsk on the matter
above is
positively resolved.
5. Courses
a) general
arrangements for courses
Videoconfrerencing
was discussed as a possible alternative to a one-day seminar
and the
pro's and con's were discussed. Videoconferencing has been in active use
in teaching
e.g. in
students
should take up both the question of courses (substance, level) also the
general
arrangements and come up with suggestions and ideas for the board to
consider.
b) courses
for Autumn 2005
The list
for the autumn courses was checked and it was noted that there is one
KIT-GS
course and 4 GSLT courses. The board members were incouraged to inform
NGSLT on
intensive courses with the application time of 6 weeks which could
still be
included in the autumn course list. It was understood that the
countries
with no PhD training programmes seldom offer courses at that level
and the
question of level differences within NGSLT was addressed and it was also
understood
that student in the NGSLT countries have different needs in both
substance
and level. The NGSLT network could widen its scope to meet the needs
of the
students in research oriented master's programmes in addition to the PhD
programme
students as it now is understood (with exeptions to the countries with
no PhD
programmes).
6. Criteria for being an NGSLT student
Criteria
were discussed and agreed upon as in appendix (txt).
The student shall be
committed
to inform NGSLT of his her graduation as a PhD already in the
application
form. The directors of the board shall decide on acceptance for each
applicant
and the decision is mainly based on the supervisor's statement with
additional
discussions with the represntative of the country in question when
relevant.
The students who have completed their PhD will be encouraged to act as
mentors
within NGSLT.
7. Date of next meeting
Netmeeting
Tuesday 4th of October. NGSLT will inform all members in advance of
the
netmeeting procedures, hardware, software etc and assist via test meetings
in the
process. NordForsk decision on the hardware reimbursement is expected
before this meeting.