1. Results of R&D: BLaRK for Dutch Helmer Strik Dept. of Linguistics Centre for Language and Speech Technology (CLST) Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands Radboud University Nijmegen

2. Cape Town, 24-11-20082 Introduction Terminology: BLaRK: Basic Language Resources Kit BaTaVo: Basis Taal-Voorzieningen Platform-BC: see this presentation Period 2000 – : plans – 2002 : results, future

3. Radboud University Nijmegen Cape Town, 24-11-20083 NTU & Dutch HLT Platform NTU - Nederlandse Taalunie (Dutch Language Union) Mission: Strengthening the position of the Dutch Language Dutch HLT Platform Aim: To contribute to the further development of an adequate language and speech technology infrastructure for Dutch

4. Radboud University Nijmegen Cape Town, 24-11-20084 HLT platform Participants Flanders: Ministry of the Flemish Community IWT (Flemish Institute for the Promotion of Scientific- technological Research in Industry) FWO (Fund for Scientific Research - Flanders) Netherlands: Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Sciences Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs Senter (agency of Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs) NWO (Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research)

5. Radboud University Nijmegen Cape Town, 24-11-20085 Objectives Strengthening the position of Dutch in HLT Establishing the proper conditions for a successful management and maintenance of basic HLT resources developed through governmental funding Stimulating co-operation between academia and industry in the field of HLT Contributing to the realisation of European co-operation in HLT-relevant areas Establishing a network that brings together supply and demand for knowledge, products, and services

6. Radboud University Nijmegen Cape Town, 24-11-20086 Action plan ‘Action plan for Dutch in language and speech technology’ was defined to achieve objectives Activities organised in four action lines (A, B, C, and D)

7. Radboud University Nijmegen Cape Town, 24-11-20087 Dutch HLT Platform Four action lines A.Performing a market place function B.Strengthening the HLT infrastructure C.Working out standards and evaluation criteria D.Developing a management, maintenance, and distribution plan

8. Radboud University Nijmegen Cape Town, 24-11-20088 Action line A Encourage co-operation between industry, academia and policy institutions Raise awareness and give publicity to the results of HLT research “Performing a market place function”

9. Radboud University Nijmegen Cape Town, 24-11-20089 Action line B Defining the BLaRK (Basic Language Resources Kit) for Dutch Carrying out a survey to determine what is needed to complete the BLaRK: field survey Drawing up a priority list with cost estimates serving as policy guidelines “Strengthening the digital language infrastructure”

10. Radboud University Nijmegen Cape Town, 24-11-200810 Action line C Drawing up standards and criteria for evaluation of basic materials in BLaRK and for assessment of project results “Working out standards and evaluation criteria”

11. Radboud University Nijmegen Cape Town, 24-11-200811 Action line D Defining a Blueprint for management including intellectual property rights, maintenance, and distribution of HLT resources “Developing a management, maintenance, and distribution plan”

12. Radboud University Nijmegen Cape Town, 24-11-200812 Results Action line A[2002] A contact network was created http://www.taaluniversum.org/tst/ Relevant actors in field of HLT How HLT sector evolves on Dutch/Flemish level HLT related events throughout Europe http://www.hltcentral.org/euromap/ Web-site was set up containing information on:

13. Radboud University Nijmegen Cape Town, 24-11-200813 Actions carried out Conducted mailings to contacts (about 1000) Contacted and visited companies with HLT related needs, to: Demonstrate benefits of HLT Get clear picture of company’s knowledge status and future plans Provide information on cross-linking services Organised seminars and workshops

14. Radboud University Nijmegen Cape Town, 24-11-200814 Platform BC A.Performing a market place function B.Strengthening the HLT infrastructure C.Working out standards and evaluation criteria D.Developing a management, maintenance, and distribution plan B+C  Platform BC

15. Radboud University Nijmegen Cape Town, 24-11-200815 Platform BC Who? Steering committee: 8 HLT experts NTU NWO (funding body) Field survey, 4 researchers 2 language technology 2 speech technology

16. Radboud University Nijmegen Cape Town, 24-11-200816 Platform BC Who? Steering committee: 8 HLT experts Lang. Tech.Speech Tech. Flanders1. WD 2. FvE 1. JPM 2. DvC Netherlands1. GB 2. AN/DH/FdJ 1. HS 2. RV / AD

17. Radboud University Nijmegen Cape Town, 24-11-200817 Platform BC How? Three stages: 1.Defining the BLaRK for Dutch 2.Making inventory of HLT resources 3.Establishing priority list

18. Radboud University Nijmegen Cape Town, 24-11-200818 BLaRK: Basic Language Resources Kit Components: Data: sets of language data and descriptions in machine readable form Modules (or semi-products): the basic software components of HLT applications Applications: classes of applications rather than specific applications or products 2 matrices: 1.Modules x Data 2.Applications x Modules  BLaRK

19. Radboud University Nijmegen Cape Town, 24-11-200819 DataApplications Modules LanguageTechnology SpeechTechnology Quantify: 0, 1, or 2 (+’s) Field survey & Expert opinions

20. Radboud University Nijmegen Cape Town, 24-11-200820 BLaRK Language technology Modules Robust modular text preprocessing Morphological analysis and morphosyntactic disambiguation Robust syntactic analysis Aspects of semantic analysis (word meaning and reference) Data Monolingual lexicon Annotated corpus of written Dutch Benchmarks for evaluation

21. Radboud University Nijmegen Cape Town, 24-11-200821 BLaRK Speech technology Modules Automatic speech recognition Speech synthesis system Tools for annotation of speech corpora Confidence measures and utterance verification Identification (speaker, language, dialect) Data Monolingual speech corpora for specific applications Multilingual speech corpora Multimodal/medial speech corpora Benchmarks for evaluation

22. Radboud University Nijmegen Cape Town, 24-11-200822 From BLaRK to priority lists 1.BLaRK: Basic Language Resources Kit 2.Inventory & Evaluation 3.Priority lists BLaRKinventory priority

23. Radboud University Nijmegen Cape Town, 24-11-200823 2. Inventory & Evaluation Inventory: Which components in BLaRK are available? Bought Freely obtainable Reusable Of sufficient quality Evaluation: And of sufficient quality? Checklist approach (vs. formal evaluation)

24. Radboud University Nijmegen Cape Town, 24-11-200824 Availability Quantify:1-10 Field survey & Expert opinions Modules Data

25. Radboud University Nijmegen Cape Town, 24-11-200825 3. Priority lists The prioritisation was based on the following requirements:  The components should currently be unavailable, inaccessible, or of insufficient quality.  The components should be relevant for a large number of applications.  Developing the components should be possible in the short term.

26. Radboud University Nijmegen Cape Town, 24-11-200826 Consensus, broad support Report version 1 Feedback Academia & industry Sent to the Dutch-Flemish HLT field (1000 sites) Workshop 15/11/2001  Report version 2, final version

27. Radboud University Nijmegen Cape Town, 24-11-200827 From BLaRK to priority lists 1.BLaRK 2.Inventory & Eval. 3.Priority lists Report 1 Feedback: HLT FieldHLT Field WorkshopWorkshop 1.BLaRK 2.Inventory & Eval. 3.Priority lists Report 2

28. Radboud University Nijmegen Cape Town, 24-11-200828 Report Version 1: Version 2, final version: W. Daelemans & H. Strik (eds.) (2002) Het Nederlandsin taal- en spraaktechnologie: prioriteiten voor basisvoorzieningen

29. Radboud University Nijmegen Cape Town, 24-11-200829 Recommendations (1) Met betrekking tot de BaTaVo: Verzamelen van bestaande onderdelen Vervolledigen (stimulering, fondsen) Beheer & onderhoud (actielijn D) Aanbieden, ‘open’ licentie Evaluatie: testcorpora & methodologie

30. Radboud University Nijmegen Cape Town, 24-11-200830 Recommendations (2) Algemeen: Meer Taal & Spraak-technologen (opleiding, scholing, projecten) Meer samenwerking Naast middelen voor toepassingsgericht onderzoek, ook middelen voor fundamenteel onderzoek

31. Radboud University Nijmegen Cape Town, 24-11-200831 Priority list Language technology 1. Annotated corpus of written Dutch 2. Syntactic analysis 3. Robust text pre-processing 4. Semantic annotations for treebank in 1 5. Translation equivalents 6. Benchmarks for evaluation

32. Radboud University Nijmegen Cape Town, 24-11-200832 Priority list Speech technology 1. Automatic speech recognition 2. Speech corpora 3. Multi-media speech corpora 4. Tools for (semi-) automatic transcription of speech data 5. Speech synthesis 6. Benchmarks for evaluation

33. Radboud University Nijmegen Cape Town, 24-11-200833 Results Action line D Blueprint for management, maintenance, and distribution of basic language materials developed with government money Provides guidelines for structural co-operation Serves as instruments for field organisations and funding bodies

34. Radboud University Nijmegen Cape Town, 24-11-200834 Recommendations Blueprint Consortium of NL and VL institutes Management, maintenance, accessibility to data and software, user support, and acquisition Set standard for accepting HLT resources International participation Development and maintenance of HLT expertise Establish HLT Agency

35. Radboud University Nijmegen Cape Town, 24-11-200835 Future prospects [2002] Action line A: Stimulate HLT in The Netherlands and Flanders Cooperation: industry, academia, etc. Action line B & C: Collect existing resources Ensure priorities are realized Action line D: Implementation of recommendations in the Blueprint

36. Radboud University Nijmegen Cape Town, 24-11-200836 When BLaRK is established... Intellectual rights by NTU Actual management and maintenance of resources by HLT agency, to be founded Maintenance of expertise by Dutch-Flemish steering committees and HLT management committee, both to be founded

37. Radboud University Nijmegen Cape Town, 24-11-200837 General conclusions[2002] Goals have been achieved so that the proper prior conditions for development of materials in BLaRK are created This work, carried out in the Dutch speaking area, can be profitable for others when starting similar activities  Part of the report is translated into English  Presentations & publications  Other domains  Other countrie http://lands.let.kun.nl/~strik/BLaRK.html

38. Radboud University Nijmegen Cape Town, 24-11-200838 Questions?

39. Radboud University Nijmegen Cape Town, 24-11-200839