SIG-INFRA: NODALIDA-2009 Workshop proposal

Title

Nordic perspectives on the CLARIN infrastructure of common language resources

Organizers

Rickard Domeij <rickard.domeij@sprakradet.se>. The Language Council of Sweden. Chairman of the Nordic language councils' working group on language technology, and chairman of the SigInfra.
Kimmo Koskenniemi <kimmo.koskenniemi@helsinki.fi>, professor of language technology at the University of Helsinki, Department of General Linguistics, Executive Board member of CLARIN.
Steven Krauwer <steven.krauwer@let.uu.nl>, Utrecht University, CLARIN Coordinator
Bente Maegaard <bmaegaard@hum.ku.dk>, Head of Centre for Language Technology, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Executive Board member of CLARIN.
Eiríkur Rögnvaldsson <eirikur@hi.is>. Prof. of Icelandic Language, University of Iceland.
Koenraad De Smedt <desmedt@uib.no>, Prof. of Computational Linguistics, University of Bergen; national coordinator of CLARIN in Norway.

Topic/Purpose

The main topic of the workshop is Nordic strengths and opportunities of cooperation within the NEALT Geographic Region in constructing an infrastructure of common language resources in connection to the European CLARIN (Common Language Resources and Technology Infrastructure) initiative (see NEALT Constitution for a definition of the region).

The purpose is to find ways of cooperating that will strengthen the contribution of the associated countries to the development of an infrastructure of common language resources within the CLARIN project. In the workshop, participants in CLARIN from the NEALT-associated countries will be given the chance to present their national projects and discuss possible ways of cooperating, sharing resources, coordinating activities, consider new projects and such. Opportunities and proposals for closer cooperation and coordination will be presented and discussed.

Examples of questions to discuss:

What are the strengths of the NEALT-associated countries and how could they be developed further?
Do we need to cooperate? Why? How can we do that in a concrete way?
Which resources can be shared, if any? Language data? Tools?
How can we benefit from the European CLARIN project? Both where we are strong and where we are weaker.
Which research groups would gain from more cooperation? How?
How can cooperation be organised? Which activities can be coordinated on a higher level?
How can we utilize our resources to strengthen language technology teaching, and vice versa?
How do we make governments invest more in language technology infrastructure on a Nordic level? How can we help each other to strengthen infrastructural work on the national level? How can CLARIN contribute to this?
Are there existing platforms for Nordic research infrastructure cooperation (such as NDGF) that we can build on?
And more …

Background

The Nordic countries have a long tradition of cooperating within many areas, including politics, education and science. Many languages are closely related and sometimes also the same language is spoken over national boundaries (for example Sámi and Swedish). Language technology is relatively well developed in these countries, but much more is needed to build the infrastructure needed for advanced R&D, and to secure the languages of the region for the future. The CLARIN project is an initiative on the European level to meet those challenges by making language resources and technology available and usable.

In recent years, new regions around the Baltic have become parts of the Nordic area. With increased cooperation, coordination and consolidation of common strengths, the Nordic/Baltic countries could strengthen their work in language technology infrastructure and their contribution to CLARIN.

Organization, program and target groups

CLARIN participants in the NEALT-associated countries are invited to present their national work from the perspective of possible cooperation between groups and projects in the different countries: Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway and Sweden.

Program outline (for 4 hours including 20 min pause):

Opening (10 min)
Presentations (10 x 15 = 150 min)
Discussions and summary (60 min)

The workshop is intended for participants having an interest in developing the language resources and technology in the NEALT Geographic Region for languages spoken in that region. There will be an opportunity for each such country to present an overview of the status of their national language resource infrastructure. There will also be room for at least two presentations on subjects of special importance for the region.

A short abstract of about 2 000 characters for presentations is to be submitted for review by the workshop organizers. The abstract should include proposals for concrete actions that could strengthen the joint contribution of the associated countries to the development of common language resources and technology. The action proposals will be presented and discussed at the workshop.

NOTE: Deadline for submitting this workshop proposal is 5 Dec 2008.

-- KimmoKoskenniemi - 2008-11-25