Nordic Master Program of Language Technology (NMPLT): A Project Description

Institutions involved, degrees granted and areas of expertise

Objectives

Form of the program

The NMPLT starts as a network of masters' level teaching in language technology where the Nordic program defines a framework of the master's degree and provides shared distant learning courses and supervision for the students. A student completes the degree in his/her own university according to the requirements accepted by the local home university faculty. The framework sets requirements for such degrees in order to qualify as a NMPLT degree and thus guarantees the necessary uniformity and compatibility among the members of the consortium.

This approach of a network rather than a strictly administrated joint studies degree was chosen because several reasons. A strict program where the requirements for master's degree are identical in all universities would be time consuming to establish and difficult to maneuver - although it is the standard model in Erasmus Mundus and other programs. Even if most countries in the Nordic and Baltic area are now in the Bologna system where the master level studies consist of 120 ECTS points. However, there are differences in the details such as the amount of ECTS points allocated to the master's thesis, and in various (usually small) obligatory components in the degree. These requirements are often imposed by university or faculty wide decisions, and therefore problematic to change. To avoid time consuming and possibly difficult harmonizing efforts of these less important features, it was decided to start this program with a network type of a structure with much lighter bureaucracy.

Another reason for choosing the network approach was that it allows for greater flexibility in offering fields of specialization. In this way the program can offer all areas of specialization to all of its students, including the possibility to write one's master's thesis under a distant supervisor.

Administration

The NMPLT would be administered by a steering group with one member nominated by each member of the consortium. The steering group would decide the important issues of the program including but not restricted to the budget, the requirements for accepting students to the program, actual selection of applicants, the curriculum, i.e. the studies required for fulfillment of the NMPLT master's degree, and the acceptance of the courses which form the official teaching of the program. The board also finds ways to advance the distant learning methods and follows their use and efficiency.

Recruiting students to the program

The students to enter the program are required to have suitable bachelor's studies. The students of NMPLT will obtain a MA/MSc degree at their home university and a special diploma from the program. The master program can be expected to last for a long term because it will not be vitally dependent of external funding beyond normal resources at each institution.

The NMPLT is expected to have 20-40 students. A significant part of them students who have earned their bachelor's degree in universities beyond the consortium, many of them outside of the Nordic and Baltic countries and NW Russia, many e.g. from Asia.

Materials will be produced and disseminated in order to reach and attract talented students to join the master program.

Curriculum

The curriculum of the master program consists of 120 ECTS credits in each of the participating institutions and is so organized that the student completes it in two years. Each home university (or faculty) is responsible for granting the master's degree according to its own regulations and national legislation.

The following list classifies courses which the consortium partners have offered for the curriculum of the NMPLT in English and in forms which are suitable for distant learning. The curriculum of the NMPLT will offer a really wide and multidisciplinary spectrum of courses to all its students:

The language of the program and its courses is English by default. The language of instruction for certain courses may be different when agreed upon by teachers and students.

The NMPLT master's degree will be defined in more detail during the planning period in autumn 2007 and the requirements will probably consist of a set of some 5-8 core courses out of which the student must complete at least some 3-4 courses. The requirements will tuned in order to guarantee sufficient coverage of common language technology theory and methods as well as provide enough freedom in choosing deep courses in one’s field of special interest.

Mobility

Mobility arrangements where needed are organized through normal Nordic student and teacher mobility schemes such as Nordplus. Because the program relies mostly on distant learning methods, there will be fairly little actual need of physical mobility. The participants have experience in videoconferencing and in distant learning methods and techniques in various contexts, e.g. in the Nordic Graduate School of Language Technology (NGSLT, see www.ngslt.org).

Quality control of the degrees

Mutual accreditation of degrees

The current situation is roughly as follows: The member organizations normally accept bachelor's and master's degrees granted by the other member universities, although this does not happen automatically. Essentially, a student applying to continue his or her studies for the next degree in another member university, is eligible to apply and normally has an equal position as the applicants from the local university. If it turns out that there are student's degree deviates significantly from the local requirements, this may invalidate of the application or lead to extra requirements for the student.

The NMPLT will study the conditions for accreditation of degrees among the consortium members in detail. The entry requirements will be adapted in order to minimize the problems of different bachelor's degrees. In addition to these modifications within the NMPLT, any necessary agreements to eliminate unnecessary problems, will be prepared to be signed by the universities in the consortium.

Eligibility to KitWiki.PhD studies

Completing the master's degree in this program makes the students eligible for doctoral studies at least in the home university of the student. In most cases, the continuation to KitWiki.PhD studies will not be affected by the institution in which university of the consortium the master degree in NMPLT was completed.

The common curriculum will be also tuned in order to minimize the problems in continuing the studies after completing the master program. In addition any necessary agreements to eliminate unnecessary problems, will be worked out.

Research

All members of the consortium are research oriented which will help in providing leading edge content and orientation in the courses.

Staff and students

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