Workshop on visibility and availability of LT resources

MOTIVATION

It is our impression that restrictions on the general accessibility of language resources often are caused by simple unawareness of the needs of the LT technology providers or by unfamiliarity with the formal procedures for making data available rather than by deliberate attempts to keep resources closed.

The restricted access to many of the available cross- and multilingual Nordic LT resources is not only harmful for the minority languages of the Nordic countries, it also hinders further development of richer tools and end-user aids for the languages used in Nordic collaboration. Such tools could be automatic translation between the minority and the majority languages or between non-Scandinavian and Scandinavian languages, where the purpose is to make the content of a text understandable. It should be noted that for many of the language pairs among the Nordic languages, there is no support from free services such as Google Translate (e.g. from all the minority languages to any of the majority ones). The same situation is of course true for other tools and services.

The workshop should clarify existing possibilities for easy dissemination of language resources and encourage the collaboration between Nordic LT communities through stronger focus on open-source resources and clear licensing options.

TOPICS

The workshop will present the participants with a possibility to discuss how we can make existing resources more visible and available, and to initiate discussions on how to make closed resources accessible, especially with the aim of fostering multilingual and cross-lingual language technology not only between the Nordic languages but also between Nordic majority and minority languages as well as between Nordic and non-Nordic languages.

ORGANIZATION

The workshop will be a full-day workshop consisting of three parts:

* a main section with talks resulting from an open call.

* an open discussion about future best practice

SUBMISSION OF PAPERS

We invite abstracts (approximately 250 words) describing existing research connected to the topics of the workshop. Accepted papers will be extended to 3-5 pages.

Abstracts should be sent to: per at oqaaserpassualeriffik.org.

Submissions should include: title; author(s); affiliation(s); and contact author's e-mail address, postal address, telephone and fax numbers.

Abstracts should be sent to the mail address available on the workshop www pages.

IMPORTANT DATES

March 20, 2011  - Deadline for submission of abstracts

April 4, 2011 - Notification of acceptance

April 24, 2011 - Deadline for extended papers

May 11, 2011 - All day workshop in Riga

LOCATION

NODALIDA 2011, Riga, Latvia.

PROGRAM COMMITTEE

* Torbjørg Breivik, The Language Council of Norway

* Rickard Domeij, The Language Council of Sweden

* Jakob Halskov, Danish Language Council

* Per Langgård, The Greenlandic Language Secretariat

PROGRAM