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<span style="font-size:13.333333969116211px;font-family:arial,sans-serif">Arabic-L: Sat 21 Jun 2014</span><br style="font-size:13.333333969116211px;font-family:arial,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:13.333333969116211px;font-family:arial,sans-serif">Moderator: Dilworth Parkinson <</span><a href="mailto:dilworth_parkinson@byu.edu" style="font-size:13.333333969116211px;font-family:arial,sans-serif" target="_blank">dilworth_parkinson@byu.edu</a><span style="font-size:13.333333969116211px;font-family:arial,sans-serif">></span><br style="font-size:13.333333969116211px;font-family:arial,sans-serif">
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<br style="font-size:13.333333969116211px;font-family:arial,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:13.333333969116211px;font-family:arial,sans-serif">-------------------------</span><span style="font-size:13.333333969116211px;font-family:arial,sans-serif">Directory---------------------</span><span style="font-size:13.333333969116211px;font-family:arial,sans-serif">---------------</span><br style="font-size:13.333333969116211px;font-family:arial,sans-serif">
<br style="font-size:13.333333969116211px;font-family:arial,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:13.333333969116211px;font-family:arial,sans-serif">1) Subject: </span><font face="arial, sans-serif">Last Call:Shared Task on Automatic Arabic Error Correction</font><br style="font-size:13.333333969116211px;font-family:arial,sans-serif">
<br style="font-size:13.333333969116211px;font-family:arial,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:13.333333969116211px;font-family:arial,sans-serif">-------------------------</span><span style="font-size:13.333333969116211px;font-family:arial,sans-serif">Messages----------------------</span><span style="font-size:13.333333969116211px;font-family:arial,sans-serif">-------------</span><br style="font-size:13.333333969116211px;font-family:arial,sans-serif">
<span style="font-size:13.333333969116211px;font-family:arial,sans-serif">1)</span><br style="font-size:13.333333969116211px;font-family:arial,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:13.333333969116211px;font-family:arial,sans-serif">Date: </span><span style="font-size:13px;font-family:arial,sans-serif">21 Jun 2014</span><br style="font-size:13.333333969116211px;font-family:arial,sans-serif">
<span style="font-size:13.333333969116211px;font-family:arial,sans-serif">From: </span><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">Wajdi Zaghouani <<a href="mailto:wajdiz@gmail.com" target="_blank">wajdiz@gmail.com</a>></span><br style="font-size:13.333333969116211px;font-family:arial,sans-serif">
<span style="font-size:13.333333969116211px;font-family:arial,sans-serif">Subject: </span><font face="arial, sans-serif">Last Call:Shared Task on Automatic Arabic Error Correction</font><br style="font-size:13.333333969116211px;font-family:arial,sans-serif">
<br style="font-size:13.333333969116211px;font-family:arial,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">==============================</span><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">=========================</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">Last Call for System Participation</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">Shared Task on Automatic Arabic Error Correction</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">In conjunction with EMNLP Workshop on Arabic Natural Language Processing</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"> Apologies for multiple postings</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"> Please distribute to colleagues</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">==============================</span><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">=========================</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">Last Call for System Participation</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">Shared Task on Automatic Arabic Error Correction</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">collocated with EMNLP 2014, Doha, Qatar</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">Registration deadline: July 1, 2014</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">System test period: July 7-18, 2014</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">Workshop date: Saturday October 25, 2014</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">Shared Task Website:</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<a href="http://www.emnlp2014.org/workshops/anlp/shared_task.html" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px" target="_blank">http://www.emnlp2014.org/workshops/anlp/shared_task.html</a><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">==============================</span><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">=========================</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">Shared Task Description</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">As part of the Arabic Natural Language Processing Workshop at EMNLP</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">2014, we will conduct a shared task on Automatic Arabic Error</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">Correction. We designed this task in the traditions of high profile</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">shared tasks in natural language processing such as CONLL's</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">grammar/error detection and correction shared tasks in 2011-2013 and</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">numerous machine translation campaigns by NIST/WMT/MEDAR, among</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">others. The task relies on resources created under the Qatar Arabic</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">Language Bank (QALB) project (currently over 1M words of manually</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">corrected Arabic text).</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">A participating system in this shared task will be given Modern</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">Standard Arabic texts, which are to be automatically corrected. The</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">input will be provided in Arabic script, and will be annotated for</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">part-of-speech (in different granularities), inflectional features,</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">clitics (which appear in 20% of Arabic words), lemmas, and English</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">glosses. All of the input text will be preprocessed in a common way</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">to make sure all participants have access to all of these features at</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">no additional overhead novelty cost. We follow the file format and</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">evaluation framework used by the CONLL shared tasks on error</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">correction. The task is focused on correction as opposed to</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">identification. There will not be an error identification task per se.</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">Participants need to register. Once registered, all participating</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">teams will be provided with a common training data set (about 1 million</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">words), which includes common preprocessed input and corrected output.</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">Registration link is on the Shared Task Website (see above). A common</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">development set will also be provided. A blind test data set will be used</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">to evaluate the output of the participating teams. An evaluation script</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">will be provided to all the teams. Each participating team can submit up</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">to three systems. Participants are welcome to use additional resources</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">and tools that are not part of the released data set. However, all</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">such additions must be fully disclosed.</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">All those who registered to participate in the Shared Task will receive an</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">email message on July 7, 2014 with specific instructions on how to download</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">the test set and how to send the automatic correction of it. The</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">information will also be available at the shared task group</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">(</span><a href="https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/qalb-shared-task" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px" target="_blank">https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/qalb-shared-task</a><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">).</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">Participants are expected to author a short paper (4 pages + 2 for</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">references) describing their approach, resources and experiments. The</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">paper needs to follow the standard format of EMNLP conference.</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">DISCUSSION GROUP</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">The following discussion group has been created and is used for all</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">announcements and discussions related to the shared task.</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><a href="https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/qalb-shared-task" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px" target="_blank">https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/qalb-shared-task</a><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">Participants are encouraged to subscribe and follow the discussion group.</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">IMPORTANT DATES</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">Shared task registration period: April 8, 2014 through July 1, 2014</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">Shared task test release: July 7, 2014</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">Shared task system output collection: July 18, 2014</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">Submission deadline for system description papers: July 26, 2014</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">Author notification: August 26, 2014</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">Camera Ready: September 15, 2014</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">Arabic NLP Workshop: October 25, 2014</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">ORGANIZERS</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">Behrang Mohit (co-chair), Carnegie Mellon University Qatar</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">Alla Rozovskaya (co-chair), Columbia University</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">Wajdi Zaghouani, Carnegie Mellon University Qatar</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">Ossama Obeid, Carnegie Mellon University Qatar</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">Nizar Habash (advisor), Columbia University</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"> ------------------------------</span><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">-----------------------</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">Wajdi Zaghouani</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">Research Associate</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">Carnegie Mellon University-Qatar, Education City</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">PO Box 24866, Doha, Qatar</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">Office: CMU-Q 1210, Phone: <a href="tel:%28%2B974%29%204454-8646" value="+97444548646" target="_blank">(+974) 4454-8646</a></span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">Email: </span><a href="mailto:wajdiz@qatar.cmu.edu" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px" target="_blank">wajdiz@qatar.cmu.edu</a><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">Web: </span><a href="http://www.qatar.cmu.edu/~wajdiz/" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px" target="_blank">www.qatar.cmu.edu/~wajdiz/</a><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
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End of Arabic-L:<span style="font-size:13.333333969116211px"> </span>21 Jun 2014</div></div>