[Corpora-List] Data-Driven Learning materials

[Martin Wynne]

I very much agree with Gill's observations. Looking what is freely 
available on the web is not a good way to judge the uptake or range of 
DDL materials. As Gill points out, most DDL resources and courses are 
only deployed locally.

To get something useful out on the web, you need to sort out the 
following (to name but a few):
- getting it on a web server
- basing it on web technologies
- get it to work with the available back end technologies on your server
- make sure that it is accessible and works with a variety of browsers
- make sure it is robust and bug-free
- support by the web server's sysadmin
- the exercises need to be suitable for unsupervised work (which 
requires a lot more documentation, explanation, hand-holding, controlled 
revealing of results, tips and hints, etc)
- be prepared to support users, or leave them in the lurch if they hit snags
- ensure that you are not getting into any legal or ethical difficulties 
if you publish any of the the materials (in short, you're not likely to 
be allowed to put that corpus online...)

So getting your course materials to work on your students' PCs is one 
thing, putting them on the web may involve a lot of additional challenges.

Obviously there are huge potential advantages to putting materials on 
the web, but we shouldn't be surprised that not everyone does it.

Martin

Gill Philip wrote:
> dear all,
> I think Adam is partially right, but, as someone who does engage in DDL, I'd
> like to point out another couple of reasons why there is so little "out
> there":
> (i) many materials are created for individuals or small groups and therefore
> not put online/published as 'general' language notes; and
> (ii) others are created on the fly in real time, and so never even make it
> into a paper format, i.e. the concordances are put up on screen in class and
> the teacher (me, but I'm sure others do the same) leads students through the
> analysis. Once I get the interactive whiteboard up and running, such ad-hoc
> exercises may well become more amenable to digital archiving, but for now
> they remain ephemeral.
>
> best,
> Gill
>
>
> On 16/04/2008, Adam Kilgarriff <adam at lexmasterclass.com> wrote:
>   
>> Dear Alex,
>>
>> you say
>>     
>>>  Is there really so little out there? Why?
>>>       
>> I think the reason is simple: Concordances are too tough for learners.
>> So DDL has not taken off.  After 20 years, it remains a tiny minority
>> interest.
>>
>> Our response is to select corpus sentences according to readability.
>> The beta version of the Sketch Engine now has an option to sort
>> concordances
>> "best first", from a learner's point of view, and we are working on other
>> ways of
>> using corpora in language learning in which we only show
>> users sentences which they are likely to be able to read and understand.
>>
>> Adam
>>
>> 2008/4/15 Alex Boulton <Alex.Boulton at univ-nancy2.fr>:
>>
>>     
>>> Dear all
>>>
>>>
>>> I recently requested information on any *published materials* or *on-line
>>> materials*
>>>
>>>       
>>  adopting a data-driven learning approach. My thanks to the following for
>>     
>>> their replies:
>>>
>>>    - Adam Turner
>>>    - Chris Tribble
>>>    - Mike Barlow
>>>    - Brett Reynolds
>>>    - Stéphanie O'Riordan
>>>    - Antoinette Renouf
>>>    - James Thomas
>>>    - Linda Bawcom
>>>    - Marcia Veirano Pinto
>>>    - Przemek Kaszubski
>>>    - Simon Smith
>>>    - John Milton
>>>
>>> Unfortunately (if unsurprisingly), there were no real additions to the
>>> publications
>>>
>>>       
>>  I listed in the original mail. Is there really so little out there? Why?
>>     
>> ...
>>
>> --
>> ================================================
>> Adam Kilgarriff http://www.kilgarriff.co.uk
>> Lexical Computing Ltd http://www.sketchengine.co.uk
>> Lexicography MasterClass Ltd http://www.lexmasterclass.com
>> Universities of Leeds and Sussex adam at lexmasterclass.com
>> ================================================
>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>>
>>     
>
>
>   
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-- 
Martin Wynne
Research Technologies Service &
Oxford e-Research Centre

Oxford University Computing Services
13 Banbury Road
Oxford
UK - OX2 6NN
Tel: +44 1865 283299
Fax: +44 1865 273275
martin.wynne at oucs.ox.ac.uk


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