[Corpora-List] CFP: EMNLP-11 Workshop on Language Generation and Evaluation (UCNLG+Eval)

[Albert Gatt]

EMNLP-11 Workshop on Language Generation and Evaluation
=======================================================

ANNOUNCEMENT AND CALL FOR PAPERS

Language Generation and Evaluation (UCNLG+Eval) is a post-conference
workshop at EMNLP-2011, Edinburgh, on 31 July 2011.

Workshop aims
-------------
There are many branches of NLP research that involve the generation
of language (summarisation, MT, human-computer dialogue, application
front-ends, data-to-text generation, document authoring, etc.).
However, it is not always easy to identify common ground among
the generation components of these application areas, which has
sometimes made it difficult for generic research in 'Natural Language
Generation' (NLG) to engage with them effectively. Increasingly
common corpus-based approaches across these areas, and in particular
in NLG itself, offer a new perspective on this situation and the
opportunity to explore synergies and differences from the common
grounding of corpus data.

This workshop is the fourth in an occasional series seeking to
provide a forum for discussing NLG and its links with these closely
related fields from a corpus-oriented perspective. The workshops
have the general aims

   * to provide a forum for reporting and discussing corpus-
     oriented methods for generating language;
   * to foster cross-fertilisation between NLG and other fields
     where language is automatically generated; and
   * to promote the sharing of data and methods for the purpose
     of system building and comparative evaluation in all language
     generation research.

Each of these workshops has a special theme: at the first workshop
(at Corpus Linguistics in 2005) it was use of corpora in NLG; at the
second (UCNLG+MT at MT Summit XI in 2007) it was Language Generation
and Machine Translation; at the third it was Language Generation and
Summarisation (UCNLG+Sum at ACL-IJCNLP'09). The special theme of the
2011 workshop is Language Generation and Evaluation, and the event will
showcase recent developments in methods for evaluating computationally
generated language across NLP, continue the discussion of future
directions and host an invited talk on shared-task evaluation campaigns.

Evaluation Special Theme
------------------------
The past five years have seen big changes in NLG evaluation. The field
has moved from a situation where there were no comparative evaluation
results for independently developed alternative approaches to the
present increasingly rich diversity of data sets, methods and results
for comparative evaluation (intrinsic and extrinsic, human-assessed and
automatically computed). A distinctive and critical feature of these
developments has been the community-led approach to the establishment
of tasks, datasets and evaluation methods. The aim of the special
evaluation theme at UCNLG+Eval is to provide a forum for reporting
cutting-edge research on evaluation, taking stock of recent developments,
discussing and comparing alternative approaches to evaluation and
exploring possible directions for future development.

Call for Papers
---------------
The UCNLG+Eval Workshop organisers invite submissions addressing the
special theme of evaluating computationally generated text as well as
submissions on all aspects of using corpora in the generation of
language. Specific topics include, but are not limited to:

   * Statistical and machine learning approaches to language generation
   * Development and annotation of corpora for language generation research
   * Reuse of corpus resources developed for NLU (e.g. treebanks) in
     language generation research
   * Domain-specific vs. general-purpose corpora for language generation
     research
   * Evaluation of automatically generated language
   * Meta-evaluation of evaluation methods for language generation
   * Uses of corpora in the evaluation of automatically generated language
   * Proposals for new shared tasks in language generation

Note that by 'language generation research' we mean any field in which
language is automatically generated including research commonly coming under
the headings of NLG, MT, document summarisation and human-computer dialogue.

Papers should describe original and unpublished work, emphasizing actual
rather than intended work, and should indicate clearly the state of
completion of the reported work.  Wherever appropriate, concrete
evaluation results should be included.  Papers that are being submitted
to other conferences or workshops should indicate this.

Submission information
----------------------
Submissions should follow the two-column format of EMNLP and ACL 2011
proceedings. Each paper may consist of up to nine (9) pages of content,
and any number of additional pages with references only. Submissions
should describe original, unpublished work. Please use the official
ACL 2011 style files (at http://www.acl2011.org/call.shtml). We reserve
the right to reject submissions that do not conform to these styles,
including letter size and font size restrictions.  Submission will be
electronic, using the START system, via a link that will soon be
available on the workshop website. The deadline for submission is
22 April 2011.

Each paper will be reviewed by at least three programme committee
members.  Final decisions on the technical programme will be made by
the workshop organisers.

As reviewing will be blind, papers should not include the authors'
names and affiliations.  Self-references that reveal the authors'
identity, e.g., "We previously showed (Smith, 1991) ...", should be
avoided. Instead, use citations such as "Smith previously showed
(Smith, 1991) ...".  Acknowledgments sections should be removed before
submission.

Proceedings
-----------
The proceedings of the workshop will be edited by the workshop
organisers and published by the EMNLP 2011 conference organisers.

Important Dates
---------------
22 April 2011  Deadline for papers submissions
20 May 2011    Notification of acceptance to authors of workshop papers
03 June 2011   Camera-ready copies due
31 July 2011   UCNLG+EVAL workshop in Edinburgh



Workshop organisers
-------------------
Anja Belz, NLTG, University of Brighton, UK
Roger Evans, NLTG, University of Brighton, UK
Albert Gatt, University of Malta, Malta
Kristina Striegnitz, Union College, USA

Programme committee
-------------------
Aoife Cahill, Stuttgart University, Germany
Charlie Greenbacker, University of Delaware, USA
Emiel Krahmer, Tilburg University, NL
Mirella Lapata, University of Edinburgh, UK
Oliver Lemon, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, UK
Daniel Marcu, ISI, University of Southern California, USA
Kathy McKeown, Columbia, USA
Karolina Owczarzak, NIST, USA
Ehud Reiter, Aberdeen, UK

Workshop website
----------------
http://www.nltg.brighton.ac.uk/ucnlg/ucnlg11

Contact email
-------------
ucnlg at itri.brighton.ac.uk
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/corpora/attachments/20110127/928824c6/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
_______________________________________________
Corpora mailing list
Corpora at uib.no
http://mailman.uib.no/listinfo/corpora