a European Masters in
Language and Speech
GERRIT
BLOOTHOOFT
For the Board of the European Masters in Language and Speech
Utrecht University, UiL-OTS, Trans 10, 3512 JK Utrecht, The
Netherlands,
Phone: +31.30.2536042, Fax: +31.30.2536000,
Internet: http://www.cstr.ed.ac.uk/EuroMasters/
Abstract: The study of spoken language communication and the development of
applications ask for students that are educated and trained in both speech
sciences and natural language processing. The paper describes the model,
structure, procedures and contents of a European Masters in Language and Speech
that opens the possibility to realise this in a truly international way. The
implementations at the 14 universities where the scheme has started since
1999 are described and show a rich
variety of curricula all matching the same qualifications. The paper is an
updated version of one that appeared under the same title in the Proceedings of
Eurospeech'99, Budapest, 627-630.
Key words: education, language and
speech, masters, ISCA, EACL
1. introduction
Understanding
speech communication requires knowledge of generation and perception of speech
as a continuous acoustic signal, knowledge of language as symbolic information,
and the interaction between both. The various representations of human language
information have different characteristics, descriptions and theories and have
traditionally been taught in different curricula such as Phonetics, Speech
Technology, Electrical Engineering, General Linguistics, Computational
Linguistics and Natural Language Processing (NLP). However, attempts to develop
systems that utilise human speech as a means for interfacing to machines,
revealed that success requires contributions from both Speech and NLP
communities. Considering the growth of the language industry there is a rapidly
increasing need for people that are able to work in a team consisting of
specialists in speech, NLP, and computer science. These team members should be
able to work together and therefore should be able to understand the major
aspects of each other's specialisms. Most academic curricula in Speech and NLP
do not make the connection between the two, even if both are taught in the same
institute.
In 1997, a
consortium of ten universities [Edinburgh, Sheffield, Essex, Aalborg, Utrecht,
Saarbrücken, Lisbon, Patras, Athens, Lausanne/IDIAP] applied successfully under
the Socrates programme for the development of a European Masters in Language
and Speech. This Masters aims to improve the aforementioned situation by
creating an advanced programme of studies that allows students to obtain
qualifications that are needed for team working in the language industries.
After two
years, a model for the organisation of the European Masters has been created
and its contents have been defined. The features of its open structure will de
described and the current implementations of the scheme will be presented.
These show that the initiative has already stimulated new co-operation between
departments and universities. It is hoped that this is a prelude of new ways of
co-operation and new ways to improve the quality of education.
2. THE MODEL
2.1 A
contents defined Masters
There is
little homogeneity in the educational systems of European countries and the
Masters degree is no exception to this situation. In many countries the Masters
as such is not a degree and even in countries where it exists there is a great
variety in implementation, even among universities. This makes it very hard to
think of a European Masters as a legal degree.
Given the
maze of educational systems and the enormous legal barriers it is fruitful to
start with the European Masters visions and aims. The vision is that we believe
that solutions in human language engineering require team workers that have at
least basic knowledge and skills in speech and language. The Masters could be
used as a definition of these basics. We actually do not care that much when
and where this knowledge and skills have been obtained, as long as they are
there once a student leaves the university. Interpreted in this way, the
European Masters would become a quality stamp rather than an official degree.
2.2 Role for
ISCA and EACL
The
International Speech Communication Association [ISCA, formerly ESCA] and the
European chapter of the Association of Computational Linguistics [EACL] have
endorsed the European Masters implementation. They will oversee the
certification procedure for a student who fulfils all requirements for the
European Masters. Although this certificate has no legal status, its value
should show in its recognition by prospective employers. A role for
professional organisations in the certifcation procedure is already in use in
many other disciplines. The big advantage is that the certificate is
independent from the educational systems in the various countries and
independent of the legal degree the student will obtain according to those
systems.
3.
IMPLEMENTATION
The following
ways of implementation of the Masters can be envisaged. The actual
implementations (section 6) show examples of all of them:
·
A traditional conversion Masters at one university.
This may apply for the Anglo-Saxon universities. In this case the Masters is
for instance organised as a one-year MSc course (such as the MPhil degree in
Cambridge). The MSc degree and the certificate then coincide, and both will be
awarded. In some countries it may be possible to organise the Masters by a
consortium of national universities.
·
A collection of courses within an undergraduate study.
This may apply for those countries where a Masters is not an official degree,
or where a Masters is not presented as a short postgraduate course but a degree
related to a three or four year curriculum.
At several universities the content of the Masters is already present
although seldom within a single curriculum. A student can meet the requirements
for the European Masters by the appropriate choice of option courses. There is
no need that the courses are clustered in one year of studies: they may be
presented anywhere during the whole four-year curriculum. The student will
obtain the official national degree on the basis of the full curriculum and
will get the European Masters certificate in addition.
·
A collection of courses partly provided by the home
university and partly through student exchange with a host university. This
model can be a variant of both aforementioned models in the case that the home
university does not provide all the courses needed to fulfil the requirements.
It is, for instance, conceivable that the home university only has courses in
natural language processing and that the student has to obtain the speech
courses elsewhere, or vice versa. Courses provided through the Internet may be
developed for an international audience and hence reduce the need for actual
exchange.
4. STRUCTURE AND CONTENTS
The European
Masters will usually consist of a series of taught courses and a period of
project work (traineeship). To give emphasis to the European character of the
programme, a total of at least three months (whether on courses or project
work) should be spent abroad. No requirements are set as to the total duration
of the European Masters, but a year will be the absolute minimum.
4.1 Contents
The contents
of the European Masters has been defined in the following topic areas:
·
Theoretical Linguistics
·
Natural Language Processing
·
Phonetics and Phonology
·
Cognitive Models for Speech and Language Processing
·
Speech Signal Processing
·
Statistical Pattern Classification
·
Language Engineering Applications
·
Programming Languages
The description of the contents of these areas are given in terms of a
summary outline, a series of topics and sub-topics with references to example
chapters in textbooks or papers. A full overview can be found at the website of
the European Masters http://www.cstr.ed.ac.uk/EuroMasters/
4.2
Traineeship
The traineeship
should preferably be teamwork in industry but it may be replaced by research
work at the home university or at another university abroad. The organisation
of the traineeship / research work of a student is the responsibility of the
home university of the student. The summary of the thesis resulting from this
part of studies should be compulsorily presented as a report (equivalent to 4
pages A4) to the international electronic student journal of language and
speech WEB-SLS (run under the responsibility of ISCA, EACL and ELSNET, http://web-sls.essex.ac.uk/web-sls/).
4.3 EMasters School
To
strengthen the identification of a student with the European Masters, an
EMasters School is organised as a bridge towards teamwork in industry after the
course period. The EMasters School is organised annually, in most cases next to
another event. All students following the European Masters are encouraged to
attend this one-week EMasters school preferably after most of the course
requirements have been met. At the EMasters School, active research topics will
be presented as well as presentations from industry about the latest
developments in LE applications. The first Emasters school was held in 2000
before the ELSNET Summerschool in Chios (Greece); in 2001 the Emasters school
will be organised at the Masaryk University in Brno.
It may be
that some unofficial examination will be planned at the Easter School to get
feedback on the level of the students. This examination will not have any
consequences for the studies of the student.
5.
APPLICATION
Any
university (whether or not in the European Union) can apply for the European
Masters. This brings the European Masters within reach of all universities and
all students.
If a
department wishes to participate in the European Masters, the following
documents have to be provided with the application:
·
A description of the coverage of the courses with
respect to the prescribed contents of the Masters.
·
Proposals detailing how a student can obtain missing
contents elsewhere through courses that are accredited at other universities.
·
A description of the way student exchanges will be
realised [in most cases through the Socrates/Erasmus programme to avoid fee
problems].
·
The procedures that will be followed by the
examination board of the department to award the student with the European
Masters Certificate.
The Board of
the European Masters will consider the application. A positive decision holds
for four years. For the time being the Board consists of the project partners
but in the longer run board members will be appointed by ESCA and EACL.
6. CURRENT
IMPLEMENTATIONS
The European
Masters has started in the academic year 1999-2000 at the following eleven
European Universities. In 2000-2001 Leuven and Stuttgart University has
followed, while Edinburgh University will probably start in 2001-2002. These
universities consist of a number of founding partners plus new partners that
were attracted by the scheme and put forward an application. For each of the
universities a very short description of the type of implementation is given.
Details can be found at the Masters web site.
6.1
Aalborg Universitet, Danmark
The European
Masters is implemented as a path through the already existing Masters in
Intelligent MultiMedia in which option modules are adapted to fulfil the
European Masters qualifications. The entrance requirement is a Bachelors degree
in Computer Science or Electrical Engineering.
The course takes 1.5 years for completion, with the last semester
devoted to thesis work.
6.2
University of Athens (Ethniko kai Kapodistriako
Panepistimio Athinon), Greece
The European
Masters will reside in the Department of Informatics. It consists of a series
of courses at the undergraduate (BSc) and postgraduate (MSc) level. The latter
involve MSc studies in Signal Processing and Computational Systems and in
Cognitive Science (in co-operation with other departments and the Athens
University of Economics and Business). The duration of BSc studies is four
years while the MSc studies involve another two years. The European Masters can
be realised as an appropriate trajectory of courses.
6.3
Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya
(UPC), Barcelona
The UPC
implementation is a joint effort of the speech processing group of the
Department of Signal Theory and Communications, and the NLP group from the
Department of Informatic Systems and Languages. Courses in theoretical
linguistics are taken from the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, in phonetics and
phonology from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, and a course in human
language processing comes from the Universitat de Barcelona. A truly
inter-university programme! The programme takes one year.
6.4 Rheinische
Friedrich-Wilhelms Universität, Bonn, Germany
Students
working towards the Magister Artium in Communication Research and Phonetics
will be able to complete the European Masters with little extra workload. The
study is a combination of the subjects Phonetics and Computational Linguistics
as offered at the Institut für Kommunikations-forschung. Total duration of
studies is 4.5 years (9 terms) of which the latter is devoted to thesis work.
The European Masters study defines a series of over 15 courses that should have
been followed during this period.
6.5 Masarykova
Univerzita, Brno, Czech Republic
A
co-operation between the Masaryk University (MU) and the Brno University of
Technology (BUT) forms the basis for the European Masters implementation.
Twelve courses given by lecturers from the Faculty of Informatics (MU) and of
the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (BUT) underlie the
programme within the framework of Magistr studies. Two courses were newly
developed to meet the European Masters criteria. The international component is
emphasised by the presence of Hynek Hermansky from OGI in the local examination
board.
6.6 Friedrich-Alexander
Universität, Erlangen, Germany
The Erlangen
implementation of the European Masters is built in the context of the completion
of an MA in Linguistischer Informatik or after a BA in Linguistischer
Informatik. Fourteen courses form the requirements and come from the chairs in
Computational Linguistics, Pattern Recognition, and from the philology studies.
Topics in speech perception and word recognition should be taken elsewhere.
6.7 Panepistimio
Patras, Greece
The European Masters at the University of Patras
can be realised mainly at the postgraduate level within the framework of
cooperation between the Department of
Electrical and Computer Engineering and the
Department of Philology. Nine courses have been identified at the
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, for the remaining
contents in NLP, Phonetics and Phonology, Theoretial Linguistics and Cognitive
Science students can follow courses at the Department of Philology.
6.8 Ecole
Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Université de Lausanne, Université de
Genève, IDIAP Martigny, Switzerland
The Swiss implementation
is a joint effort of three universities around the lake of Geneva and the
research institute IDIAP in Martigny.
The European Masters is implemented as a full one-year postgraduate
study in a 'pre-doctoral' school. It is especially designed for foreign
students. A series of ten courses, chosen from the three participating
universities constitutes the European Masters. An implementation within the 4.5
year undergraduate studies at EPFL is planned as well.
6.9 Universität
des Saarlandes, Saarbrücken, Germany
As in Bonn,
the total duration of studies in Saarbrücken is 4.5 years, with existing
degrees in Computational Linguistics (Diplom) and in Phonetics and Phonology
(Magister Artium). A series of 24 courses taken from both programmes constitute
the European Masters study. An
arrangement with Bonn University has been made to meet requirements in the area
of speech signal processing.
6.10 University of Sheffield, United Kingdom
The European
Masters will be realised within existing masters degrees in Software
Engineering, Computer Sciences, and Artificial Intelligence, which each take
four years for completion. Twelve
courses have been identified which should have been followed during the Masters
studies.
6.11 Universiteit
Utrecht, The Netherlands
At Utrecht
University students can obtain an MA (doctorandus) degree in Phonetics or
General Linguistics, which each take the last three out of four years of
studies. The European Masters has been implemented as a choice of 24 courses
out of the total offer of courses in Phonetics, General and Computational
Linguistics.
Besides
these eleven universities that have started the European Masters in Language
and Speech in September 1999, the following universities have started in 2000
or will start in 2001.
6.12 Katholieke
Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
The
implementation at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven is part of a Masters
programme in Artificial Intelligence. Students entering this course are expected
to have a degree in Computer Sciences already. Therefore the Emasters study
could be condensed into a one-year course.
6.13 Universität
Stuttgart, Germany
The
Institute of Natural Language Processing at Stuttgart University offers a wide
range of courses, both in Computational Linguistics and in Speech Science. The
Emasters implementation is a combination of courses from both strands and can
be completed as a special path during the 4.5 years of study.
6.14 Edinburgh University, UK
The Emasters
has been implemented in Edinburgh in the frame work of an MSc in Speech and
Language processing. Since the course is condensedly scheduled in one year, it
is especially suited for students that already have an undergraduate degree in
Linguistics and therefore can get exemptions for certain study modules.
7. CONCLUSION
The European
Masters model that has been described is flexible and open. Its implementation
at eleven universities throughout Europe has already resulted in a number of
new cooperations between departments and universities. For the near
future, involvement (through
traineeships) of industry will be sought. It is expected that the European
Masters scheme will be an adequate answer to the current training needs of
human language technology.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This project
has been made possible by initial support of ELSNET which was followed by a
successful application under the Socrates programme (CDA
28972-IC-1-96-1-NL-ERASMUS-EPS-1). Doug Arnold, Gerrit Bloothooft, Hervé
Bourlard, Tom Brøndsted, Nuria Castell, Jan Cernocky, Martin Cooke, Andrzej
Drygajlo, Eleni Galiotou, Maria Grigoriadou, Roland Hausser, Steve Isard, Paul
McKevitt, Simon King, Ivan Kopecek, Karel Pala, Martin Rajman, Kyriakos
Sgarbas, Jürgen Trouvain, Briony Williams, Wolfgang Wokurek and Maria Wolters
have made contributions.