[Controlled-languages] CONF: Call for Panels and Roundtables - AMTA2006

[Jeff Allen]

CALL FOR PANELS and ROUNDTABLES
AMTA 2006
August 8-12, Cambridge, Mass.
http://amta2006.amtaweb.org/index.htm

AMTA 2006 is inviting proposals for panels and roundtables to be held during 
the main conference days, Wednesday August 9 through Friday August 11, 2006. 
We expect to have up to 3 or 4 such sessions during the conference.


IMPORTANT DATES:

Deadline for Proposal Submission: May 7, 2006
Notification of Acceptance: June 8, 2006
Deadline for Final Panel/Roundtable Description: June 30, 2006


FORMAT OF PROPOSALS AND PROCEDURE

Proposal submissions for panels/roundtables should minimally include:

1) Contact information (e-mail and telephone) of the proposer.
2) The topic or theme of the session.
3) The proposed structure of the session (session leadership, participant 
presentations, interaction among participants and between participants and 
the audience); if applicable, the process for fostering interaction among 
participants prior to the conference.
4) Whether prospective participants have been identified and, if so, their 
names, affiliations and expected contribution.

Proposals should be sent to the Panels/Roundtables Chair, Violetta 
Cavalli-Sforza (violetta at cs.cmu.edu).  Their receipt will be immediately 
acknowledged.  The Chair will then communicate with the proposers to discuss 
any issues that still need addressing or aspects that need further 
elaboration.  Once proposals have been reviewed by the Chair and other 
members of the organizing committee for AMTA 2006, notifications of 
acceptance will be sent out, together with suggestions for revisions.  When 
the final form of accepted proposals is submitted, it is expected that the 
list of participants will be firm.

PANEL OR ROUNDTABLE?

Both panels and roundtables are intended to present to spectators a panoply 
of viewpoints and concerns.  Panels are typically more structured, with 
presentations by each panelist followed by questions and discussions among 
panelists and spectators.  Roundtables typically have freer interactions, 
with specific issues related to the main topic introduced freely and 
explored and discussed by roundtable members and spectators.  Different 
options for structuring the interaction in advance and during the 
panel/roundtable in order to make the exchange maximally productive, are 
presented below as suggestions.


POTENTIAL TOPICS/THEMES OF INTEREST

In case you are thinking about proposing a panel or roundtable, but are not 
sure whether the subject would be of interest at the conference, here are a 
few potential themes/topics that appear to be of current or ongoing 
interest.  Other ideas and suggestions are more than welcome.

1. What are the limits of MT without linguistic knowledge and how do we 
know? What are the pros and cons of different approaches and are certain 
approaches better than others for different applications?

2. Who are the users and what are the uses of MT systems now, and is the 
state of the art in MT good and cheap enough for them?  What applications is 
MT becoming indispensable for that might accept a higher price tag? Are 
there areas of application of MT that have not received sufficient 
attention, and how can those markets be opened up by good enough MT? How do 
MT research and development efforts need to change to support such 
applications?  Can MT and smaller or more specialized tools be financially 
viable, or are they already?

This is a very wide topic in which several subtopics could be emphasized, 
possibly in different sessions, for example:
* Different requirements for use of MT: how useful is MT output and how to 
identify thresholds for usability in post-editing or information gathering 
and other applications.
* The time, cost, and politics of integrating MT into high-volume production 
translation.
* The pros and cons of generic MT, i.e. using an MT system the way it comes 
from a vendor vs. customizing it for a particular application, and what 
customizations might be most useful for different applications.

3. Why are professional translators not using MT even other tools such as 
TMs more?  What are the practical and psychological barriers to the use of 
such tools? What educational structures within and outside conventional 
institutions need to be put in place in order to overcome those barriers and 
make effective use of existing and developing technology even if it is far 
from perfect?  And what MT and related tool development and research efforts 
might allow at least some aspects of MT to become more useful to 
translators?

4. Can MT be deployed to serve needs of minority or neglected languages, and 
what other data, tools and technologies can be harnessed for this purpose?


POTENTIAL WAYS OF STRUCTURING THE INTERACTION

An important criterion for evaluating the success of a panel or roundtable 
is whether, in addition to presenting multiple perspectives to the audience, 
it creates a lively exchange and raises provocative questions.  In addition, 
the session at the conference can be more productive if the participants 
have started the discussion and exchanged among themselves ahead of time. 
The following is a short list of ways in which the interaction prior to and 
during the conference could be guided and structured for this purpose. 
Proposal submitters should feel free to propose other alternatives, keeping 
in mind the goal of achieving maximal exchange among panel or roundtable 
members, as well as with the audience.

1. Set up the panel/roundtable as a mock debate or client-customer dialogue 
between the parties (e.g. users vs. developers/researchers, developers vs. 
researchers).  What do clients want or don't want, like or don't like, need 
or don't need? Allow some participants to play the role they normally play 
but ask others to take the other side.

2. Prepare a list of questions to distribute to participants ahead of time. 
Ask them to write a 1-2 page response to those questions. Circulate the 
responses among other participants ahead of the conferences to stimulate new 
questions, new responses and material for discussion.  Present the result of 
the process, including the dialectic interaction, at the conference.

3. Set up an assertion for the panel/roundtable as a topic of debate.  Each 
participant must then develop multiple arguments both in favor of and 
against the assertion.  As in 2 above, distribute arguments in favor of and 
against of the assertion to other panelists, in order to stimulate debate. 
Arguments and counterarguments are presented at the conference and can be 
further developed during the session.