LT for DH: Language Technology Resources and Tools for Digital Humanities
LT for DH: Language Technology Resources and Tools for Digital Humanities
Workshop in conjunction with COLING 2016
Language resources are increasingly used not only in Language Technology (LT), but also in other subject fields, such as the digital humanities (DH) and in the field of education. Applying LT tools and data for such fields implies new perspectives on these resources regarding domain adaptation, interoperability, technical requirements, documentation, and usability of user interfaces. This workshop will focus on the use of LT tools and data in DH, the discussion will focus on example applications and the type and range of research questions where LT tools can be beneficial.
LT applications are often trained and adjusted to individual text types or corpora published in specific formats. Using the tools in other contexts results in a difference in the data that is to be processed, e.g. historical data or different ‘genres’. Though it may seem obvious that the quality of the results may not be as high, the results may still be valuable, for example because of the sheer size of data that can be investigated rather than by manual analysis. Hence tools and resources need to be adaptable to different text types. Applying tools for data from non-LT areas such as the humanities also increases the demands on acceptable data formats, as the data to be processed may contain additional annotations or a variety of annotations. Additionally, in some cases new data conversion needs appear and the tools need to be robust enough to handle also erroneous data, giving meaningful status messages to a non-LT user. It is often also required that tools are adapted to the text types that they are intended to be used for. For example, data mining tools trained for one type of texts need to be adapted for another type.
LT tools often need to be combined in processing chains and workflows whose exact order and configuration depends on the particular LT application. The same is true for DH workflows. However, since the DH applications often significantly differ from those in LT, new configurations of tools need to be entertained and additional requirements for the interoperability of tools may arise. This is particularly the case for interfacing annotation and querying tools as well as the incorporation of data exploration and data visualization techniques.
The technical requirements of some LT tools and the considerable learning curve for its use poses another obstacle for non-expert users in the DH. This means, inter alia, that downloads of tools and complex local installations should be avoided and tools should be made available as web-applications whenever possible. Moreover, usability studies of LT tools for DH applications may give important feedback for the adaptation of user interaction, adaptation of algorithms, and the need for additional functionality.
This workshop invites submissions in each of these areas of LT focusing on research questions in the DH community.
