EAMT is one of the organizations supporting the fifth edition of the “Technologies for Translation” (TeTra) international conference, organized and hosted by the University of Bologna on the Forlì campus, in Italy, on 14-15 March 2019. This year’s edition of this biennial event has the thought-provoking title “Is translation dead? Machine translation, post-editing and the challenges that lie ahead”, and will focus on the technology that has gained more ground than any others in the world of language services: machine translation and its associated activities, such as post-editing and revision. Key questions such as the following will be addressed during the two days of the conference: How and how much have modern machine translation systems improved? How can (or should) these systems be exploited, and which skills are most valuable to be successful in today’s translation marketplace? And above all: is it so plausible that artificial intelligence will replace human intelligence in the near future?
Talks on these stimulating topics will be given by high-profile international invited speakers who have close ties with the translation and language services industry, including Jost Zetzsche (International Writers’ Group), Lieve Macken (Ghent University), Sharon O’Brien (Dublin City University), Maarit Koponen (University of Turku), Bert Wylin (KU Leuven), Giovanna Scocchera (University of Bologna), Antonio Toral (University of Groningen), and Federico Gaspari (University for Foreigners “Dante Alighieri” of Reggio Calabria and Dublin City University). The second day of the conference will offer practical hands-on workshops concerning the use of machine translation and translation technologies as productivity tools for translators and interpreters; these workshops will be run by Luisa Bentivogli (Fondazione Bruno Kessler), Claudia Lecci (University of Bologna), and Nicoletta Spinolo (University of Bologna). In addition, following on from the success of past TeTra conferences, a “lunch and demo” session will feature software demonstrations and provide valuable networking opportunities with like-minded colleagues in the translation business; software products demonstrated during this session will include MateCat, MemoQ, SDL Trados Studio, Raw Output Evaluator/IntelliWebSearch, and TranslationQ. A final round table will encourage interaction between the conference organizers, the invited speakers and the audience.
Around 150 delegates from Italy and beyond are expected to attend the conference, consisting of an exciting mix of forward-looking and innovation-oriented in-house and freelance translators and interpreters, managers of translation/interpretation companies, localisers, technical writers and editors, project managers, linguists, academics, lecturers, researchers, trainers and students in translation and interpreting. In addition to EAMT’s support, the conference is organized in collaboration with leading professional associations of translators and interpreters in Italy, namely AIIC, AITI, ANITI, ASSOINTERPRETI and TradInFo.
The European Association for Machine Translation (EAMT) is an organization that serves the growing community of people interested in MT and translation tools, including users, developers, and researchers of this increasingly viable technology.
As part of its commitment to promote research, development and awareness about translation technologies, the EAMT is for the fourth consecutive year launching a call for proposals to fund MT-related activities during 2019. .
Purpose of the Call
The EAMT is planning to support various MT activities such as tutorials, workshops, teaching and awareness initiatives, openÂ-source initiatives, and small research and development projects by its current members.
The proposed activity should be of direct interest to the MT community: researchers, developers, vendors or users of MT technologies.
The EAMT particularly encourages proposals from young members.
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
Recent developments in MT research.
MT evaluation methodology, metrics and results.
Launch of MTÂ-specific evaluation campaigns.
New or prospective commercial users of MT technology.
MT environments (workflow, support tools, etc.).
Interaction between users and MT systems.
MT combined with other technologies (translation memories, speech translation, cross-language information retrieval, multilingual text categorization, multilingual text summarization, etc.).
MT for less-Âresourced languages: development, usage, etc.
MT in the social internet: new uses, new modes of development.
Training events on MT, particularly on recent developments.
Events to disseminate MT, especially to the wider public.
All proposals will be screened by a review committee that consists of EAMT Executive Committee members and possibly a few appointed external experts if necessary.
Submission information
Eligibility requirements
In order to qualify for funding, the institution(s) or the individual making the proposal must be a confirmed member of the EAMT at submission time.
The proposed activity should be of direct interest to the MT community at large: researchers, developers, vendors or users of MT technologies.
The proposal shall clearly describe the purpose of the project and include measurable mid-project milestones for which a report should be submitted (see below).
Preference will be given to projects which by nature will involve and be beneficial for several persons, as for instance conferences, seminars, workshops and tutorials.
Proposals with a significant, clearly identified impact on the MT community (through the development, dissemination or use of project results) are those most likely to be accepted.
Proposals that bring together different aspects of MT will be specially valued.
The proposal should be clearly justified as being technically and/or scientifically sound.
The quality and efficiency of the implementation of the proposal will be evaluated.
The budget should be adequate for the proposed objectives and the actual implementation of the activity.
Budget
EAMT anticipates funding several proposals for various activities. There are two categories of proposals. The member institutions’ category and the individual members’ category.
The total foreseen EAMT Budget for this call is around €10,000 to cover all granted projects (tutorials, workshops, teaching and awareness initiatives, open-source initiatives, and research and development projects). The maximum amount EAMT can grant for a single project will be €10,000.
A project being granted financial support by EAMT according to this call will receive 50% of the granted amount at the start of the project. The proposer will receive the remaining 50% when the mid-project progress report has been received by the EAMT Secretary and substantiates that the mid-project milestones are met, and furthermore provided that the proposer is still a current member of the EAMT.
Candidates should respond to the call by submitting a single PDF document, written in English, that is composed of the following elements:
Proposal summary: 1Â-page maximum
Detailed proposal description: 5-Âpage maximum
Budget and project planning overview: 1Â-page maximum
Submit your proposals as a single PDF file no later than the deadline (see Important Dates below) through EasyChair: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=eamt2019 (Submission type: Proposals for Activities)
Detailed description of sections of the proposal
Proposal summary (one page) in English.
Complete contact information of candidate.
Description of the activity or the event.
Budget summary and identification of the requested support from EAMT.
Experience of the proposing person/organization in the field.
Detailed proposal description (up to 5 pages)
A statement on why this event or activity would be helpful for the community./li>
A statement justifying why EAMT should support this event or activity.
A list of experience and related skills of the participants of the team.
Budget and project planning overview (up to 1 page)
A breakdown of the costs estimated for the entire activity or event.
Clear milestones and deliverables must be indicated.
An identification of the support requested from EAMT and possible other supporting funds.
Important Dates
Circulation of the Call: August 30, 2018
Submission deadline for proposals: October 15, 2018, 23:59 CEST
Acceptance notifications and negotiations to start on: December 10, 2018
In case of acceptance (projects):
Mid-project progress report due: June 30, 2019, 23:59 CEST
Final report and deliverables due: January 31, 2020, 23:59 CET
Additional provisions
Only complete proposals will be reviewed.
All information submitted with proposals will be regarded as confidential and will only be used in the context of this project.
The funded projects may be required to report at the EAMT events (e.g. Poster at the EAMT conference, a short progress report for the General assembly, etc.), without any claim for additional funds.
The EAMT should be acknowledged in all materials related to the project, activity or initiative.
No obligation to award the proposal
The EAMT shall be under no obligation to fund the proposals pursuant to this call for proposals. EAMT shall not be liable for any compensation with respect to candidates whose proposals have not been accepted. Nor shall it be liable in the event of its deciding not to award the proposal.
The European Association for Machine Translation (EAMT, http://www.eamt.org) is an organization that serves the growing community of people interested in MT and translation tools, including users, developers, and researchers of this increasingly viable technology.
The EAMT invites entries for the Anthony C Clarke award: the fifth EAMT Best Thesis Award, for a PhD or equivalent thesis on a topic related to machine translation.
Eligibility
Researchers who
have completed a PhD (or equivalent) thesis on a relevant topic in a European, Northern African[1] or Middle Eastern[2] institution within calendar year 2018 and
have not previously won another international award for that thesis,
Panel
The submissions will be judged by a panel of experts who will be specifically appointed as part of the EAMT 2018 programme committee and which will be ratified by the Executive Board of the EAMT.
Selection criteria
Each thesis will be judged according to how challenging the problem was, to how relevant the results are for machine translation as a field, and to the strength of their impact in terms of scientific publications.
Scope
The scope of the thesis need not be confined to a technical area, and applications are also invited from students who carried out their research into commercial and management aspects of machine translation.
Possible areas of research include:
development of machine translation or advanced computer-assisted translation: methods, software or resources
machine translation for less-resourced languages
the use of these systems in professional environments (freelance translators, translation agencies, localisation, etc.)
the increasing impact of machine translation on non-professional Internet users and its impact in communications, social networking, etc.
spoken language translation
the integration of machine translation and translation memory systems
the integration of machine translation software in larger IT applications
the evaluation of machine translation systems in real tasks such as those above
the cross-fertilisation between machine translation and other language technologies
Prize
The winner will be announced at the same time as accepted papers for the MT Summit XVII: the 17th Machine Translation Summit (Dublin, Ireland, Aug 19–23, 2019), and will receive a prize of €500, together with an inscribed certificate. The recipient of the award will be required to briefly present their research at MT Summit XVII. In order to facilitate this, the EAMT will waive the winner’s registration costs, and will make available a travel bursary of €200 to enable the recipient of the award to attend the said conference. The prize includes complimentary membership in the EAMT for 2019 and 2020.
a 2-page summary of your thesis in English, containing:
your full contact details,
the name and contact details of your supervisor(s),
a copy of your CV in English (at most one page, plus a complete list of publications directly related to the thesis)
submission form explaining how your thesis fulfills the selection criteria
an electronic copy of your thesis
optionally, an appendix with any other relevant information on the thesis
By submitting their work, authors
agree that, in case they are granted the award, any subsequently published version of the thesis should carry the citation “Winner of the 2018 European Association for Machine Translation Best Thesis Award” and
acknowledge the right of the EAMT to publicize the granting of the award.
Closing date
The closing date for submissions will be the same as the deadline for research papers at MT Summit XVII: April 12th, 2019.
[1] Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia. [2] Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United Arab Emirates, Yemen.
We are pleased to announce the first call for papers for MT Summit XVII: the 17th Machine Translation Summit, which will take place in the Helix Theatre at Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland, from 19-23 August 2019.
The conference is organised by the European Association for Machine Translation (EAMT: http://eamt.org), and overall chair of the conference is Andy Way (ADAPT Centre, Dublin City University, Ireland), supported by the following track chairs:
Research track co-chairs: Barry Haddow & Rico Sennrich (University of Edinburgh, UK)
User track: John Tinsley (Iconic Translation Machines, Ireland)
Translator track: Celia Rico (Universidad Europea de Madrid, Spain)
We are keen to solicit novel, original contributions in each of these three areas that will advance the field of MT. In addition to regular contributions, we are also seeking extended abstracts for the User and Translator tracks, which can report work-in-progress, or novel applications of technology to real application scenarios. Submissions must be unpublished, and written in English.
We seek submissions across the entire spectrum of MT-related research activity. Traditionally, the MT Summit is the place where researchers, developers, users and vendors all get together under one roof to discuss the issues of the day. Accordingly, we are especially interested in papers which demonstrate a clear interaction between researchers and practitioners who are applying MT technology to their specific use-cases. Thus, we particularly encourage submissions that are oriented towards building robust and practical systems, including systems where there is a user-in-the-loop, adaptation to particular domains or usage scenarios, and utilization of available resources in real production scenarios. There is little doubt that the quality of MT systems has improved significantly in recent years. In line with general overhyping of AI, we have seen some extraordinary claims about the capability of MT, so much so that translators have had cause to worry about the impact of this improved technology on their profession. In response, and as a clear attempt to bring translators and system developers closer together, the 2019 MT Summit will also feature a Translators track, where we get to hear what the issues of the day are for perhaps the largest set of users of the technology.
As well as the three main tracks, the conference will also feature invited talks, panel discussions, a technology showcase, tutorials and workshops, presentation of the 2019 EAMT Best Thesis Award, and presentation of the IAMT 2019 Award of Honour. More information about each of these will follow in due course.
Important Dates
Submission deadline: Friday, 12th April 2019
Notification of acceptance: Friday, 17th May 2019
Final camera-ready versions: Friday, 21st June 2019
Notification comes a full three months before the conference takes place, which should be plenty of time for conference attendees who need visas.
Research Track
Full papers must not exceed 10 (ten) pages plus unlimited pages for references, and must be formatted according to the MT Summit 2019 style guide (PDF version / LaTeX version / MS Word version). These papers will be rigorously reviewed for novelty and impact, and published in the conference proceedings. They will be presented at the conference as either oral presentations or as posters.
Translator Track
For the translator track, we will be accepting submissions of short papers of no more than 6 (six) pages, plus unlimited pages for references, reporting professional translators’ experiences with MT on issues such as the following:
Productivity measurements and their impact on MT adoption
Impact of MT on translators& work (pricing issues, post-editing tasks assignment and their acceptance among translators)
Ethical and confidentiality issues when using MT
Psycho-social aspects of MT adoption (translator attitudes and (pre-)conceptions)
Types of MT errors which influence quality acceptance/rejection
Discussions on the role of professional translators in MT development
The business side of MT
Integration of MT in large-scale production processes
The importance of translator feedback in MT
The role of the freelance translator in MT
The eruption of neural MT and its effect on the translation profession
User Track
For the user and translator tracks, we will be accepting submissions of short papers of no more than 6 (six) pages, plus unlimited pages for references, which report analyses of the effects of applying research technology to practical application scenarios, or descriptions of demonstrations appearing at the technology showcase.
Submissions to the user track are particularly encouraged from industry. Submissions from academic institutions should endeavour to include a user partner or collaborator as co-author where possible.
All Tracks
Submitted papers must be in PDF. To allow for blind reviewing, please do not include author names and affiliations within the paper, and avoid obvious self-references. Papers must be submitted to the Easy Chair/START system (to be determined shortly).
Topics of interest, across all tracks, include but are not limited to:
Advances in various MT paradigms: data-driven, rule-based, and hybrid MT
MT applications and embedding: translation/localization aids, speech-to-speech, speech-to-text, OCR, MT for communication (chats, blogs, social networks), multilingual applications, etc.
Technologies for MT deployment: quality estimation and domain adaptation
MT in special settings: low resources, massive resources, high volume, low computing resources, crisis scenarios, etc.
Human factors in MT and user interfaces for MT
Ethical issues in translation
Linguistic resources for MT: dictionaries, terminology banks, corpora
MT evaluation techniques and evaluation results
Empirical studies on translation data
Multiple Submissions
Full and short papers that will appear in the MT Summit proceedings must represent new work that has not been previously published. Pre-prints posted online on servers such as arXiv do not count as published papers, and thus are allowed to be submitted. Papers that have been or will be submitted to other meetings or publications must indicate this at submission time in the EasyChair/START submission form. Authors of papers accepted for presentation at MT Summit must notify the program chairs by the camera-ready deadline as to whether the paper will be presented. All accepted papers must be presented at the conference to appear in the proceedings.
Authors submitting more than one paper to MT Summit must ensure that submissions do not overlap significantly (>25%) with each other in content or results. Track chairs have the right to redirect papers to other tracks if deemed appropriate.
As a result of a survey disseminated among translators before EAMT 2018, a glossary and a report were produced. The glossary collected the technical terms that most translators surveyed selected as the ones they would like to be defined for them. The report and the associated slides presented at the conference highlight the most significant results of a survey on translators’ perceptions of machine translation.
past event