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Bullet Course on Spoken Dialogue Systems
Designing and Testing Spoken Dialogue Systems
a DUS/ELSNET Bullet Course
April 16-18, 1997
Why this course?
Many organisations, both in the commercial and in the non-profit
sectors, spend considerable amounts of money on person-to-person
communication with their customers, where intelligent
speech-understanding computer systems could do the same job in a more
adequate and cost-effective way. Typical examples are call centres,
where incoming phone calls are answered (if they are requests for
information) or routed to their destination. Other examples include
railway or airline time-table information services, ticketing systems,
and banking by telephone.
Dialogue is the key element that determines whether a spoken-language
system actually works for the customer. This is where user-centered
development of systems has its greatest leverage. But given the fast
pace of change in speech-understanding technology, what makes a
dialogue effective? What are the underlying principles of dialogue,
the design methods, and the professionals' techniques for developing
effective spoken-language systems?
The objective of the DUS/ELSNET Bullet Course 'Designing and Testing
Spoken Dialogue Systems' is to give an overview of what is possible
right now, and at the same time an insight in what will be feasible in
the near future. To this end, the course will familiarise the
participants with the way state-of-the-art dialogue systems work, and
the techniques through which they are designed and tested. These
technical insights are a prerequisite for any decisions concerning the
introduction of spoken dialogue systems in an organisation.
Who should attend?
The course is intended for potential users of state-of-the art
technology in spoken dialogue systems. These include technology
providers as well as companies who wish to make their services more
efficient or cost-effective (e.g. call centres). The course is geared
particularly towards personnel at (sub) management level, with a
technical background, for whom it is useful to get acquainted with the
possibilities and limitations of spoken dialogue technologies.
Learning objectives
For spoken-dialogue systems to be effective in real-world use, the
dialogues need to be expertly designed and then carefully tested. This
'bullet course' will build skills in these areas by providing
participants with both (1) the basic knowledge of interaction design
that will enable development of new applications and (2) the practical
knowledge of field experience that will create dialogues that
work. The course covers:
- Principles of interaction and context that lead to sound design of dialogues
- Fundamentals of the dialogue design process, including application of dialogue theory to specific domains
- Dialogue management techniques
- Design and acceptance testing
- Real-world experience with dialogue systems
Key points in the course will be illustrated through the building of a
prototype dialogue system so that participants can gain experience and
expert feedback on use of these techniques.
Course outline
DAY ONE (Wednesday, April 16)
Afternoon:
Evening:
- Practical exercise: 'cognitive walk-through'
- The specification and design process
- Solution architectures
DAY TWO (Thursday, April 17)
Morning:
- Speech understanding and dialogue management -- problems and solutions
Afternoon
- Dialogue management -- building a sample application
Evening
- Practical exercise: data analysis
- Tools
DAY THREE (Friday, April 18)
Morning
- System testing
- Acceptance testing
- Wrap-up and feedback
Afternoon:
- Panel: 'dialogue systems in the real world'
The teachers
The course will be taught by three leading experts in the field, who
have extensive expertise in the design and development of spoken
dialogue systems. This will guarantee that the audience will get
acquainted with the most advanced developments in the field, without
losing contact with real life problems.
Harald Aust, Philips Research, Germany Harald Aust, Business Manager
of Philips Voice Control, a new speech recognition company within
Philips Research, has about five years experience in research and
development of dialogue systems. He developed the technology behind
the first publicly available automatic information system that can be
used with ordinary, fluent speech.
Norman Fraser, Vocalis, UK Norman Fraser is Advanced Prototypes
Manager at Vocalis, the specialist speech recognition and voice
processing company he helped set up in 1993. He has been active in the
field of speech and language processing for more than a decade, with
experience of working in both academic and industrial settings. From
1989 until 1993, he played a leading role in SUNDIAL, one of the
largest ever spoken dialogue research projects. He has written
extensively on the subject, especially on dialogue system design,
evaluation and applications. He currently manages the European
Commission REWARD (Real World Applications of Robust Dialogue)
project, and is a part-time Lecturer in Linguistics at the University
of Surrey.
David G. Novick, EURISCO, France David Novick is Director of Research
at EURISCO, the European Institute of Cognitive Sciences and
Engineering. As a computer scientist, Dr. Novick has published many
research papers in the field of spoken-language dialogue systems in
proceedings such as ICSLP, ISSD, CHI, TWLT and ICASSP. In his
research, he led the development of dialogues for multiple
spoken-dialogue systems, including the Automated Spoken Questionnaire
(for the U.S. Bureau of the Census) and the Appointment Scheduling
System (for U.S. WEST Advanced Technologies). He was the principal
author of sections on spontaneous speech phenomena and on CHI research
directions for national research assessments in the U.S. Dr. Novick
has taught courses and workshops in dialogue, communication and
interaction for over 15 years.
The organisations behind the course
ELSNET
ELSNET is the 'European Network of Excellence in Language and Speech',
funded by the European Commission under the ESPRIT programme. ELSNET's
main objective is to promote and facilitate the integration of
language and speech technology, and to ensure a continuous transfer of
knowledge and expertise between academia and industry. The ELSNET
Bullet Courses are one of the instruments used for knowledge
transfer. ELSNET has currently as its members some 70 prominent
research teams from academic institutions all over Europe, and some 50
leading industries in language and speech technology.
Utrecht Institute of Linguistics OTS
Utrecht Institute of Linguistics OTS is a research institute of the
Faculty of Arts of Utrecht University. Its goal is to develop
scientific expertise in language and speech. It sets out to achieve
this goal by carrying out a research programme comprising fundamental
and applied research on language and speech and by offering a
high-quality graduate programme to qualified PhD-students. OTS seeks
to promote intensive co-operation between several areas of linguistics
and related disciplines outside linguistics such as logic, computer
science, and cognitive psychology. One of the main objectives of OTS
is to transfer information to groups and institutions external to the
University. OTS is currently the coordinating site of ELSNET.
DE UTRECHTSE SCHOOL
De Utrechtse School (The Graduate Professional School) of Utrecht
University exists since 1995; its main objective is to enhance
high-level postgraduate education in the field of humanities and
languages/arts studies and social studies. The common character of the
study programmes within De Utrechtse School is the focus on
professional practice: attention is not only given to the transfer of
knowledge, but also to important skills and attitudes. In order to
develop initiatives for courses, De Utrechtse School provides
financial support, but also provides advice with regard to marketing
and designs.
Date and Venue
The DUS/ELSNET Bullet Course 'Designing and Testing Spoken Dialogue
Systems' will be held from Wednesday, April 16 to Friday, April 18,
1997. The course will take place at 'Hotel/Restaurant Oud London', a
conference centre in Zeist (close to Utrecht), The Netherlands.
Hotel/Restaurant Oud London
Woudenbergseweg 52
3707 HX Zeist
The Netherlands
Course Format
The DUS/ELSNET bullet course is an international three day course,
consisting of seven 3-hour sessions, starting at lunch time on day
one. The course language will be English. Participation is limited to
25 persons.
Registration Information
[Suppressed]
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