MEMBERSHIP

SIGEL was officially approved on Oct. 4, 2019. After 2.5 years, its membership has reached 131.

WORKSHOP (ComputEL-5)

Following up on four preceding events, we organized, in hybrid format, the 5th instance of the Workshop on the Use of Computational in the Study of Endangered Languages (ComputEL-5: https://computel-workshop.org/computel-5/) on 26-27 May 2022, co-located with the 60th ACL Conference (ACL-2022: https://www.2022.aclweb.org/) in Dublin, Ireland.

We received 37 submissions as papers or extended abstracts. After a thorough review process, 24 of the submissions were selected to be published in the ACL Anthology, representing a 68% acceptance rate.

As we had done previously, we welcomed all the participants of the main conference, in this case ACL, to take part in ComputEL-5, as well as we welcomed virtual participation by people who could not make it in person to Dublin, for whom we did not have any registration fee to encourage as broad participation as possible and lower the threshold for participants from institutions with lesser resources or without an institutional affiliation, which is often the case with less-resourced language communities. Despite the pandemic and thanks to the hybrid format, we had an audience of approx. 25 participants in the room another 25 or so observing remotely from around the world.

As a new workshop event, we organized a Special Session on Partnerships in Practice (https://computel-workshop.org/special-theme-session-partnerships-in-practice/), for which we received 8 extended abstracts, of which we accepted 7 presentations by groups exhibiting collaboration between the three constituencies of SIGEL, namely computational linguists, documentary linguists, and members of endangered language communities. This first instance was well received, with an audience of 26 people in the room and over 30 people following remotely, and we are planning on turning the contents into a joint publication.

We intend to hold the sixth ComputEL back at a documentary linguistic event in 2023, and have been in initial contact with the organizers of the 8th International Conference on Language Documentation and Conservation (ICLDC-8) in Hawai'i (who are planning an entirely virtual conference this next time).

The Organizing Committee for ComputEL-5 consisted of some members of the SIGEL Executive Board as well as other SIGEL members:

Sarah Moeller, University of Florida, Gainesville (general review chair)
Antonis Anastasopoulos, George Mason University (computational track chair)
Antti Arppe, University of Alberta
Aditi Chaudhary, Carnegie Mellon University
Atticus Harrigan, University of Alberta (community track chair)
Josh Holden, University of Alberta
Jordan Lachler, University of Alberta
Alexis Palmer, University of North Texas
Shruti Riwjani, Carnegie Mellon University
Lane Schwartz, University of Alaska, Fairbanks

The Program Committee for ComputEL-5 can be found in: https://computel-workshop.org/computel-5/scientific-committee/

OTHER ACTIVITIES

In October 2022, we organized the first of the Speaker Series for SIGEL, which consisted of a Panel on ASR for North American languages. This was well attended, and we plan to continue with this activity, over the rest of this year.

ENDORSEMENTS

During the last 12 months, we did not endorse any other events.

COMMUNICATIONS

SIGEL WEBSITE

We have set up SIGEL's website (https://acl-sigel.github.io/). Our website contains information about our previous and planned future activities, as well as our governance (Executive Board) and up-to-date membership.

TWITTER ACCOUNT

We have created a twitter account (@acl_sigel) for disseminating information relevant to SIGEL.

MAILING LISTS

We have created a Google email for SIGEL: acl.sigel@gmail.com - and a Google Group for the entire SIGEL membership: sigel@googlegroups.com - and for the SIGEL Executive Committee: sigel-ec@googlegroups.com

GOVERNANCE

As the first Executive Committee for SIGEL, the following persons had been elected for two-year terms, from January 2021 until January 2023.

EXECUTIVE Committee

President: Antti Arppe, University of Alberta
Secretary: Sarah Moeller, University of Florida, Gainesville
Members-At-Large:
- Antonios Anastasopoulos, George Mason University
- Hilaria Cruz, University of Louisville
- Jordan Lachler, University of Alberta
- Lane Schwartz, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

ELECTIONS

The next elections are due to take place by January 2023.

2022Q3 Reports: SIGEL

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