2022Q3 Reports: SIGEL

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Antti Arppe and Sarah Moeller

SIGEL is ACL's special interest group on Endangered Languages.

MEMBERSHIP

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

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 (<a href="https://computel-workshop.org/computel-5/">ComputEL-5</a>) on 26-27 May 2022, co-located with the <a href="https://www.2022.aclweb.org/">60th ACL Conference</a< (ACL-2022) in Dublin, Ireland.

We received X submissions as papers or extended abstracts. After a thorough review process, X of the submissions were selected ato be published in the ACL Anthology, representing a X% 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 50'ish participants from around the world.

As a new workshop event, we organized a <a href="https://computel-workshop.org/special-theme-session-partnerships-in-practice/">Special Session on Partnerships in Practice</a>, for 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, 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. 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.