CLASS: Development of the interdisciplinary master program on Computational Linguistics at Centra...

CLASS: Development of the interdisciplinary master program on Computational Linguistics at Central Asian universities

This project is being done under the initiatives of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan universities. Some of the means for enhancing access to higher education, world knowledge exchange, and closer involvement of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan in world economy is availability of information, incorporating new teaching methods, ICT-based practices in education. Computational Linguistics, and more generally Human Language Technologies are crucial for the development of high information technologies, absolutely necessary for the industrial, social and civilizational progress. These technologies are in progress almost everywhere in the world but at different speeds in the concerned countries. Despite of a number of software working with recognition of the world languages such as English, Mandarin, Russian, and Spanish; the Kazakh and Uzbek languages still drop out. Thus, it is practically impossible for the world community to retrieve any information in Uzbek or Kazakh.

Achievements of computational linguistics can be applied in language teaching via creating special software. Computational linguistics master program will improve the situation via training the students, stimulating research in computational linguistics to understand the nature of linguistic representations and linguistic knowledge, and how linguistic knowledge is acquired and deployed in the production and comprehension of language; computing of the relation between form and meaning, facilitating document processing and information retrieval, providing with new data and instruments for learning languages (Kazakh, Uzbek, English). Computational Linguistics as interdisciplinary educational program does not exist in the partner countries, though as a research area it has been developed since beginning of 2000. Implementation of new teaching methods ICT-based practices will make education accessible for more students. They will be able to access learning materials, teacher interaction with digital tools. Thus the project tackles regional priorities: learning and teaching tools: blended courses; access to higher education, international cooperation at regional level.

Objectives

to create and implement interdisciplinary master program in Computational Linguistics in 7 universities of Uzbekistan and kazakhstan, under careful analysis of existing programs;
to implement blended learning technology in those universities within Computational Linguistics master program for better learning opportunities and democratization of higher education;
to create linguistic resources, tools and applications with good support for the Uzbek and Kazakh languages.

<p>This project is being done under the initiatives of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan universities. Some of the means for enhancing access to higher education, world knowledge exchange, and closer involvement of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan in world economy is availability of information, incorporating new teaching methods, ICT-based practices in education. Computational Linguistics, and more generally Human Language Technologies are crucial for the development of high information technologies, absolutely necessary for the industrial, social and civilizational progress. These technologies are in progress almost everywhere in the world but at different speeds in the concerned countries. Despite of a number of software working with recognition of the world languages such as English, Mandarin, Russian, and Spanish; the Kazakh and Uzbek languages still drop out. Thus, it is practically impossible for the world community to retrieve any information in Uzbek or Kazakh.</p> <p>Achievements of computational linguistics can be applied in language teaching via creating special software. Computational linguistics master program will improve the situation via training the students, stimulating research in computational linguistics to understand the nature of linguistic representations and linguistic knowledge, and how linguistic knowledge is acquired and deployed in the production and comprehension of language; computing of the relation between form and meaning, facilitating document processing and information retrieval, providing with new data and instruments for learning languages (Kazakh, Uzbek, English). Computational Linguistics as interdisciplinary educational program does not exist in the partner countries, though as a research area it has been developed since beginning of 2000. Implementation of new teaching methods ICT-based practices will make education accessible for more students. They will be able to access learning materials, teacher interaction with digital tools. Thus the project tackles regional priorities: learning and teaching tools: blended courses; access to higher education, international cooperation at regional level.</p><ul> <li>to create and implement interdisciplinary master program in Computational Linguistics in 7 universities of Uzbekistan and kazakhstan, under careful analysis of existing programs;</li> <li>to implement blended learning technology in those universities within Computational Linguistics master program for better learning opportunities and democratization of higher education;</li> <li>to create linguistic resources, tools and applications with good support for the Uzbek and Kazakh languages.</li> </ul> - Pablo Gamallo Otero