In this paper a brief overview is provided of the EAGLES project ([1]) specifically with reference to progress achieved within the Spoken Language Working Group (SLWG). The goals, working structures, methods, and achievements are first briefly summarised ([2], [4]). We then outline the major achievement of the project, the handbook of Spoken Language working practices and guidelines, with some discussion of important liaisons developing with other projects and bodies. The paper concludes with an overview of current plans and prospects for further extension and development of these activities.
The domain of spoken language technologies ranges from speech input and output systems to complex understanding and generation systems, including multi- modal systems of widely differing complexity (such as automatic dictation machines) and multilingual systems (including for example translation systems). The definition of de facto standards and evaluation methodologies for such systems involves the specification and development of highly specific spoken language corpus and lexicon resources, and measurement and evaluation tools.
In these areas the de facto standards are derived from the consensus within the spoken language community previously established in a number of European ([3]) and national projects, with reference to important initiatives in the US and Japan. Primary among these have been the SAM projects (centred on component technology assessment and corpus creation), SQALE (for large vocabulary systems assessment) and both SUNDIAL and SUNSTAR (for multi-modal systems.) Past and present projects with significant outputs in the domain of assessment and resources include ARS, RELATOR, ONOMASTICA and SPEECHDAT, as well as major national projects and programmes of research such as VERBMOBIL in Germany. This has led to an initial documentation of existing practice which is relatively comprehensive but in many respects heterogeneous and widely dispersed. The Spoken Language Working Group of the EAGLES project has addressed the task of collecting and unifying this existing body of material to provide an up-to-date baseline reference documentation to serve current and immediate future needs.