The science of talking to machines
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Organisers of the HCSNet Summerfest included Macquarie staff and postgrad students (from left) James Ballantine, Simon Zwarts, Elena Akhmatova, Brett Powley and Menno Van Zaanen. |
The inaugural Human Communication Science Network (HCSNet) Summerfest, held at Macquarie University last month, was attended by postgraduate students from a range of diverse science and technology areas.
The Summerfest consisted of a conference followed by a two-day Summer School for about 160 postgraduate students and researchers, which included seminars and workshops on everything from linguistics, engineering, robotics, music and dance, to psychology.
About HCSNet
HCSNet, which was funded through an Australian Research Council grant, was first launched in January 2005 and is led by Macquarie University and the University of Western Sydney.
The group's aim is to foster and facilitate interdisciplinary research in the area of human-machine communication which includes speech recognition, distress call monitoring, hearing prostheses, web interfaces, data retrieval and data mining systems, says its convenor, Professor Robert Dale, Director of Macquarie's Centre for Language Technology.
"We're hoping that new light can be shed on old problems," he says.
Also of particular priority was the opportunity to involve graduate students, giving them exposure to highly-qualified teaching by renowned experts in many fields, Dale says.
"The people who taught at Summer School came from universities all over Australia," he says.
The Network was able to provide some financial subsidies, which enabled students from areas outside of Sydney to attend.
Interdisciplinary approach to research
The opportunity for students to hear from a variety of different sources about what has been happening in the area of human communication science research is the first step in developing a truly interdisciplinary approach to solving complex communication problems, Dale says.
"The students are just at the right point to take on new ideas so it gave them exposure to things that they wouldn't normally run across in the course of their PhD work. So perhaps this will give them new ideas about things they hadn't thought about before," he says.
Forging interdisciplinary links and relationships is not a new idea, Dale says. HCSNet is one of about 20 networks that the ARC has funded. In the area of human communication science, networks already exist in a number of different countries. Forging links with other communication science interdisciplinary networks overseas is another goal HCSNet hopes to achieve.
In the meantime, Dale says the group plans to continue with a series of smaller interdisciplinary seminars and workshops to be held throughout the year.
For more information visit the HCSNet website at www.hcsnet.edu.au/ or email Professor Robert Dale at robert.dale@mq.edu.au