Erasmus+ CLASS

«Development of the interdisciplinary master program on Computational Linguistics at Central Asian universities»

Number 585845-ЕРР-1-2017-1-ES -EPPKA2-CBHE-JP-CLASS

Duration: from 15/10/2017 to 14/10/2020 (extended until 14/04/2021)

The aim of the project is to create master program on computational linguistics for master students with linguistics and computational science background and to implement blended learning technologies on specialization courses under the initiatives of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan universities.

Specific objectives:

• to create and implement interdisciplinary master program in CL in 7 CA universities under careful analysis of existing programs;
• to implement blended learning technology in CA universities within CL master program for better learning opportunities and democratization of higher education;
• to create linguistic resources and applications with good support for the Uzbek and Kazakh languages.

Consortium:

• University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain - project coordinator
• University of a Coruña, Spain
• University of Western Attica (Τechnological Educational Institution of Athens), Greece
• University of Porto, Portugal
• Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland
• Urgench State University, Uzbekistan
• Samarkand State Institute of Foreign Languages, Uzbekistan
• Tashkent State University of the Uzbek language and literature, Uzbekistan
• National University of Uzbekistan, Uzbekistan
• Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, Kazakhstan
• A.Baitursynov Kostanay State University, Kazakhstan
• L.N. Gumilyov Eurasian National University, Kazakhstan    

Project work (full description at the bottom of this page):

• Activities performed within the CLASS project 
• Meetings and workshops held within the CLASS project
• Publications at Newspapers and Conference Materials 

Master Program on Computational Linguistics in Al-Farabi Kazakh National University

(Faculty of Information Technology)

Video in English: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jmwdvz0-c64

Official site: http://erasmus-class.eu/

Activities performed within the CLASS project

Within the framework of this project, the educational program "7M06101 - Computational Linguistics" for the magistracy was developed and implemented. This program has been implemented at our Department of Information Systems from the 2019-2020 academic year. "7M06101 - Computational Linguistics" is a joint international educational program of scientific and pedagogical direction, lasting 2 years. (The program can be viewed here: Link to the educational program of the Bologna Process Center: http://esuvo.platonus.kz/#/register/education_program/application/14113. Link to the university page where the educational program is located: https://www.kaznu.kz/ru/18592/page/.)

The teaching staff that conducts courses on EP "7M06101 - Computational Linguistics" took courses "Computational Linguistics Course" held in University of A Coruna, Spain, from 18/06/2018 to 03/07/2018 and "Training of academic staff for developing NLP tools" held at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland, from 19 to 28 May 2019 to increase potential in this area.

For the educational program "7M06101 - Computational Linguistics" syllabuses and content materials of the educational process have been developed.

Online courses for blended learning and 4 NLP tools are developed. Our teachers who are members of the project have developed an online course for blended learning in the discipline "Machine Translation Technologies". Also, our teachers have developed the following tools:

o  Monolingual NLP tools: Morphological analyzer, WordGenerator, Tokenizer, Parser phrase (http://nlp.corpus.kaznu.kz/);
o  Bilingual corpora development tools: https://github.com/NLP-KazNU/kaz-parallel-corpora_collect_and_clean.

7 e-books and methodological books on CL are developed. Our teachers who are members of the project have developed a textbook called "Computational Linguistics: Language Resources" in the discipline of Language Resources.

Within the framework of the project, equipment was purchased for the preparation of a workplace for scientific research and the occupation of undergraduates studying for EP "7M06101 - Computational Linguistics".

The project contributed to the development of active interaction with external organizations and enterprises, such as: “Alem Research” and “Translators Group”.

Meetings and workshops held within the CLASS project

3 coordination meetings were held:

1. Kick off meeting was held 17-19 on February 2018 in Santiago de Compostela.

2. Tashkent Meeting was held on 16-17 October 2018 at the National University of Uzbekistan (NUUz).

3. Annual meeting was held on 26-27 September 2019 in Athens and was hosted by the University of West Attica (UNIWA).

• March 14, 2018 (KazNU) --- Scientific-methodological round table for employers “Linguistic expertise: problems and decisions” at the Faculty of Philology and World Languages. Academic Staff of the Department of General Linguistics and European Languages provided to employers information about the project Erasmus+ CLASS.

• October 25, 2018 (ENU, ABKRU, KazNU) --- Fair of Erasmus+ CBHE Project Results - Erasmus+ Information Day in Kazakhstan. Astana, 25-26 October, 2018. According to the exhibition results a certificate was obtained: Certificate of Achievement “FOR CREATIVITY AND COMMITMENT TO THE PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION” is presented to the team of the project CLASS 585845-EPP-1-2017-ES-EPPKA2-CBHE-JP.

• April 29, 2019 (KazNU) --- Seminar-meeting with employees of the Erasmus + National Office on the development of dissemination materials for Erasmus + projects.

• May 15, 2019 (ABKRU, ENU, KazNU) --- On 15 May 2019, the cluster meeting on the topic “Curriculum Development Projects: involvement of employers and other stakeholders” was held in Al-Farabi Kazakh National University. The project was presented at the project exhibition / The team shared the project outcomes with other universities.

• August 26-28, 2019 (KazNU) --- Round Table “Perspectives of Computer Linguistics in Kazakhstan” Participants: Didar Sadyk, Researcher from Institute of Linguistics named after A.Baitursynov; Al-Farabi KazNU, KazNU project working team.

• October 11, 2019 (KazNU) --- The information ErasmusDay at Al-Farabi Kazakh National University. Participated 9 projects implemented at the KazNU: APPLE, DECIDE, ENTER, CLASS, EduEnvi, ENINEDU, ChildCA, LMPI, SmartCity. The coordinator of each project briefly described the goals and objectives of the project, the impact of the project at the individual and institutional levels, the sustainability of project results in the future. Current problems in the implementation of projects, the possibilities of synergistic interaction of projects was discussed.

• October 30, 2019 (ABKRU, ENU, KazNU) --- International conference «The new societal dimension in the mission of Higher education». 30 October 2019. Nur-Sultan.

• November 1, 2019 (All) --- Monitoring of the project No. 585845-ЕРР-1-2017-1-ES-EPPKA2-CBHE-JP Development of the interdisciplinary master program on Computational Linguistics at Central Asian universities – CLASS

• December 9, 2019 (KazNU) --- Round Table “Kazakh Language in computer linguistics” Organized by KazNU and LLP “Translators Group”. The purpose of the round table was to discuss current issues related to computer linguistics in Kazakhstan, taking into account the transition to Kazakh and Latin alphabets, NLP and linguistic technologies. (http://erasmus-class.eu/2019/12/23/kazakh-language-in-computer-linguistics-round-table/)

• November 25, 2020 (KazNU) --- Master class: Republican scientific and methodological workshop for YOUNG SCIENTISTS "COMPUTER LINGUISTICS: MODERN PARADIGMS IN THE STUDYING AND PROCESSING OF NATURAL LANGUAGES". (Zoom)

Publications at Newspapers and Conference Materials

• October 30, 2018 (KazNU) --- Article in the newspaper “Kazakh University”: Gulmyra Madyeva, Aksaule Kaybuldaeva. “Interdisciplinary higher education – CLASS Project”. / “Kazakh University”, #32(1702), 30th of October, 2018.

• February 2020 (KazNU) --- Article in the conference materials: U.A. Tukeyev, A.O. Turganbayeva. EXPERIENCE OF ERASMUS + PROJECT CLASS ON MASTERS OF COMPUTER LINGUISTICS AT KAZNU (In Russian). Materials of the 50th International Scientific and Methodological Conference "Modern interpretation of Al-Farabi's pedagogical concept in the digitalization of education" dedicated to the 1150th anniversary of Al-Farabi. (in the process of publishing)

• March 2020 (All Partners) --- Article in the conference materials: N. Abdurakhmonova, M. Aripov, A. Duarte, K. Georgouli, C. Gómez Rodríguez, Y. Kandalina, B. Maia, A. Sharipbay, U. Tukeyev, G. Urazboev, Z. Vetulani, O. Yusupov. ERASMUS+ Project Experiences on the Computational Linguistics Master Degree in the Central Asia Universities. Proceedings of INTED2020 Conference. 2nd-4th March 2020, Valencia, Spain. P. 4803-4812. ISBN: 978-84-09-17939-8. Paper available here: http://erasmus-class.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Erasmus-experiences-on-computational-linguistics-CA-universities.pdf

• November 2020 (KazNU, NUUz) --- Matlatipov S., Tukeyev U., Aripov M. (2020) Towards the Uzbek Language Endings as a Language Resource. In: Hernes M., Wojtkiewicz K., Szczerbicki E. (eds) Advances in Computational Collective Intelligence. ICCCI 2020. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1287. Springer, Cham. Pages 729-740. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63119-2_59

• December 15-17, 2020 (KazNU) --- Paper presented at the international summit: Ualsher Tukeyev. Computational models of Turkic languages morphology on complete sets of endings. QS Subject Focus Summit – Modern Languages and Linguistics Languages and Migration in a Globalized World.