Students and Researchers Come Together for "Dialogs on Dialogs"
Matthew Marge
SLTC Newsletter, October 2009
"Dialogs on Dialogs" offers students and researchers an opportunity to regularly discuss their research on an international scale.
There are several opportunities available for spoken dialogue researchers to meet and discuss research on an international scale, but most of them meet no more than once a year (e.g., SIGdial, Young Researchers' Roundtable on Spoken Dialogue Systems). Also, several of these avenues generally provide feedback for research that is in complete, polished form. Feedback on research during the initial stages can also have its advantages. One such forum in the community available for students and young researchers is "Dialogs on Dialogs" (DoD), a group run by students in the field of spoken dialogue research and related areas. Although originally, the group started out at Carnegie Mellon University, it has since expanded to be an international forum for spoken dialogue research, with students from across the world joining in on the conversation.
The meetings are meant to be informal - many talks are on research that is very much in its nascent stages. In this way, members can actively present and receive feedback on their work regardless of the maturity of their results. DoD is also a great venue for practice talks, and is often used by members before they are present their work at upcoming workshops or conferences. Other meetings focus on the "reading group" aspect of DoD, where members alternate presenting recent work by others in the field and having an open forum for discussion.
Jason D. Williams, editor-in-chief of the IEEE SLTC Newsletter and Principal Member of Technical Staff at AT&T Research, actively participated in Dialogs on Dialogs during his PhD studies at Cambridge University. When asked about the communication at DoD meetings, Williams said communication was "very easy" and "really welcoming of new students and participants." Williams added that DoD "worked hard to accommodate remote participants," with the group being based half a world away in Pittsburgh.
Williams found the group to be very beneficial to his research. "For me there were three main benefits," said Williams. "First, it was a great forum to get feedback on research ideas. Second, it was an ideal place to give practice talks. Finally, it was a great place to build professional relationships." He also said that he is "still in touch with a number of people from the original DoD group today!"
Originally, the forum required members to phone-in using landline telephones. With the emergence of VoIP, we now conduct weekly meetings over Skype. This permits members to freely join in on the conversation for free without the typical costs associated with international calls. Meetings typically last from one to two hours.
The group is always looking for and open to new members. Recent topics have ranged from conversational agents in multi-party situations to human-robot dialogue management. Dialogs on Dialogs traditionally meets on Fridays at 10:30am EST. For more information on DoD, please contact Matthew Marge. We also have a LinkedIn group.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Jason D. Williams for providing input to this article.
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