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NRRC Summer ‘02 Workshop Proposal: Habitability

NRRC Summer ‘02 Workshop Proposal: Habitability. Christy Doran, MITRE Joe Marks, MERL cdoran@mitre.org marks@merl.com. December 5, 2001. MITRE. Problem. Basic premise: Assume an imperfect Q&A system -- what can we do to make it more usable?

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NRRC Summer ‘02 Workshop Proposal: Habitability

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  1. NRRC Summer ‘02Workshop Proposal:Habitability Christy Doran, MITRE Joe Marks, MERLcdoran@mitre.org marks@merl.com December 5, 2001 MITRE

  2. Problem • Basic premise: Assume an imperfect Q&A system -- what can we do to make it more usable? • Our proposal (courtesy of Bill Ogden, NMSU) is to enhance the habitability of Q&A systems “Habitability, as the term will be used here, is obtained when a significant proportion of the users utterances are interpreted in such a way that the user in some meaningful sense is carried closer towards accomplishing the task at hand.’’ Ivan Bretan citing: W.C. Watt, "Habitability," American Documentation, July, 1968, pp. 338--351.

  3. What might this mean for Q&A systems? • Representing system expertise • With the goal of imbuing the system with an ability to articulate the extent of its knowledge • Presenting query results (or lack thereof) • Communicating data and metadata efficiently • Explaining how the system works • Only an issue when it doesn’t work well? • Incremental question/answer refinement • Human-computer collaboration • Allowing teamwork (human) • Human-human collaboration

  4. Approach • Habitability task not sufficiently well defined at this time • No obvious silver bullet • Interaction needed between at least three different communities: • HCI (Visualization, Groupware) • NLP (Dialogue, Q&A) • Target users • Our proposal: Workshop that would bring these communities together to further explore the topic and identify approaches to improving habitability of Q&A systems

  5. Details of the workshop • 2.5-day workshop • Meeting format Day 1 AM: All participants to run and comment on a Q&A system, and to experiment with other representative tools • IBM Q&A system (Roukos & Ittycheriah) Day 1 AM: Historical motivation by Bill Ogden Day 1 PM: Brief presentations from each subarea for establishing common appreciation of issues & challenges Day 2: Structured discussion based on first day’s activities to identify most promising approaches for improving habitability of Q&A systems Day 3 AM: Decide on best way(s) to pursue the approaches identified at a follow-on event

  6. Proposed workshop participants Bold = preliminary commitment • Goal is 23 participants, including Doran, Marks, and Ogden • Natural language processing (NLP) • Dialogue: Lyn Walker (AT&T), Diane Litman (Pittsburgh), Candy Sidner (MERL), David Traum (USC ICT) • Q&A: James Pustejovsky (LingoMotors), Liz Liddy (Syracuse), Marc Light (MITRE), Sanda M. Harabagiu (SMU) • Human-computer interaction (HCI) • Visualization: Marti Hearst (UC Berkeley), Kent Wittenburg (MERL),Jock Mackinlay (Xerox PARC),Stephen Eick (Visual Insights) • Groupware: Kori Inkpen (Dalhousie), Terry Winograd (Stanford), Mark Ackerman (Michigan),Saul Greenberg (Calgary) • Q&A system users (members of NRRC Specialists Group) • Mark Zimmerman (USGC), John Donelan (USGC),Kelcy Allwein (USGC),Jean-Michel Pomarede (USGC)

  7. Results of the workshop • Meeting tentatively scheduled for late February • Workshop to be documented in an article or report or roadmap to engage relevant communities in Q&A research • Another possible outcome is a proposal for a follow-on event, e.g., a AAAI Symposium or a conference workshop

  8. Resources and costs • Workshop • Travel and honoraria: $34K • Site expenses: @MITRE $10K, more compelling location $25K • Lodging and local transportation • Transportation and set-up of demo equipment • Estimated total: cheaper $44K, less cheap $59K • Follow-on activity: $50K • This could be a second workshop, or other activity selected by the group

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