Sustainability and Genericity of CLARIN Services in the Netherlands

Based on the ten years that have elapsed since the start of the CLARIN- NL project and its follow-up CLARIAH-NL, this chapter offers an analysis of the sustainability and genericity of services created in the context of CLARIN in the Netherlands. Our focus is on search applications, for which we make a proposal for coming to a more efficient and sustainable approach not only in the Netherlands but also CLARIN-wide. We also offer a number of general recommendations for improving sustainability of infrastructure services

The relationship between first language acquisition and dialect variation:Linking resources from distinct disciplines in a CLARIN-NL project

AbstractIt is remarkable that first language acquisition and historical dialectology should have remained strange bedfellows for so long considering the common assumption in historical linguistics that language change is due to the process of non-target transmission of linguistic features, forms and structures between generations, and thus between parents or adults and children. Both disciplines have remained isolated from each other due to, among other things, different research questions, methods of data-collection and types of empirical resources. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that the common assumption in historical linguistics mentioned above can be examined with the help of Digital Humanities projects like CLARIN. CLARIN infrastructure makes it possible to carry out e-Humanities type research by combining datasets from distinct disciplines through tools for data processing. The outcome of the CLARIN-NL COAVA-project (acronym of: Cognition, Acquisition and Variation tool) allows researchers to access two datasets from two different sub disciplines simultaneously, namely Dutch first child language acquisition files located in Childes (MacWhinney, 2000) and historical Dutch Dialect Dictionaries through the development of a tool for easy exploration of nouns

The strategic impact of META-NET on the regional, national and international level

This article provides an overview of the dissemination work carried out in META-NET from 2010 until early 2014; we describe its impact on the regional, national and international level, mainly with regard to politics and the situation of funding for LT topics. This paper documents the initiative’s work throughout Europe in order to boost progress and innovation in our field.Postprint (published version

Distributed Access to Oral History collections: Fitting Access Technology to the needs of Collection Owners and Researchers

In contrast with the large amounts of potential interesting research material in digital multimedia repositories, the opportunities to unveil the gems therein are still very limited. The Oral History project ‘Verteld Verleden’ (Dutch literal translation of Oral History) that is currently running in The Netherlands, focuses on improving access to spoken testimonies in collections, spread over many Dutch cultural heritage institutions, by deploying modern technology both concerning infrastructure and access. Key objective in the project is mapping the various specific requirements of collection owners and researchers regarding both publishing and access by means of current state-of-the-technology. In order to demonstrate the potential, Verteld Verleden develops an Oral History portal that provides access to distributed collections. At the same time, practical step-by-step plans are provided to get to work with modern access technologies. In this way, a solid starting point for sustained access to Oral History collections can be established

The strategic impact of META-NET on the regional, national and international level

This article provides an overview of the dissemination work carried out in META-NET from 2010 until 2015; we describe its impact on the regional, national and international level, mainly with regard to politics and the funding situation for LT topics. The article documents the initiative's work throughout Europe in order to boost progress and innovation in our field.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Vulnerability in acquisition, language impairments in Dutch: Creating a VALID data archive

The VALID Data Archive is an open multimedia data archive (under construction) with data from speakers suffering from language impairments. We report on a pilot project in the CLARIN-NL framework in which five data resources were curated. For all data sets concerned, written informed consent from the participants or their caretakers has been obtained. All materials were anonymized. The audio files were converted into wav (linear PCM) files and the transcriptions into CHAT or ELAN format. Research data that consisted of test, SPSS and Excel files were documented and converted into CSV files. All data sets obtained appropriate CMDI metadata files. A new CMDI metadata profile for this type of data resources was established and care was taken that ISOcat metadata categories were used to optimize interoperability. After curation all data are deposited at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics Nijmegen where persistent identifiers are linked to all resources. The content of the transcriptions in CHAT and plain text format can be searched with the TROVA search engin