From: harrisn@ccs.northeastern.edu (Coleman Harrison)
Newsgroups: misc.jobs.offered
Subject: Machine Translation Project Leader
Date: 12 Aug 92 22:51:25 GMT
Organization: College of Computer Science, Northeastern University
Originator: harrisn@damon.ccs.northeastern.edu



Machine Translation 
Project Leader

CompuServe, Inc. is seeking a project leader for an exciting machine
translation  effort.  Our information service, with its over 1,000,000
subscribers, is going  international.  We hope that MT will help us make our
content available in various languages  and will allow users in
different countries to exchange comments and information.   We don't
intend to build a new MT system -- rather, the challenge is to enhance
an  existing system and apply it in the emerging environment of
"information-only" or  draft-quality translation.

Qualifications required are:

        * Skills in systems analysis and project management

        * Strong knowledge of German required (French is also helpful)

        * Knowledge of machine translation and/or computational linguistics

The position is located in Cambridge, Mass.  Contact Cole Harrison at the 
following address:

        Cole Harrison
        CompuServe Data Technologies
        1000 Massachusetts Avenue
        Cambridge, MA 02138
        (617) 661-9440
        c.harrison@csi.compuserve.com


Here is some background information:

CompuServe Information Service is a public information service which offers 
on-line access to hundreds of databases on many subjects.  Electronic mail, 
computer and software support forums, newswires, and stock quotations are some
of the many services available.  The user is typically an individual at home 
with a PC and a modem, paying a fee per connect hour or per month for the 
information. The user avoids long distance telephone charges because 
CompuServe has a network with nodes all over the place so that nearly all 
users can reach the system with a local telephone call.  We currently have 
1,000,000 members, all but 25,000 in the U.S. and Canada, but we are expanding
into Europe and are already offering quite a bit of content in German, with 
French to come.  The information service business volume is about $150 million
per year.
 
The main goal of the machine translation project is to provide draft-quality 
translation directly to end users.  For example, we hope that German and 
French users can access on-line English information and have it translated for
them.  We suspect that there is a market for low-cost translations, even if 
the quality is marginal.  Obviously, if we can get the quality above marginal 
for some domains, that's even better.

MT systems work most successfully with well-formed input texts and with a 
restricted domain of subject matter.  Our texts are subdivided into many small
domains, but they are not very well-formed.  Therefore we want to evaluate 
what level of quality we can get with machine translation systems and 
proceeding from that point determine how to deploy MT in our services.

The goals of the project are as follows:

* Identify the best available German MT system relative to our needs
* License the system and bring it up on our network
* Enhance lexicons and rules to improve quality for subdomains
* Expand to additional languages

I am seeking an individual who can take over this whole effort.  In addition 
to knowledge of systems analysis, computational linguistics, and German, the 
individual must also be a self starter, be able to deal with people and 
organizations, and ultimately be able to build a group.  I have looked into MT
and defined the goals of the project, but it is not really my area of 
expertise and I have other things to focus on, so the more self-sufficient the
person is, the better.  

The specific work to be done includes:  

1. Perform detailed evaluations of four to eight machine translation products 
or systems.  Both commercial and pre-commercial systems should be considered. 
This involves getting the software installed; running test translations; and 
making evaluations of the results.  Factors to evaluate include:  assessment 
of output quality, machine resource consumption and processing time, user 
interface, degree to which output quality can be improved by adding lexicon 
and language rule entries, and potential for system improvement over the next 
5 years.

The group of products to evaluate should include Metal, Logos, Systran, and 
some others.

2. Visit vendors and negotiate terms, assisted by me.  Contact customer 
references, etc.  These two steps should be complete in 6 months.

3. Based on the above, select a product.  Bring it in-house and implement a 
working system.

4. Enhance lexicons and perhaps language rules in a set of subject areas.  A 
more junior person may be added at this point if the volume of work is large, 
but I want the initial hire to be a "hands on" person who does not shy away 
from day to day work with the system.
        
5. Start work on a second and third language after English to German is well 
along.

6. Report directly to me; disseminate information to a number of interested 
groups within CompuServe.

The position is open immediately.  
Xref: sparky misc.jobs.offered:10011 ba.jobs.offered:1677