EnetCollect in Italy
Authors: Lionel Nicolas, Verena Lyding, Luisa Bentivogli, Federico Sangati, Johanna Monti, Irene Russo, Roberto Gretter, Daniele Falavigna (EURAC, Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Università di Napoli L'Orientale, 2018)
Topic: Learner Corpora and Language Acquisition

Abstract
In this paper, we present the enetCollect1 COST Action, a large network project, which aims at initiating a new Research and Innovation (R&I) trend on combining the well-established domain of language learning with recent and successful crowdsourcing approaches. We introduce its objectives, and describe its organization. We then present the Italian network members and detail their research interests within enetCollect. Finally, we report on its progression so far.

Introduction
In this paper, we present the COST network enetCollect that aims at kick-starting an R&I trend for combining language learning with crowdsourcing techniques in order to unlock a crowdsourcing potential for all languages, consisting in learning and teaching activities. This potential will be used to mass-produce language learning material and language-related datasets, such as NLP resources. 1European Network for Combining Language Learning with Crowdsourcing Techniques, Web: (EnetCollect, 2018) We also present enetCollect’s Italian members alongside their NLP-related interests. Indeed, NLP heavily relies on language resources and their availability is crucial for the delivery of reliable NLP solutions. Due to high costs of production, resources are often missing, especially for lesser used languages. As enetCollect researches new approaches to tackle such issues, it is a project of particular interest for the Italian NLP community. EnetCollect connects to ongoing crowdsourcing research, including Games With A Purpose approaches (Chamberlain et al., 2013; Lafourcade et al., 2015) for collecting data through gamiﬁed tasks (cf. e.g. JeuxDeMots (Lafourcade, 2007), or ZombiLingo (Guillaume et al., 2016)), collaborative approaches such as Wisdom-of-the-Crowd initiatives (e.g. dict.cc2, Wiktionary3, and Duolingo (von Ahn, 2013)), or general Human-based Computation activities (implemented through platforms like Zooniverse4, Crowd4u5, etc.). This paper aims at fostering the participation of the Italian NLP community while further allowing it to beneﬁt from the research and collaboration opportunities enetCollect offers (e.g. research stay grants) for its remaining 2.5 years of funding. Sections 2 and 3 present enetCollect’s ambition, and its organization while Section 4 introduces the Italian members and their research interests. Sections 5 and 6 report on achievements up to now and the current state of affairs.

Conclusion
We presented enetCollect, outlined its key aspects and introduced both its Italian members and their research interests. By harnessing even a fragment of the crowdsourcing potential existing for all languages taught worldwide, enetCollect could trigger changes of noticeable impact for language learning and language-related R&I ﬁelds, such as NLP. The fast uptake and overall progression of enetCollect within its ﬁrst year indicate its relevance and the potential magnitude of its ambition. 15We do not report on content-related results as these are too numerous and varied and, more importantly, they are (or will be) the focus of different publications authored by the members having achieved them.