Report of the Study Group on Assessment and Evaluation

This is an interim report discussing possible guidelines for the assessment and evaluation of projects developing speech and language systems. It was prepared at the request of the European Commission DG XIII by an ad hoc study group, and is now being made available in the form in which it was submitted to the Commission. However, the report is not an official European Commission document, and does not reflect European Commission policy, official or otherwise. After a discussion of terminology, the report focusses on combining user-centred and technology-centred assessment, and on how meaningful comparisons can be made of a variety of systems performing different tasks for different domains. The report outlines the kind of infra-structure that might be required to support comparative assessment and evaluation of heterogenous projects, and also the results of a questionnaire concerning different approaches to evaluation.