European Masters Program in Language and Communication Technologies
Study Program
The Master in Language and Communication Technologies is designed to meet the demands of industry and research in a rapidly growing area. It offers education and training opportunities for the next generations of leaders in research and innovation. It provides students with profound knowledge and insight into the various disciplines that contribute to the methods of language and communication technologies and it strengthens their ability to work according to scientific methods. Moreover, the students also acquire practice-oriented knowledge by choosing appropriate combinations of modules in language technology, computational and theoretical linguistics, and computer science.
Studying in multi-national groups at two universities in Europe, with English as instruction language, accompanied by language classes in another European language, contributes to the students' preparation for the increasing globalization of science, commerce and industry. The course also prepares students for follow-up Ph.D. studies provided by the participating partners and others.
The course consists of Compulsory Modules and Advanced Modules in Language Technologies and Computer Science, complemented by a Project, and a Master thesis, for a total of 120 ECTS credits.
The Compulsory Modules and their range of possible syllabi are as specified below.
| Module | Topics | Credits | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Language Technologies (24 ECTS) |
LT-M1: Foundational | Statistical methods, symbolic methods, cognition, corpus, text and speech, foundations of Linguistics | at least 6 |
| LT-M2: Computational Syntax and Morphology | Finite state techniques, probabilistic approaches, formal grammars, tagging, chunking, parsing | at least 9 | |
| LT-M3:Computational Semantics, Pragmatics and Discourse | Syntax-semantics interface, semantic construction, dialogue, ontologies, formal semantics | at least 9 | |
| Computer Science (24 ECTS) |
CS-M1: Data Structures, Data Organization and Processing | Algebraic data-types, relational databases, semi-structured data and XML, information retrieval, digital libraries | at least 6 |
| CS-M2: Logic, Computability and Complexity | Logic and inference, automata theory, computability theory, complexity theory, discrete mathematics | at least 9 | |
| CS-M3: Formal Languages and Algorithms | Formal grammars and languages hierarchy, parsing and compiler design, search techniques and constraint resolution, automated learning | at least 9 |
At most 42 specialised ECTS credit points in Language Technology and Computer Science. These credit points can be allocated in topics which might differ from partner to partner, but at least 4 ECTS credit points should be allocated in specialised topics in LT and at least 4 ECTS credit points should be allocated in specialised topics in CS. Out of these 42 ECTS, at most 15 may be allocated in the form of a project. Moreover, whenever the background of the student requires so, 4 ECTS credit points can be allocated from special ``general skills'' covering topics like scientific and technical report writing skills, presentational skills, etc. The research masters thesis consists of 30 ECTS credit points.
| Module | Topics | Credits | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Language Technologies |
LT-M4: Specialized | Machine translation, information and knowledge representation, information retrieval, question answering, speech recognition and generation, models of human language processing and understanding, psycholinguistics | at least 4 |
| Computer Science |
CS-M4: Specialized | Artificial intelligence, knowledge representation, automated reasoning, semantic web, intelligent and multi-modal interfaces, cognitive modelling, computational psychology, neural networks, machine learning | at least 4 |
Students within the double degree program have to study at two institutions of the consortium. As such, they are jointly monitored by two lecturers (tutors), one from each institution. Each student has to develop a study plan with her/his tutors. This plan must be submitted for approval to the Joint Committee of the Consortium. The students have to sit and complete successfully all the written and/or oral exams of the modules selected in the aforementioned study plan. The students have to submit and defend their masters thesis at either or both of their selected institutions. The masters thesis can be jointly supervised and defended in front of a jury with members from the two selected universities.
A detailed description of the study organisation, the modules, and the courses offered by the participating universities is available from the local sites of the partner universities listed in the table below.
For any further information, please refer to the central web site of the European Master in Language and Communication Technologies.
| DETAILED MODULES AND COURSES LISTINGS:PDF with all courses |
|
Free University of Bozen-Bolzano Strengths in CS: knowledge representation, databases, sematic web, digital libraries. Strengths in LT: question answering; intelligent interfaces; speech recognition |
| Charles University in Prague |
| Centre for Language and Cognition Groningen, Faculty of Arts, University of Groningen |
| Saarland University |
| University of Amsterdam |
| University of Nancy 2 |
| University of Malta |
| Utrecht University. Strengths in LT: Theoretical Linguistics, Discourse, Language Acquisition, Type Logical Grammar |