IMIX: Good Questions, Promising Answers
Eduard Hovy, Jon Oberlander and Norbert Reithinger
Abstract The IMIX Programme was designed as a coordinated framework for
addressing the difficult problems that arise in integrated multimedia information
delivery. The programme, carried out by research teams in the Netherlands, funded
by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research, was very ambitious,
combining research on automatic speech recognition within the context of mul-
timodal interaction, dialogue management and reasoning, information presentation
in multimodal systems, and information extraction. It managed to strengthen
multidisciplinary collaboration, knowledge transfer between academia and industry,
and the position of the Dutch language in the information society. The IMIX
Demonstrator improved the visibility of language and speech technology as enabler
of advanced information services. A follow-up research programme should include
both a common framework, containing data, tasks, and evaluation, as well as a
serious human factors evaluation component. Interactions and synergies between
participants from areas that approach human communications from different angles
should be actively encouraged.
1 The Legacy of the IMIX Programme
The IMIX Programme1 documented in this book brought into the Dutch research
sphere a coordinated framework for addressing the difficult problems that arise in
Eduard Hovy
USC Information Sciences Institute, Marina del Rey, CA, USA, e-mail:
Jon Oberlander
University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland, e-mail:
Norbert Reithinger
DFKI Berlin, Berlin, Germany, e-mail:
1 http://www.nwo.nl/imix
A. van den Bosch and G. Bouma (eds.), Interactive Multi-modal Question-Answering, 271
Theory and Applications of Natural Language Processing, DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-17525-1_12,
© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2011
Eduard Hovy, Jon Oberlander and Norbert Reithinger
Abstract The IMIX Programme was designed as a coordinated framework for
addressing the difficult problems that arise in integrated multimedia information
delivery. The programme, carried out by research teams in the Netherlands, funded
by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research, was very ambitious,
combining research on automatic speech recognition within the context of mul-
timodal interaction, dialogue management and reasoning, information presentation
in multimodal systems, and information extraction. It managed to strengthen
multidisciplinary collaboration, knowledge transfer between academia and industry,
and the position of the Dutch language in the information society. The IMIX
Demonstrator improved the visibility of language and speech technology as enabler
of advanced information services. A follow-up research programme should include
both a common framework, containing data, tasks, and evaluation, as well as a
serious human factors evaluation component. Interactions and synergies between
participants from areas that approach human communications from different angles
should be actively encouraged.
1 The Legacy of the IMIX Programme
The IMIX Programme1 documented in this book brought into the Dutch research
sphere a coordinated framework for addressing the difficult problems that arise in
Eduard Hovy
USC Information Sciences Institute, Marina del Rey, CA, USA, e-mail:
Jon Oberlander
University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland, e-mail:
Norbert Reithinger
DFKI Berlin, Berlin, Germany, e-mail:
1 http://www.nwo.nl/imix
A. van den Bosch and G. Bouma (eds.), Interactive Multi-modal Question-Answering, 271
Theory and Applications of Natural Language Processing, DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-17525-1_12,
© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2011
