John Local and I have briefly talked about Nigel Birch's latest gem. We
agreed that the prosynth group should send a single response to Birch, and
copy it to Cox for the IOA response. John is trying to draft a response
today. I have suggested a few points to him, and if you have any, then
send them to him too. He'll circulate his draft ASAP for us to agree on.
If anyone dislikes this approach, then please feel free to say so, of
course.
In case anyone isn;t aware, the EPSRC have sent out a document entitled
"Devising a stratgey for the support of HUman Factors - a discussion
paper." You can find it on
http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/progs/technology/it-cs/hfstrat.htm
The paragraph we especially need to respond strongly to is in TOpic
Reviews - Speech and Language, para 5. Note that no one seems to have been
on the committee to represent the interests of academics in speech.
Also, we thought it might be worthwhile to write a separate email to
Nigel Birch to the effect that a 3-week turn around for responses over the
exam-marking period is not acceptable for such serious matters. How do the
rest of you feel about that?
happy marking!
Sarah
______________________________________________________________________
Dr. Sarah Hawkins Email: sh110@cam.ac.uk
Dept. of Linguistics Phone: +44 1223 33 50 52
University of Cambridge Fax: +44 1223 33 50 53
Sidgwick Avenue or +44 1223 33 50 62
Cambridge CB3 9DA
United Kingdom