The IMPACT Project Conference

Bookings are now open for the IMPACT Project final conference which will take place on 24 - 25 October 2011 at the British Library. The conference is entitled Digitisation & OCR: Better, faster, cheaper. Solutions of the IMPACT Centre of Competence and future challenges and will be the showcase for all final project results and related research in the field of OCR and language technology. The event will also mark the official launch of the IMPACT Centre of Competence. The centre will focus on improving digitisation of historical printed text by sharing expertise and providing access to tools for all parts of the digitisation workflow, as well as tools, services and facilities for further advancement of the state of the art in this field.

The conference programme is structured in five blocks based on the main outcomes of IMPACT:

• Operational context: the basis
• The IMPACT framework, evaluation and datasets
• Tools for improved text recognition
• Language tools & resources
• IMPACT Centre of Competence

In addition, there will be parallel sessions on the further advancement of the state of the art in OCR research, on language technology for improving OCR accuracy and information retrieval as well as a digitisation tips session with an IMPACT panel. Each block will feature experts from the consortium, with additional key speakers from outside the project.

The programme for the conference is now available, highlights include:

• Khalil Rouhana (European Commission - Director for digital content and cognitive systems in DG Information Society and Media): The EC Digital Agenda and official launch of the IMPACT Centre of Competence
• Michael Fuchs (ABBYY Europe): ABBYY FineReader: IMPACT improvements
• Paul Fogel (California Digital Library): Experiences in mass digitisation: examining OCR quality
• Clemens Neudecker (National Library of the Netherlands): The IMPACT Framework and what you can do with it
• Asaf Tzadok (IBM Haifa Research Lab): IBM Adaptive OCR Engine and CONCERT Cooperative Correction
• Majlis Bremer-Laamanen (National Library of Finland): Crowdsourcing for OCR correction: Experiences with Digitalkoot
• Katrien Depuydt (INL) and Klaus Schulz (University of Munich): Language work in IMPACT
• Stephen Krauwer (CLARIN Coordinator, University of Utrecht): Related language work in CLARIN
• Parallel sessions on state-of-the-art research tools for document analysis and OCR, IMPACT language tools & resources and Digitisation tips (Meet the expert)

More programme updates will be announced on the conference Web page and from the IMPACT Twitter Account (hashtag #impactconf2011). Bookings are now open and delegate places cost £120. To register please go to the British Library ticket Web site. Select the link to 'Box Office' and click October.

IMPACT is a European project that aims to speed up the process and enhance the quality of mass digitisation in Europe. The IMPACT research programme will significantly improve digital access to historical printed text through the development and use of innovative Optical Character Recognition software and linguistic technologies.

UKOLN's main role in the project has been to work on the externally facing parts of IMPACT, primarily in helping to produce and disseminate documentation (best practice guides, briefings, case studies, etc.) on text digitisation frameworks and IMPACT tools together with a series of training events.