Intro to Voice Technology syllabus

Introduction

In this course, we will explore the foundations of speech synthesis and recognition, delving into the interplay between technology and language.

Learning outcomes

Upon the successful completion of the course “Introduction to Voice Technology”, you will be able to:

1. explain the history of voice technology.
2. explain the basic elements of speech synthesis and recognition.
3. identify data resources for voice technology applications and know where to find them.
4. describe data management requirements for collecting and storing speech and speaker data.
5. elaborate on the value and relative importance of data management, licensing and privacy issues concerning speech and speaker data.
6. describe core aspects within speech production and feature extraction.
7. discuss with peers how human factors and relevant aspects of context affect the interaction between humans and voice technology systems.
8. describe how the user acceptance of a voice technology application can be investigated.

Course structure

The course runs for 8 weeks. Each week has 2 classes of 1 hour 45 minutes (with a 15 minute break in the middle).

Classes are on Tuesday and Wednesday, 13:15 -- 15:00.

Guest speakers

The following guest speakers will contribute to this course.

• Dr Laurent Besachier, Principal Scientist and NLP Group Lead at Naver Labs (EU).  Topics of interest
• Dr. Loredana Cerrato, Project Manager Nuance - Microsoft. See blog post.
• Dr Leigh Clark, Senior UX Researcher - Bold Insight UK
• Dr Jide Edu, Security Researcher at the Alan Turing Institute (London, UK)
• Dr Frederic Robinson, Founder of LeapTech (Basel, Switzerland)

Practical Information

Literature

We will mostly be reading literature that is available online. Obligatory readings are either accessible through open access or online through SmartCat of the library.