Barriers and enabling factors for error analysis in NLG research

Van Miltenburg, Emiel; Clinciu, Miruna; Dušek, Ondřej; Gkatzia, Dimitra; Inglis, Stephanie; Leppänen, Leo; Mahamood, Saad; Schoch, Stephanie; Thomson, Craig; Wen, Luou

Abstract

Earlier research has shown that few studies in Natural Language Generation (NLG) evaluate their system outputs using an error analysis, despite known limitations of automatic evaluation metrics and human ratings. This position paper takes the stance that error analyses should be encouraged, and discusses several ways to do so. This paper is based on our shared experience as authors as well as a survey we distributed as a means of public consultation. We provide an overview of existing barriers to carrying out error analyses, and propose changes to improve error reporting in the NLG literature.

Citation

Van Miltenburg, E., Clinciu, M., Dušek, O., Gkatzia, D., Inglis, S., Leppänen, L., …Wen, L. (2023). Barriers and enabling factors for error analysis in NLG research. Northern European Journal of Language Technology, 9(1), https://doi.org/10.3384/nejlt.2000-1533.2023.4529

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Online Publication Date: Feb 21, 2023
• Publication Date: 2023
• Deposit Date: Feb 23, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 23, 2023
• Journal: Northern European Journal of Language Technology
• Print ISSN: 2000-1533
• Publisher: Linköpings University Electronic Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 9
• Issue: 1
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.3384/nejlt.2000-1533.2023.4529