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<Paper uid="W02-0112">
  <Title>Teaching Computational Linguistics at the University of Tartu: Experience, Perspectives and Challenges</Title>
  <Section position="2" start_page="0" end_page="0" type="intro">
    <SectionTitle>
1 Introduction
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> Computational Linguistics as a special subject can in Estonia only be studied at the University of Tartu (UT).</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> Computational linguistics as an independent subject has been taught at UT from the study year 1998/99, various separate courses from the study year 1996/97. The curriculum and various new courses were developed with the support provided by a number of HESP projects. Based on the experience of Western universities, the topics of linguistics, computer science, mathematics and computational linguistics were selected. As the subject was launched in the Department of Estonian and Finno-Ugric Linguistics, Faculty of Philosophy, then linguistic subjects prevail in the curriculum. But the tuition is provided jointly by two faculties: Faculty of Philosophy teaches linguistic subjects, Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science teaches mathematics and informatics subjects, the computational linguistic subjects have been divided between these two faculties. Language of instruction is Estonian.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2"> Preparing the lectures in new subjects has been mostly accompanied by making available these materials on the web as well. A number of students of computer science and linguistics also listen to several computational linguistics lectures as electives or optional subjects. Therefore we face the problem how to make these subjects interesting and manageable for students with various qualifications.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="3"> New curricula will take effect as of the study year 2002/2003 at UT. According to them, the 3 year bachelor study is followed by 2-year master studies which in turn may be followed by 4-year doctoral studies (so far the 4+2+4 year model was used). Bachelor studies will provide the general basic higher education, master studies will lead to a qualification in a specific subject. The new modified curriculum takes into account the experience obtained in the process of teaching so far. In addition to that, the new curriculum for July 2002, pp. 85-90. Association for Computational Linguistics. Natural Language Processing and Computational Linguistics, Philadelphia, Proceedings of the Workshop on Effective Tools and Methodologies for Teaching computer science foresees the (new) possibility to major in language technology. In the following, we will present the structure of the curricula and our experience so far in teaching the subjects of computational linguistics.</Paragraph>
  </Section>
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