SynSIG - History

SynSIG committees

• 2025 - Nicolas Obin, Matt Coler, Hemant A. Patil
• 2021 - 2025 Esther Klabbers, Gustav Eje Henter, Zhenhua Ling
• 2017 - 2021 Sébastien Le Maguer, Junichi Yamagishi
• 2010 - 2017 Peter Cahill, Martti Vainio, Olivier Boeffard
• 2007 - 2010 Thierry Dutoit, Simon King, Nick Campbell
• 2001 - 2007 Bernd Möbius, Gérard Bailly, Nick Campbell
• 1998 - 2001 Wolfgang Hess, Nick Campbell, Bernd Moebius, Jan van Santen

History

Following discussion at the ESCA/COCOSDA Jenolan Speech Synthesis Workshop and confirmation by a formal meeting at ICSLP-98 on Wednesday December 2nd, the ESCA (now ISCA) board has approved the first ESCA Special Interest Group, in the area of Speech Synthesis.

Purposes

Speech Synthesis Special Interest Group was formed to promote activities related to furthering the science of speech synthesis.

The SIG will brings together colleagues with a special interest in Speech Synthesis.
It promotes interest in speech synthesis including text-to-speech conversion, concept-to-speech conversion and related disciplines, provides a means of exchanging news on recent developments in research and applications through a web site and the organisation of meetings, workshops and other activities (for instance evaluation), and makes available relevant resources for education.

See this 2001 position paper on SynSIG's activities for more details. 

Constitution of ESCA Special Interest Group on Speech Synthesis

Draft constitution of the ESCA special interest group on speech synthesis (SynSIG) - August 1998 (note that ESCA is now ISCA)

Statement of purpose

The purpose of the European Speech Communication Association (ESCA) Special Interest Group on Speech Synthesis (the SIG) shall be to promote interest in speech synthesis; to provide members of ESCA with a special interest in speech synthesis with a means of exchanging news of recent research developments and other matters of interest in speech synthesis; to sponsor meetings and workshops in speech synthesis that appear to be timely and worthwile, operating within the framework of ESCA's by-laws for SIGs; and to provide and make available resources relevant to speech synthesis, including text and speech corpora, analysis tools, analysis and generation software, research papers and generated data.

Elected officers

The elected officers of the SIG shall consist of a Chairperson, a Secretary and a Liaison Officer. The Chairperson and Secretary shall be members in good standing of ESCA.

The term of all elected officers of the SIG shall be two years. They can be re-elected, but consecutive appointments are limited to four successive terms.

Duties

• The duties of the Chairperson shall be:
  • to have primary executive authority over actions and activities of the SIG;
  • to prepare an annual written report on the activities of the SIG for the ESCA Board before July 1st each year;
  • to communicate with the ESCA Board and with members of the SIG;

• The duties of the Secretary shall be:
  • to maintain a membership list of the SIG;
  • to be responsible for any funds awarded to the SIG by the ESCA Board;
  • to collect and manage any dues that may be required by the organization;
  • to present a written annual report on the SIG finances to the ESCA Board.

• The duties of the Liaison Representative shall be:
  • to communicate with the Chairperson and the Secretary;
  • to maintain a Web Page and mirror sites for the dissemination of tools, resources, links, and information about the SIG;
  • to answer any general enquiries about the SIG.

Election of officers

All officers of the SIG shall be elected by a vote of the membership. The vote shall take place at least six months before the expiration of the terms of the officers to be elected, with at least 4 weeks notice of nominations to SIG members.

In the event of a casual vacancy, an extraordinary election shall be held for an officer to complete the current term of office. Candidates must be nominated by two members, must accept nomination, and must be members in good standing of ESCA.

Votes may be entered by electronic or physical mail, and votes arriving by the notified closing date will be counted by a returning officer appointed by the Chairperson and agreed to by all candidates.

Nominations shall be called at least three months prior to the election, and shall close two months prior to the election. All members shall be notified of the election date and the nominations at least four weeks prior to the close of voting, and results shall be notified to the members within four weeks of the close of voting.

Notification shall signify dispatch of mail by the medium and to the address last notified to the secretary.

Dues

Dues will not be charged, but voluntary contributions will be encouraged from members according to need.

Referenda

A change to this constitution, or a motion on any other matter, may be initiated by five members (petitioners) in writing or by agreement of the Chairperson and Secretary (on the suggestion of a member or otherwise). The motions will be put to the members within six months of receipt of a petition if the petitioners so request. Otherwise, constitutional amendments and other motions will be put to the vote in conjunction with the regular elections.

Members will be given notification at least three months in advance of any referendum, and further motions or amendments proposed by two members shall be accepted up to two months before the close of voting. Votes may be entered by electronic or physical mail, and votes arriving by the notified closing date will be counted by a returning officer appointed by the Chairperson and agreed to by all petitioners. All members shall be notified of the date of the referendum and the proposed motions and amendments at least four weeks prior to the close of voting, and results shall be notified to the members within four weeks of the close of voting.

Any change to this constitution requires a two-thirds majority of those eligible to vote and is subject to approval by the ESCA Board. Any other matter requires a simple majority of those actually voting.

Notification shall signify dispatch of mail by the medium and to the address last notified to the secretary.

Resource management

In providing and making available any resources as defined in Clause I, and especially any held and distributed electronically, the SIG shall follow proper procedures with respect to matters like copyright, registration and data protection as is appropriate to each case.

Furthermore, where the SIG may be deemed the proprietor of a resource, as the SIG is a subordinate body of ESCA it is understood that ESCA is ultimate proprietor and therefore other members of ESCA who are not members of the SIG may have access to the SIG's resources and the ESCA Board may itself make available such resources even to non-members.

The SIG shall not enter into any formal or potentially legally binding contracts without the approval of the ESCA Board (or the ESCA Treasurer acting under delegated powers). The SIG shall not enter into any financial commitments for such resources without ensuring that the moneys required are available. 

Minutes of the Sydney meeting of the ESCA SynSIG, December 2, 1998

SynSIG, the ESCA Special Interest Group for Speech Synthesis, made its official start on December 2, 1998, when a formal meeting was held at ICSLP-98 in Sydney.

The meeting had been preceeded by several months of informal discussion via email and a preparatory meeting at the Speech Synthesis Workshop in Jenolan Caves. ESCA approved the SIG in August 1998.

The Sydney meeting was attended by some 60 researchers involved or interested in speech synthesis.

Wolfgang Hess gave an overview of the history and the intended structure of the SIG and introduced the temporary steering committee, consisting of Wolfgang Hess (University of Bonn, Germany), Chairperson; Nick Campbell (ATR Japan), Vice Chairperson and ESCA Liaison Representative; Bernd Moebius (Bell Labs, USA), Secretary and Treasurer; Jan van Santen (Bell Labs, USA), Evaluations Liaison Officer.

The SIG will have three levels of membership, Active member, Helper member, and Listener, to encourage more active participation.

The following activities and tasks that the SIG will or might be concerned with were discussed:

• Web site. The SIG will set up and maintain a web site, to enhance the exchange of news on recent research developments in speech synthesis and to make available relevant resources (databases, corpora, tools, reference lists, etc.). The main web site will have several mirrors to facilitate accessibility.
• Mailing list. The SIG will create a mailing list (synsig-at-esca-speech.org), to be activated by January 1999.
• Evaluation. The broadly stated goal of the evaluation activities of the SIG is that of stimulating evaluations that benefit science and help both individual and business consumers of synthesis to select systems that meet their needs. A special web page for news and information concerning speech synthesis evaluation will be set up at the main SIG web site. Jan van Santen and Eric Keller made a number of concrete suggestions for evaluation activities which will be detailed on the evaluation web page.
• Possible revenues, e.g. from workshops, should allow the SIG to allocate money to specific targets, such as a web master, disk storage space, archiving, etc.
• Louis Pols suggested that the SIG encourage the setup and design for collaborative international and multilingual experiments.
• Veronique Auberge and Eric Keller suggested that the SIG organize the exchange of research students.
• Gerard Bailly and Bernd Moebius suggested that effective communication should be established between the speech synthesis community and other groups and disciplines (e.g., speech coding), in particular in the area of standardization.
• Gregor Moehler suggested the collection and exchange of tools and resources for teaching purposes.
• The issue of public release and redistribution of tools and resources, as well as the release of evaluation results, was raised.

Following a proposal by Louis Pols, the current steering committee was confirmed for one year (with one vote against and the committee members abstaining). The committee was asked to start or encourage concrete activities. Nominations for the committee will be called for in the summer of 1999, and official elections will be held in the fall.

There was consensus that despite the fact that some 60 researchers attended the meeting, a significant number of people who had responded to the initial SIG proposal could not attend the meeting. Preferably, the nomination and election procedure should be implemented on the Web and by email.