Barriers and enabling factors for error analysis in NLG research

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


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.
Anthology ID:
2023.nejlt-1.3
Volume:
Northern European Journal of Language Technology, Volume 9
Month:
Year:
2023
Address:
Linköping, Sweden
Editor:
Leon Derczynski
Venue:
NEJLT
SIG:
Publisher:
Linköping University Electronic Press
Note:
Pages:
Language:
URL:
https://aclanthology.org/2023.nejlt-1.3
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3384/nejlt.2000-1533.2023.4529
Bibkey:
Cite (ACL):
Emiel van Miltenburg, Miruna Clinciu, Ondřej Dušek, Dimitra Gkatzia, Stephanie Inglis, Leo Leppänen, Saad Mahamood, Stephanie Schoch, Craig Thomson, and Luou Wen. 2023. Barriers and enabling factors for error analysis in NLG research. In Northern European Journal of Language Technology, Volume 9, Linköping, Sweden. Linköping University Electronic Press.
Cite (Informal):
Barriers and enabling factors for error analysis in NLG research (van Miltenburg et al., NEJLT 2023)
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PDF:
https://aclanthology.org/2023.nejlt-1.3.pdf