Timo Honkela has been elected for the post of professor for research into digital materials. This field of study includes research into the use of linguistic and other humanistic materials, as well as the creation of new kinds of utilisation of humanistic research data, and wholly new knowledge.

 

Timo Honkela has been principal investigator at the Department of Computer Science in Aalto University since 2005. Honkela completed his doctoral degree at Helsinki University of Technology in 1998, and was appointed docent of language technology at the University of Helsinki in 2004. He also holds a docent post at Aalto University.

 

The professorship in research into digital materials is located at the Arts Faculty Department of Moderns Languages at the University of Helsinki, as well as at the National Library’s digitisation and conservation centre in Mikkeli. The professor will work in close cooperation with the Helsinki University Department of Computer Science, the National Library, Mikkeli University Consortium, and Mikkeli University of Applied Sciences.

 

The professorship is partially funded by the DIGRA project in the European Regional Development Fund.  Other backers include the Etelä- Savo provincial federation, the University of Helsinki, the National Library, Mikkeli University Consortium, and Mikkeli University of Applied Sciences.

 

Solid language-technology expertise

 

This professorship consolidates the strong expertise in language technology at the Helsinki University Department of Modern Languages. It is also closely associated with the international CLARIN project, where the Finnish part of the work is headed by the department. The project works with developing the creation and use of large language corpora. CLARIN is the largest humanistic research infra-structure in Finland.

 

The Helsinki University Department of Computer Science is cooperating with the professor of digital information both in the area of teaching and research. The digitalisation of humanistic data and the automated analysis of it applies the methods of computer science in many ways. The goal is to promote closer collaboration with the research carried out at Aalto University, as well.

 

The general idea is to support the pivotal research carried out in the humanistic fields with the help of computer science.

 

From digital raw data to usable corpora with text mining

 

At the National Library’s digitisation and conservation centre in Mikkeli, the goal is to refine digital contents with automated tools so that they are more readily usable. In large data collections, such features as events and locations can be identified quickly and efficiently, they can be linked to each other, and the text can be described on the basis of factual contents.

 

As source material for his research, the new professor will have all the millions of digitised newspaper, journal and magazine pages in the National Library. Their databases are maintained at the digitisation and conservation centre.

 

The National Library is also developing the crowdsourcing of digitised materials: the users will be able to mark clippings and add more details to them. The advantages of automatic text mining and crowdsourcing can be combined to further develop the usability of the material.

 

During the project, a research group headed by the professor will start working in Mikkeli.

 

More details:

 

Professor of research into digital information, Timo Honkela, phone 040 844 6553, timo.honkela@aalto.fi

 

Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Anna Mauranen, 050 468 7426, anna.mauranen@helsinki.fi

 

Head of the Department of Modern Languages, Arto Mustajoki, phone (09) 191 22986, arto.mustajoki@helsinki.fi

 

Director of the National Library, Kai Ekholm, phone (09) 191 22721, kai.ekholm@helsinki.fi

 

Director of the digitisation and conservation centre of the National Library, Majlis Bremer-Laamanen, phone (09) 191 21420, majlis.bremer-laamanen@helsinki.fi