Project
In order to gain hands-on experience, you will engage in a semester-long project in which you will build a competitive end-to-end machine translation system. Using this system, you will conduct experiments using data from the 2020 Conference on Machine Translation shared tasks (WMT20). As you progress through the semester, you will document your progress as you write sections of what will ultimately become your end-of-semester final project report.
Following the completion of the Fall 2020 semester, students who wish to continue their projects may participate in continuing research with Professor Schwartz, leading to potential co-authorship on a University of Illinois shared task paper submitted to the 2021 Conference on Machine Translation.
Proposal
You will begin by researching the WMT20 news shared task and the results of the WMT19 news shared task, selecting a language pair from the WMT20 news shared task, and writing a proposal describing the MT techniques you plan to use as you build a working end-to-end machine translation system for this language pair over the course of the semester.
Begin by going to Github Classroom and cloning the project-report repository. For each of the five project components, there is a corresponding tex file (01-proposal.tex, 02-litreview.tex, etc).
You will work locally in the proposal branch of your cloned project-report repo.
- Perform background research to identify a language pair and MT approaches known to work well for this language pair:
- Read the description of the Shared Task: Machine Translation of News at WMT20
- Look at the findings of the WMT19 news shared task
- Browse the proceedings of WMT19, with a focus on papers describing submissions to the news shared task. The proceedings of previous WMTs may also be useful.
Decide on one language pair from those in the WMT20 news shared task.
- Using XeLaTeX, write a project proposal:
- Begin by compiling 01-proposal.pdf by running
make 01-proposal.pdf- You may use the cl server, Overleaf, or your own machine.
- The cl machine is preconfigured with all requisite dependencies.
- On Overleaf, you will need to configure your project to use XeLaTeX and you will need to include a copy of the Times New Roman font from your local machine in your Overleaf project.
- On Ubuntu, the following dependencies should suffice:
apt install texlive-xetex latexmk ttf-mscorefonts-installer
- Look at the resulting 01-proposal.pdf. The content of your proposal should be at least as long as the lorem ipsum dummy text provided therein.
- You may use the cl server, Overleaf, or your own machine.
- Edit 01-proposal.tex. The content of your proposal should describe the language pair and the techniques you plan to employ.
- Your 01-proposal.tex must successfully compile into 01-proposal.pdf without errors on the cl server by running
make 01-proposal.pdf
- Begin by compiling 01-proposal.pdf by running
- Ensure that all changes to 01-proposal.tex and project.bib are committed, and push your proposal branch and all its changes to Github.
Literature review
You will continue your project development by conducting a thorough literature review describing the current state-of-the-art in machine translation for your selected language pair. Your literature review must, at a minimum, cover all shared task submissions for your language pair from WMT19, and should also cover other relevant sources (ACL 2020, etc).
- Create a new branch called litreview in your local project-report repo:
git checkout -b litreview
- Write your literature review in 02-litreview.tex
- Copy any relevant text from 01-proposal.tex into 02-litreview.tex
- Begin by compiling 02-litreview.pdf by running
make 02-litreview.pdf- Look at the resulting 02-litreview.pdf. The content of your proposal should be at least as long as the lorem ipsum dummy text provided therein.
- Edit 02-litreview.tex. The content of your literature review should thoroughly describe the current state-of-the-art in machine translation for your selected language pair.
- Look at the resulting 02-litreview.pdf. The content of your work should be at least as long as the lorem ipsum dummy text provided therein.
- Your 02-litreview.tex must successfully compile into 02-litreview.pdf without errors on the cl server by running
make 02-litreview.pdf
- Ensure that all changes to 02-litreview.tex and litreview.bib are committed, and push your litreview branch and all its changes to Github.
Checkpoint 1
- Go to Github Classroom and clone the project-scripts repository.
- In your project-scripts repository:
- Work in the checkpoint1 branch
- Edit run.tape, writing ducttape tasks and a plan to run your scripts. Every task must be thoroughly documented.
- Your scripts must successfully execute a complete experiment on a very scaled down data set when
ducttape run.tape -yis executed - Ensure that all changes to run.tape are committed, and push your changes to Github.
- Continue your writing in 03-checkpoint1.tex
- Copy any relevant text from 02-litreview.tex into 03-checkpoint1.tex
- Begin by compiling 03-checkpoint1.pdf by running
make 03-checkpoint1.pdf- Look at the resulting 03-checkpoint1.pdf. The content of your proposal should be at least as long as the lorem ipsum dummy text provided therein.
- Edit 03-checkpoint1.tex. You will now add an Approach section, with Data and Methods subsections.
- Look at the resulting 03-checkpoint1.pdf. The content of your work should be at least as long as the lorem ipsum dummy text provided therein.
- Your 03-checkpoint1.tex must successfully compile into 03-checkpoint1.pdf without errors on the cl server by running
make 03-checkpoint1.pdf
- Ensure that all changes to 03-checkpoint1.tex and checkpoint1.bib are committed, and push your checkpoint1 branch and all its changes to Github.
Checkpoint 2
- In your project-scripts repository:
- Create a new branch called checkpoint2 in your local project-scripts repo:
git checkout -b checkpoint2- Work in the checkpoint2 branch
- Continue work on run.tape, making any necessary changes to run on a complete data set
- Your scripts must successfully execute your plan when
ducttape run.tape -yis executed - Ensure that all changes to run.tape are committed, and push your checkpoint2 branch and its changes to Github.
- Create a new branch called checkpoint2 in your local project-scripts repo:
- Continue your writing in 04-checkpoint2.tex
- Create a new branch called checkpoint2 in your local project-report repo:
git checkout -b checkpoint2- Work in the checkpoint2 branch
- Copy any relevant text from 03-checkpoint1.tex into 04-checkpoint2.tex
- Begin by compiling 04-checkpoint2.pdf by running
make 04-checkpoint2.pdf- Look at the resulting 04-checkpoint2.pdf. The content of your proposal should be at least as long as the lorem ipsum dummy text provided therein.
- Edit 04-checkpoint2.tex. You will now add a Preliminary Results section.
- Look at the resulting 04-checkpoint2.pdf. The content of your work should be at least as long as the lorem ipsum dummy text provided therein.
- Your 04-checkpoint2.tex must successfully compile into 04-checkpoint2.pdf without errors on the cl server by running
make 04-checkpoint2.pdf
- Create a new branch called checkpoint2 in your local project-report repo:
- Ensure that all changes to 04-checkpoint2.tex and checkpoint2.bib are committed, and push your checkpoint2 branch and all its changes to Github.
Final report
- In your project-scripts repository:
- Create a new branch called dec2020 in your local project-scripts repo:
git checkout -b dec2020- Work in the dec2020 branch
- Continue work on run.tape, making any necessary changes to run all baselines and experimental variants on a complete data set
- Your scripts must successfully execute your entire end-to-end experiment when
ducttape run.tape -yis executed - Ensure that all changes to run.tape are committed, and push your dec2020 branch and its changes to Github.
- Create a new branch called dec2020 in your local project-scripts repo:
- Continue your writing in 05-report.tex
- Create a new branch called dec2020 in your local project-report repo:
git checkout -b dec2020- Work in the dec2020 branch
- Copy any relevant text from 04-checkpoint2.tex into 05-report.tex
- Begin by compiling 05-report.pdf by running
make 05-report.pdf- Look at the resulting 05-report.pdf. The content of your proposal should be at least as long as the lorem ipsum dummy text provided therein.
- Edit 05-report.tex. The content of your literature review should thoroughly describe the current state-of-the-art in machine translation for your selected language pair.
- Look at the resulting 05-report.pdf. The content of your work should be at least as long as the lorem ipsum dummy text provided therein.
- Your 05-report.tex must successfully compile into 05-report.pdf without errors on the cl server by running
make 05-report.pdf
- Ensure that all changes to 05-report.tex and checkpoint2.bib are committed, and push your dec2020 branch and all its changes to Github.