Constitution of the ISCA Special Interest Group on Robust Speech Processing

Statement of purpose

The purpose of the International Speech Communication Association (ISCA) Special Interest Group on Robust Speech Processing (the SIG) shall be

• to promote interest in Robust Speech Processing;
• to provide members of ISCA with a special interest in Robust Speech Processing with a means of exchanging news of recent research developments and other matters of interest in Robust Speech Processing;
• to promote better understanding of the robustness challenges posed by real-world speech applications at various levels, including (but not limited to) the acoustic level (channel change, reverberation, background noise, overlapping speech...), the speaker level (stressed speech, Lombard speech, speaker change, change of speaking rate, accent...) and the language level (dialect, topic change...);
• to facilitate the development of theoretical foundations and practical techniques addressing these challenges by means of shared goals and terminology;
• to call attention to the applications of these techniques, including (but not limited to) automatic speech recognition, speaker identification and verification, spoken document retrieval, dialogue, speech-to-speech translation, speaker localization, speech separation, human-machine interfaces, robust training for synthesis;
• to create a scientific link between researchers and others working in the various disciplines associated with Robust Speech Processing;
• to provide and make available resources relevant to Robust Speech Processing, including speech and text corpora, best-practice processing and evaluation methodologies, processing and evaluation software, research papers and generated data;
• to propose reviewers for ISCA conferences and workshops and to nominate outstanding members for ISCA awards;
• and to sponsor meetings, workshops and evaluation campaigns in Robust Speech Processing that appear to be timely and worthwhile, operating within the framework of ISCA's by-laws for SIGs.

Membership

Any person may become a member of the SIG by registering to the SIG mailing list or by any other appropriate means. Membership of ISCA is not required.

Elected officers

The elected officers of the SIG shall consist of a Chairperson, a Secretary and an optional Honorary Chair. The Chairperson and Secretary shall be members in good standing of ISCA.

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.

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 ISCA Board before July 1st each year;
• to communicate with the ISCA Board and with the members of the SIG;
• to designate a Liaison Representative for the SIG;
• to help the subsequently elected Chairperson in the conduct of his/her duties.

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 ISCA 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 ISCA Board;
• to help the subsequently elected Secretary in the conduct of his/her duties.

The role of the Honorary Chair shall be to advise the Chairperson and Secretary in the conduct of their duties. In the event when no candidate would be nominated or accept nomination to this position, this position may remain vacant.

The Liaison Representative shall be primarily responsible for answering enquiries about the SIG and for maintaining a web site, a mailing list and other means of communication for the dissemination of tools, resources, links, and information about the SIG.

Election of officers

All officers of the SIG shall be elected by a vote of the SIG members. The vote shall take place at least two months before the expiration of the terms of the officers to be elected. In the event of a casual vacancy, an extraordinary election shall be held for an officer to complete the current term of office.

Nominations shall be called at least three months prior to the election, and shall close two months prior to the election. Candidates may be either self-nominated or nominated by another SIG member. They must accept nomination and be members in good standing of ISCA.

All members shall be notified of the election date, the nominations and the voting modalities at least four weeks prior to the election. Votes may be entered by electronic mail or any other anonymous polling system agreed to by all candidates, and votes arriving by the notified election date will be counted by a returning officer appointed by the Chairperson and agreed to by all candidates. The results shall be notified to all SIG members within four weeks of the election by means of electronic mail to the address last notified to the secretary.

Dues

There is no charge for membership.

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 mail or any other anonymous polling system agreed to by all petitioners, 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, the proposed motions and amendments and the voting modalities 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 by means of electronic mail to the address last notified to the secretary.

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

Resource management

In providing and making available any resources as defined in Clause 1, 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 ISCA it is understood that ISCA is ultimate proprietor and therefore other members of ISCA who are not members of the SIG may have access to the SIG's resources and the ISCA 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 ISCA Board (or the ISCA 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.