We are pleased to announce the formation of a new Working Group on Metadata in Learner Corpus Research, under the aegis of the Learner Corpus Association (LCA) and in collaboration with the CLARIN K-centre for Learner Corpora (https://uclouvain.be/en/research-institutes/ilc/clarin-knowledge-centre-for-learner-corpora.html).
This initiative follows the successful release of the second version of the Core Metadata Schema for Learner Corpora (LC-meta), a milestone that reflects our collective commitment to advancing the field. To understand the rationale behind LC-meta, we invite you to read our recently published open-access article in the International Journal of Learner Corpus Research: https://doi.org/10.1075/ijlcr.24010.paq. Alternatively, if you prefer listening to a lecture, you can tune into a talk given by M. Paquot at the Corpus Linguistics and Applied Linguistics 2023 online seminar series: https://www.um.es/languagecorpora/2023/09/14/the-core-metadata-schema-for-l2-data/. The schema itself is downloadable at: https://doi.org/10.14428/DVN/AAUEM2.
The Working Group will focus on evaluating and further refining the metadata schema, facilitating broader adoption, and exploring innovative solutions to metadata-related challenges in learner corpus research. It will also work towards integrating the schema into relevant infrastructures and developing user-friendly interfaces. We believe that by working together, we can significantly enhance the quality, accessibility, and impact of learner corpora.
As a first step, we invite all interested members of the LCA and the broader research community to join us at LCR2024 at the University of Tartu, Estonia, 26-28 September 2024. Jennifer-Carmen Frey will provide more information during the General Assembly. She will also be available during the poster session when the UCLouvain team presents the CLARIN Knowledge Centre for Learner Corpora.
Further details on how to get involved will also be shared after the conference. Stay tuned! We look forward to your active participation and to collectively driving forward this important aspect of learner corpus research.