Benefits

Membership Fee Structure

The Center for Spoken Language Understanding (CSLU) has the following categories of membership:

Category	Annual Fee	Benefits
Premier Member	$100,000	Full benefits plus Premier benefits described below
Regular Member	$50,000	Full benefits described below
Small Business Member*	$25,000	Full benefits described below
Speech Corpora Member	$25,000	Corpora only
University Member	$0	CSLU Toolkit and corpora for research purposes only

* According to the definition used by the SBIR program.

License

Described below is the powerful, state-of-the-art spoken language system technology that members are entitled to receive as a benefit of membership. CSLU has been developing this technology for more than 7 years and will continue to extend and enhance it in the future. CSLU grants members a license that enables them to use this technology - some of which is protected by copyright and some by patent - in the development of commercial products.

Speech Corpora

CSLU is a world leader in the collection, transcription and distribution of telephone speech. Members are entitled to all corpora currently available from CSLU and periodic releases of corpora under development. The speech corpora currently available and under development are described in Exhibit B.

CSLU Toolkit

CSLU will provide Center members (excluding Speech Corpora Members) with its CSLU Toolkit for designing, creating and evaluating spoken language system applications. The CSLU Toolkit, which is described in Exhibit C, includes:

all software for data collection and annotation, signal processing and speech recognition necessary to create custom spoken language systems;
system modules and a graphical user interface for rapidly creating spoken dialogue systems that interface with the telephone network;
various prototype applications that CSLU has developed to demonstrate the technology; and
text to speech software.

Technical Support

Premier Members, Regular Members and Small Business Members will receive limited technical support for the CSLU Toolkit. Support, including but not limited to installation, maintenance, debugging and improvements, is limited to telephone or other electronic communications and does not include any support on member's site. Otherwise, CSLU provides all licensed technology to members on an "as is" basis.

Sponsored Research

CSLU conducts research in spoken language systems under a variety of grants and contracts from government and industry. Under these agreements CSLU addresses research topics that CSLU and the sponsor together identify as being of importance to the sponsor. Non-governmental entities must be Center members to sponsor CSLU research.

Preprints and Reprints

Preprints and reprints of Center publications and Technical Reports provide timely access to research advances. Preprints are typically available 4 to 6 months prior to the published proceedings.

Symposium

CSLU will periodically offer a one-day symposium on the OGI campus covering recent advances in spoken language understanding and supporting technologies. Members will have an opportunity to interact with CSLU staff and students, participate in laboratory demonstrations and hear technology updates of ongoing projects.

Graduating Student Resumes

Only a small number of students graduate each year with advanced degrees from centers of excellence in spoken language understanding. Center members will be the first to receive resumes of graduating students. In addition, CSLU will arrange meetings with students at ICASSP and other conferences.

Advanced Notification of Short Courses

Members will receive advanced notification of and guaranteed advanced enrollment in CSLU short courses.

Access to Paid Consulting

OGI limits the number of days its faculty and staff can engage in private consulting. Sponsor is guaranteed access to two days of consulting by Center faculty or staff. Consulting fees are in addition to membership fees and are paid directly to the consultant.

PC Platform for Spoken Language Systems (Premier Member Benefit)

On a one-time-only basis, CSLU will provide to Premier Members a turn-key computing platform with CSLU's software installed and configured. The platform will consist of a high-performance PC with a board that provides a telephony interface.

The PC platform enables users to:

use CSLU speech research tools to record, play, analyze, transcribe and display speech data;
use the CSLU Toolkit to perform basic research in core language technologies;
build and test spoken language systems for real world use; and
run CSLU demonstration applications.

On-Site Short Course (Premier Member Benefit)

Premier members receive a 2-day toolkit short course at OGI or their facility.

Membership on Technical Advisory Board (Premier Member Benefit)

The CSLU technical advisory board helps determine research priorities and Center policy. The board meets in conjunction with the symposium.

Visiting Researcher Privileges (Premier Member Benefit)

Premier members may send personnel to work on laboratory research projects for extended periods, subject to mutually acceptable arrangements.