Celtic Knot Conference 2017/Programme/CK130

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Title: Translating articles between different language Wikipedias: the new Content Translation tool

Auditorium - University of Edinburgh Business School.

Date: 6 July 2017

Time: 3.45pm to 4pm.

Duration: 15 minutes.

Venue: University of Edinburgh Business School - Auditorium.

Speakers:

  • Ewan McAndrew, Wikimedian in Residence at the University of Edinburgh.

Speaker bio

  • Ewan McAndrew

Wikimedian in Residence at the University of Edinburgh since January 2016 supporting the university’s commitment to developing information literacy and digital skills. Prior to this, Ewan has worked as an English and Media teacher in the Far East (Japan, Singapore and South Korea) and in Scotland. Latterly, he has completed an Information Management degree and volunteered with the Glasgow School of Art archives on their WW1 Roll of Honour project.

Overview of topic:
Wikimedia’s mission is to be "the sum of all human knowledge". That Wikipedia has amassed over 43 million articles in over 295 languages in its short existence is quite incredible and a testament to the dedication of its community of volunteers. Yet the distribution of articles in these different language Wikipedias is nowhere near evenly spread. Wikipedia’s new Content Translation tool offers an impactful means of sharing open knowledge globally between languages as it brings up an article on one side of the screen in one language and helps translate it, paragraph by paragraph, to create the article in a different language taking all the formatting across to the new article so a native speaker just has to check to make sure the translation is as good as it can be. This presentation and practical workshop will outline the successful models already employed in a Higher Education context where one editor was able to translate five articles on notable Women in STEM onto Portuguese Wikipedia in one afternoon and where twenty-eight Translation Studies MSc students were able to complete the translation of Wikipedia articles of 4000 words into different language Wikipedias. In this way, sharing open knowledge between languages and improving areas of under-representation.

Notes: Etherpad link.

Supporting material:

Related sessions: