An essential goal of the SoLiLL Project is to provide an appropriate communication tool to almost one hundred senior students based in six European countries, who co-operate on common research subjects, using six different languages. A group of students of UTA-Lyon have made a proposal, based on the use of a dedicated forum and a logical method of translation and communication. First presentation and workshops were held in the Convention of Ulm, in November 2001. For more details, make a connection to :
https://www.uni-ulm.de/LiLL/prov2/europa/europaworkshop2001/index.html
[ Select : Contributions è Mr. Roger Rebord è Power Point Presentation (1 MB) ]
The SoLiLL partners decided to retain this solution, and the Group of Lyon was requested to introduce some improvements in the forum and circulate additional information to the six partner Groups involved in the project. This is now just achieved, and the details are displayed in this note.
· Segmentation of the Conferences area in 14 zones : 2 themes (Bread and Housing) X 7 languages. The goal is to have specific working zones for each Group, aiming to simplify the use of the forum by the participants ("students" and "translators").
· Translation in English of the titles and written information (initially in French).
· Hervé BRUNI, is in charge of the technicalities of the SoLiLL Forum (moderator).
· Address of the forum : http://europe.uta-lyon.org/dcforum/dcboard.cgi?az=login
· Hervé BRUNI has circulated additional technical information related to the fonctionalities of the forum : two E-mails dated 18 and 20 February, and a Guide in English (FTP format, six pages).
· For further technical clarification, Hervé's E-mail address is : bruni@univ-lyon2.fr
The INSTRUCTIONS FOR USE here after display the operational instructions of our method for multilingual communication. They complement the technical instructions of Item 3, here above.
· Antoine SANCHIS is available for further clarifications concerning the information given in this Item 4. E-mail address : antoine.sanchis@fnac.net
Nominate the Translators : each Group must be able to translate from its own language into English, the messages generated by the students of the Group (outgoing messages), and vice versa for the messages sent by the students of the other Groups (incoming messages). Therefore, the first step is to nominate two (or more) translators in each Group, selected among the students of the Group.
Responsibilities : The translators of each Group have to organise themselves in order to visit the forum periodically (for instance, one visit per day). They must translate into English all the outgoing messages (messages generated by the students of their Group). For the incoming messages (all in English), it is recommended to proceed to a selection, in order to translate only those messages which are interesting for their Group. The criteria for selection have to be decided in each Group (the less the incoming messages are filtered, the heavier shall be the burden for the translators).
The (good) quality of the translations : This is an essential issue. Attention : the translating machines ( Babelfish, etc.) are of very poor quality. They are not suitable for this application.
For incoming messages, it is acceptable that only a summary of certain paragraphs is translated.
Username : please read carefully pages 1 to 3 of the Technical Guide circulated by Hervé. Inscription is mandatory at the first connection, only (fill in the questionnaire). In further connections simple Identification is enough (fill in the username and code). When a new message is released, the program adds automatically the author's name. For a better identification of the authors of the messages, it is recommended to write your username as follows :
· Students : add the name of town of your Group. Example : Antoine_Lyon.
· Translators : create a difference in the username of the different translators of your Group.
Example : Translator_AS_Lyon, (AS = initials of the translator). The translator is also a student , he may create new messages, therefore he must also inscribe himself as a student (as per example above). In further connections, when he enters the forum, he has to identify himself as translator or student, depending on his role at this moment.
Interest of zones : see explanation in Item 2, here above. The number of zones to explore is limited (2 for the students ; 4 for the translators), which simplifies very much the tasks.
· Students : to create or receive messages, they have to visit the 2 zones of their Group, only. Example, the students of Arnhem will only visit : Bread - Arnhem and Housing - Arnhem.
All the messages (outgoing and incoming) of the Group are filed in these 2 zones, in Dutch. Obviously, you have to go to the zone Bread, or to the zone Housing, depending on the theme you are dealing with. There is no difficulty in jumping from one zone to the other.
· Translators : In addition to the 2 zones of their Group, the translators have also to visit the 2 zones dedicated to the messages in English : Bread-English et Housing-English. These 2 zones are used by all Groups. Continuing with the example of Arnhem, the translator of this Group will visit the zone Bread-Arnhem, read the new messages (Dutch), translate them into English in the zone Bread-English, and post them in this zone. Being in the zone Bread-English, he will read the new incoming messages (English), translate them into Dutch in the zone Bread-Arnhem, and post them in this zone. He will follow the same sequence for the other theme : Housing.
Title (" Subject ") of the message : as long as nothing is changed in the box "Subject", the corresponding messages are filed in the same sequence ("thread"). As soon as some detail is changed in the wording displayed in the box "Subject", the program considers that the subject is new, and files it as a separate subject.
· The students, have to keep in mind this information, when they generate their messages : keep the title identical, if you are answering to an already existing subject, or create your own title if your message is for a new subject.
· The translators, have to translate the titles, in the box "Subject". Attention : if the title has been translated previously, already, it is important to keep unchanged the previous translation.
Wording and size of the messages : It is important that the messages are easy to translate and to read, therefore it is essential to make them short , precise and clear when they are created. Do not hesitate to simplify your wording and to split them, if you feel that they are too long.
Annexes : it is more efficient to send them directly by E-mail to the partners involved.