Action Translate: a platform to support student translation volunteering

What is it about?

University students are well known for volunteering within non-governmental organisations (NGOs). A significant part of NGO practice is the production of documents that communicate their work to local communities and international stakeholders. However, organisations often struggle to resource translations of these documents, resulting in the exclusion of the very same communities that they want to reach. Although many students are multilingual and are willing to volunteer their time and language skills, there are few structured opportunities configured for such non-professional translation of content in the short-term mode that would fit into the student pattern of availability. We developed Action Translate to specifically support these motivated, non-professional translators within the volunteering constraints of university life. Action Translate leverages machine translation post-editing to support teams of volunteers working on NGO translation projects online. Through analysis of a real-world deployment, we discuss how digital systems can be developed to better support student volunteer translators, specifically in building collegiate interaction and identity as translators for a cause.

Featured Image

Photo by Amador Loureiro on Unsplash

Photo by Amador Loureiro on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Deploying online collaborative translation platforms in university contexts presents both pedagogical benefits for the students engaging in the volunteering program and positive social implications, democratising the access to NGO documentation published solely in English or other major languages.