Simple english editors meeting

Translators Without Borders Simple English Program

Editor Mee8ng

Agenda

•  Who we are / what we do •  Accomplishments •  Wikipedia 80 x 80 Project •  Health Educa8on and Training for Africa (HEAT) •  Using Acrolinx IQ •  Medical terminololgy database •  Other important informa8on

Translators without Borders is the world’s largest

community of humanitarian translators

8,228,074

About the Simple English Program

Who are we?

•  Sponsor – Val Swisher (TWB Board and Execu8ve CommiQee member)

•  Program Manager – Gaela Schlak •  Technology – Greg Swisher •  Editors – 17 ac8vely involved •  Others – Addi8onal volunteers

How are projects assigned?

•  We maintain a list of editors to call upon when needed.

•  We balance the number of resources with the number of projects, along with training and management needs.

•  Projects are assigned based on editor availability and required skillset.

Systems we use

•  Egnyte – File storage and retrieval •  Acrolinx – Advanced edi8ng and quality control

•  Considering Basecamp if it would help the team

How should you communicate with us?

•  Val Swisher – Email – [email protected] – Skype -‐ vswish

•  Gaela Schlak – Email -‐ [email protected] – Skype – gaela.schlak

When should you communicate with us?

•  You are available for a project. •  You are on a project and have just become unavailable.

•  You are going to miss a deadline. •  You have ques8ons or concerns about your content or project.

Projects Completed in 2012

•  Wikipedia 80 x 80 (on-‐going) •  Kenya Health Brochures •  AHILA •  Simple English Training for Nairobi Translators •  Health Educa8on And Training (on-‐going) •  Over 370,000 words simplified

Projects Scheduled for 2013

•  Wikipedia 80 x 80 •  Health Educa8on And Training •  Medical Terminology Database •  Others to come

Wikipedia 80 x 80

What is Wikipedia 80 x 80?

•  Simplify and translate the 80 most-‐ocen accessed medical ar8cles on Wikipedia

•  Translate the simplified ar8cles into 80 languages – many African

•  Post simplified ar8cles to Simple Wikipedia (simple.wikipedia.org)

Why Wikipedia?

•  ~200 million page views for more than 25,000 medical ar8cles

•  More than 40 million page views for medica8on ar8cles each month

•  50% to 100% of physicians use Wikipedia (most frequently used source by junior physicians besides Google)

•  35 to 70% of pharmacists admit to its use

Service Providers and Wikipedia

•  Movement underway to provide free access to Wikipedia to everyone who has a capable phone in the developing world.

•  This will bring the most important informa8on to the people who need it most – in the languages they can understand.

Why are we doing it?

•  Simplifying English saves lives – Makes it easier for ESL readers – More accurate and simple transla8ons – Makes mobile delivery possible

Simple Wikipedia

Wikipedia 80 x 80 Workflow

1.  Volunteer Wikipedian downloads the ar8cle and puts it into .doc or .docx format. –  References and Wikimedia markup lec intact.

2.  Gaela no8fies editor and provides link to source file. –  Link will have a folder called /source files and a

folder called /edited files


3.  Editor edits – Turn on track changes. – First pass edit – simplify as much as possible. – Run Acrolinx check. – Make suggested Acrolinx changes. – Leave the references and markup in the ar8cle, unless you are removing the sec8on.


4.  Save file with your ini8als in the filename. – Eg., commoncold_gs.docx

5.  Upload file to /edited files folder. 6.  Email Gaela that you are done. 7.  Physician reviews edits, corrects as needed. 8.  Wikipedian uploads file to Simple Wikipedia. 9.  File delivered to transla8on center.

Goals •  Target 6th-‐8th grade reading level. •  Ocen will involve removing medical words and rewri8ng.

•  Use “The Global English Style Guide,” by John Kohl as your style guide for global-‐readiness.

•  Currently seeking support from Simple Wikipedia community on addi8onal guidelines.

Terminology Examples

•  Use the term “person” instead of “pa8ent” •  Acute could be changed to "fast in onset" •  Adolescence to "person between 12 and 18 years old"

•  Ambivalence to "a person who does not really care"

Pointers

Syphilis is thought to have infected 12 million people worldwide by 1999.

Syphilis is believed to have infected 12 million people worldwide in 1999.

Changing “in 1999” to “by 1999” changes the meaning of the sentence. 12 million people were infected with syphilis in the year 1999. Many more were infected previous to that.

Before Acer

More Pointers

…people not using [[condom]]s to protect themselves from sexually transmiQed infec8ons.

…decreasing use of barrier protec8on…

When we are looking at the increasing rate of something we need to aQribute it to a changing rate of something else thus the key term "decreasing“.

Before Acer

Addi8onal resources •  How to write Simple English pages –  hQp://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:How_to_write_Simple_English_pages

•  Medicine/How to edit –  hQp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:MEDHOW

•  Common Piualls –  hQp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:MEDMOS#Common_piualls

•  Diseases and Disorders –  hQp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

Wikipedia:MEDMOS#Diseases_or_disorders_or_syndromes

Health Educa8on And Training (HEAT)

What is HEAT?

•  Simplifying the English for five medical training courses originally taught in Ethiopia.

•  Each training course has approximately 10 modules. (> 1,500 pages total)

•  Program being rolled out to more countries in Sub-‐Saharan Africa.

Why are we doing it?

•  Grant from Open University •  Aide health workers throughout Sub-‐Saharan Africa with medical informa8on in Simple English

•  Transla8ng courses into Swahili •  Looking at mobile delivery

Current stats

•  8 editors over the last 6 months •  5 books lec to complete •  74 files remain •  Project is 41% complete •  Simplified chapters have been translated and delivered to Open University

HEAT workflow

•  Book assigned to editor •  Editor downloads files •  Turn on track changes •  Edit using Acrolinx •  Save files / upload edited files •  Tell Gaela (she tells the transla8on center) •  Transla8on center downloads files

Using Acrolinx IQ

What is Acrolinx IQ?

•  Sophis8cated content op8miza8on socware •  Flags over 100 common English errors •  Based on Chicago Manual and MS Style Guide •  Tuned for Global English •  Highly configurable •  Only available on Windows PCs

Why are we using it?

•  Simplify edi8ng process •  Provide consistency •  Catch errors we might otherwise miss

How are we using it?

•  User socware provided, free of charge, to all volunteer editors

•  Access special server for TWB •  Used in edi8ng Wikipedia and HEAT content •  Run checks before/during/acer edit •  Make sure you get some training

Medical Terminology Database

Goals

•  Build the largest Simplified English medical terminology database available

•  Link preferred and deprecated terminology –  Eg., auditory hallucina8ons vs. hear things that don’t exist

•  Team has not been formed – do you want to join?

•  Does not require a Windows PC

Other Ways You Can Help

•  Grant wri8ng •  Wikimedia markup •  Other tasks for Simple English program •  Fundraising •  Company match program •  Donate J

Volunteer signup

•  hQps://adobeformscentral.com/?f=FVlXXAH58LFXUFqTOE9P7A (I know, that’s a terrible URL!)

•  Please fill it out, even if you have already been working on projects

•  Know others who want to volunteer? Have them fill it out!

A word about deadlines…

•  Many projects do not have “hard” deadlines, like a company.

•  The longer we take, the longer cri8cal medical informa8on remains unavailable to the people who need it most.

•  Please communicate!

What’s Next?

•  We will contact you by email when we have ar8cles in the queue.

•  If we don’t hear from you acer 3 days, we will reassign the ar8cles to another editor.

•  Some projects are more urgent and require a quicker call back.

THANK YOU.

THIS PROJECT WOULD NOT BE A SUCCESS WITHOUT THE GENEROSITY OF YOUR TIME!!!

Simple english editors meeting

Documents

Transcript of Simple english editors meeting