Chinese to English translation of a University Course

Background

Beijing Institute of Technology is a co-educational public university and a major research university in Beijing, China. It has 6 campuses scattered across Beijing and has been ranked as one of the top universities in China. Ulatus was approached by the Department of Physics, BIT to have its undergraduate course on Foundations of Web Development translated from Simplified Chinese to English. The client came with an objective to broaden the reach of its course to millions of students across the world unable to read simplified Chinese.

Project Challenges

• Customized solutions to meet client requirements: The client came with specific requirements in regard to the quality of translation, turnaround time and budget. In order to fulfill all requirements, it was necessary that the translation services showcased on the website needed to be altered. This called for multiples teams to come together and brainstorm ideas and innovative solutions to provide the client with a solution that is not transactional from the website.
• A large volume of work to be delivered in a short time: The word count for translation and editing was large and the requested turnaround time was much shorter than what our fastest service would require. Ulatus had to reduce its turnaround time by 70% and develop smart project management using adequate technology. This allowed quick delivery without any compromise on quality.
• Subject matter expertise for two different specializations: This project included content from two different subject areas, namely Information Technology and Curriculum Development. Hence, this assignment required linguists with expertise in both subjects.
• Bringing together different teams for smooth operation and quality control - To finish this project to perfection, multiple teams and linguists had to come together to handle operations and ensure top-notch quality. It was a huge challenge to bring such a large group of people together and finish the assignment within the requested timeline.

How Ulatus Overcame The Challenges?

• Tailored communication technology for seamless interactions between multiple teams and client: We understood that in order to impeccably complete this project, we had to facilitate seamless communication between the multiple parties involved in this project. Ulatus’ translation management system was enabled to ensure all parties were able to work simultaneously and use its communication feature to avoid any ambiguities or loopholes in the project.
• Allocated a dedicated Project Management and Language Solutions Lead: A dedicated pair of project management and the editorial head was assigned in order to make sure that all responsibilities are carried out flawlessly with zero compromises on the quality. The project management lead monitored the judicious use of resources and timely delivery of the project and the editorial head ensured that expectations with quality are met and all corrections are made in a timely manner.
• Implemented Smart Technology for seamless Project Management: This assignment involved a large word count and short turnaround time which meant attaining the perfect balance between quality and speed. Hence, Ulatus Project Management team combined the best of neural machine translation with human translation. To avoid all possible setbacks, Ulatus’ cloud-based TMS enabled multiple stakeholders to work on this project at the same time. This allowed the project management team to monitor the progress of the project and gave the client access to check for updates and contribute to any changes made in the assignment.
• Designed a structured workflow to accelerate the process: Finding linguists with specialization in both Information Technology and Curriculum management was a challenge. Hence, we had to look for two linguists, one specialized in IT and the other in Curriculum Management, and design a customized workflow to ensure both subjects are effectively translated and edited at the same time.
• Internal Desktop Publishing resource strength: We believe in having a strong control internally over all aspects involved in the translation chain. Since we could successfully build an in-house team of DTP experts, meeting client demands regarding the format was possible within the allotted time. Elsewhere, such a situation would result in outsourcing the assignment and limiting in-house quality control.