We’ve worked with Ulatus on 10 courses in 5 languages, and been impressed not just by the quality of the output but also by the flexibility, professionalism, and friendliness of the team. We will certainly use them again.
- Paul Lavender
Strategic Competence Lead - Education & Learning at Karger
Karger Publishers is a worldwide publisher of scientific and medical content based in Basel, Switzerland. Connecting and advancing health sciences since 1890, Karger has been continuously evolving, keeping pace with the current developments and shifts in research and publishing. The publishing house is dedicated to serving the information needs of the scientific community, clinicians, and patients with publications of high-quality content and services in health sciences. With the use of their network and experience they are able to provide relevant and important information to researchers and the scientific communities through means beyond their journals and books. Karger Publishers has 240 employees and is present in 15 countries around the globe.
The objective the client had in mind was to publish the e-learning course into 8 different languages. It will be easier for students in the respective regions to read and understand if courses are published in their regional language. They will also be able to take the quiz in their respective language and hereby be able to complete the designed course. Since Karger is a global company, it’s only natural that they cater to scientific communities across languages. The client was looking for a translation partner who could translate their e-learning courses based on Rise and make it available in multiple languages.
The project involved looking for the right resources who were well-versed with e-learning localization, subtitling, and video voiceover. High quality was imperative as these courses were supposed to be published online on their website and the students who would be taking up these courses would need adaptation to local language to understand it in their native language. Hence, high quality output was required across all 8 languages and the same was to be met within the provided timeframe mentioned by the client as they had a course launch date.
The client exported the files from the e-learning tool Articulate Rise and handed it to us for processing. So we had the challenge of working on multiple file types including xliff, mp4s, srt files, and indesign package. All these files were clubbed together to curate the course. Hence we needed to be accurate in using similar terminologies across all types of files so that the resultant course turned out to be consistent. Therefore, our project managers had to assure that these instructions were followed in all languages and by all our linguistic teams.
The client had requested for an on screen video subtitling as well as the transcription of the same that would be displayed at the bottom of the course. The challenge here was that the subtitles are generally broken into parts while captioning it and the transcription flows in a sentence and a paragraph manner. Hence translation of both is done in a different way and they do not tend to match with each other accurately. If tried to join the subtitles segments to form a paragraph the meaning of it changes. Hence, a careful intervention from the linguists and the project management team.
Part of the project involved multiple rounds of desktop publishing (DTP) assistance after delivery of the translation. This was a critical requirement since formatting consistency of the translated files with the source file had to be maintained. To achieve this goal, our DTP team had to format the In Design target files which were in 8 different languages. Additionally, quality checks for typesetting and DTP for all languages had to be strictly followed.
When the course was completed and submitted to the client, he was unable to import the provided file into the course. This happened because the client had changed the source content slightly. The client was not aware of it and asked us to support in this matter. They provided us with the slightly changed new source file and asked us to check if we could help them revise the target file accordingly. This was needed to be done in a minimum provided timeframe to meet the client's deadline.
The crux of any localization project is the apt selection of the linguistic team. The course content that needed to be translated had the subject area as Medical Education. Hence, our project managers chose the best resources in this field and assigned the job to them in all 8 languages. The Project Managers also assigned the correct set of instructions to the linguists that needed to be strictly followed by them. A constant to and fro communication between the Project Manager and the linguists was done to assure that the necessary clarifications were provided to them and the required accuracy could be achieved, hence enhancing the overall quality of the output.
A dedicated project manager was assigned to coordinate with multiple stakeholders to ensure that all quality standards and expectations were being met. The project manager’s role included overseeing the localization and accommodating any last-minute revisions from the client, as well as planning, strategizing, adhering to deadlines, and overcoming any challenges that came up, especially considering the different service and language requirements.
To meet the requirement of transcription and subtitle matching in the course, our linguists needed to be extra careful while framing the translation for both. This was a must as the client needed the subtitles and the voiceover in the videos to match the below mentioned transcript. Conveying this special requirement to the linguistic team, required additional efforts from the Project Management team.
Our in-house DTP team worked on Adobe InDesign and Illustrator to ensure that the translated output was formatted the same way as the source English content. Since every section in the document needed to be formatted, translated, or localized, it was crucial to build in enough time for our design experts to work on each section of the summary file.
The client had issues in importing back the provided translation into the course as there were some minor changes at the client's end in the source course. We then had to utilize the already built Translation memory on our CAT tool 'Memsource' to align the existing translation with the new source file provided and then only re-translate the minor changed part of the source. This ensured quick and agile solution to the client's issue and the client was very satisfied with the same.
We worked relentlessly to provide top-quality translation and publish ready courses in Latam Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Turkish. Adherence to client requirements and timelines as promised resulted in customer delight.
