Multilingual - you understand?
Jinfo Blog

By Joanna Ptolomey

Item

Multilingual content was a strong theme coming through Online Information 2011. We saw product vendors developing new portals in other languages to break into new underserved scientific, technical and medical (STM) markets – perhaps about time. However my interest was perked by the European Commission delivering on job mobility within Europe with semantic searching in a multilingual taxonomy via the EURES portal.

I have much experience in multilingual content, especially in health. In Europe with freedom to travel, the last 10 years have seen an explosion in the languages that should be covered at local levels. In fact the EU has 23 official languages and this can cause issues for citizens and employers alike in the job and training market.

Consider the idea of a job and skills (or competencies). Remove the language barrier for a moment and think about a common language in jobs, education, training and skills. Does a job title accurately describe what an employee will do – rarely. What about skills, and is this the same as a core competence? How does a competence relate to a qualification?  

Even within a single country, with one official language, that is quite a series of questions in order to build a portal and develop a taxonomy to aid searching. Now think bigger – the European Union with 23 languages.

One of the key shifts in developing the EURES portal and taxonomy has been the shift in thinking about learning outcomes rather than competencies versus qualifications. The content is also skills centred meaning that it is easier to match jobs and to provide information around opportunities for employers and people looking for work. The semantic searching can also make use of other sources such as EUROSTAT.

EURES helps workers to cross borders in the EU and improve the functioning of the EU labour markets which is essential in today’s economy, especially with the Eurozone in crisis. A free-to-use multilingual semantic search job finding tool could have the potential to enhance regional and occupational mobility. I think we need it now more than ever.

As a final thought let’s move from the EU to global, and accessible multilingual publishing in the World Health Organisation (WHO).

The WHO recent world report on disability serves as a reminder of accessibility. 10% of the world’s population experience some form of disability – limited mobility, cognitive or vision-related condition. The WHO thinks this a large, growing and undersupplied market which means, yes, more customers.

Apart from excellent processes in preparing multilingual accessible report content via print, daisy audio, epublishling and accessible PDF, the WHO reminded us that technology is not the silver bullet. Like the EURES portal there is much work to be done behind the scenes in content arrangement, taxonomies and formats – sounds like jobs for information professionals.

« Blog