Computer based Tools

Translation Technology Case Study Report Assessment: Case study report Aims/Objectives This task promotes students’ critical engagement with the application of computer-based tools in translation. This task is a critical study of an application, process or point of contention of the CAT tool WFA. Students review the tool in terms of its strengths and weaknesses, evaluate its usefulness with and without MT integration and evaluate it for a professional readership based on their personal experience of its use and their general knowledge of CAT tools. 2000 words, weight 50% For this assessment, students write a “review” of the CAT tool Wordfast Anywhere. Documentation: To gain the information needed to write the report you should, at least: • know what translation memory is for and what is it used for (as per CAT Systems reading weeks 2 and 3); • be able to use Wordfast Anywhere with training files (as done in the tutorials); • have some familiarity with at least Wordfast Anywhere and MateCat. Brief You have been asked to write a review of Wordfast Anywhere for the newsletter of AUSIT, the professional association for translators and interpreters in Australia. Some of their members are dubious about CAT tools – refer to this blog post. AUSIT have asked you to write a report to help these members understand what the tool does, and how it could be useful for them. Some of the readers have never used a CAT tool, and don’t know the difference between CAT tools and MT. So part of the review needs to explain the difference and clear up misconceptions. In other words, you are not just reviewing the application but are also providing an introduction to what CAT tools are. You should access the readings and lecture notes on the background about this topic, and provide some history and industry context. Some of the readers will have used a standalone or Word- based CAT tool, so for these readers you will need to point out the potential benefits or pitfalls of using an online CAT tool. If you would like to discuss features that haven’t been explicitly taught in class, you can access the tool’s online support materials. Try the different manuals and compare the usability and quality of the available support. You should also include some personalization in your review, so the reader has an idea of who you are and your personal and professional background. For example, what languages you speak, how long you have been translating and/or interpreting, what your specialization is (if any) and your previous experience with computing and CAT tools. Be critical in your evaluation. In other words, you should challenge statements from your sources (academic resources, software manuals and help files for your chosen tools) and provide reasons for your own statements. A helpful resource for “being critical” is the Manchester Academic Phrasebank. Below are some suggestions of features you could cover, however you do not have to cover them all, and you can cover other topics not listed here. Evaluate its usefulness in terms of: – with MT integration – without MT integration – different genres and document types e.g. literature, birth certificates, product manuals, legal contracts, marketing, localization – terminology – glossary management and use, term extraction – re-use of previous translations – is it easy or hard? Does it happen much? – time management– which features if any helped with this? e.g. analysis report – formatting – as a collaboration tool – team translation, sharing TMs and Glossaries – as a review tool – sharing documents for review, incorporating changes – localisation – post-editing – quality assurance – translation management – cost/benefit – privacy Refer to the following sections of – Usability (p3) – Learnability (p6) Useability e.g. how intuitive is it? Can you figure things out or do you need to look up the manual often? Are the menus logical, do the button names make sense? Can you find what you’re looking for? Learnability e.g. Was it easy for you to learn the application, or difficult?