Month: December 2020

Are You Complying With This OSHA Requirement
15/12/2020

Are you complying with this OSHA requirement?

Posted on | by Jacqueline De Marco | Leave a Comment on Are you complying with this OSHA requirement?

Our society is always evolving and the workplace is no exception. The Hispanic presence in the US workforce is growing, and as of 2018 this group made up 17.5% of the US labor force, with that number being anticipated to grow in the following years. Hispanic workers are present across all industries ranging from construction (34.3%), to finance (22.9%), to manufacturing (21.3%). Their contribution to the US workforce is undeniable. Which is why OSHA standards are so important for employers to follow. There is one requirement in particular that can help protect our Hispanic workforce and any other employees who are not native English speakers.

What is OSHA?

First things first. You may be wondering what exactly OSHA is. OSHA, aka the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, works to create important rules and regulations that businesses have to follow to remain in compliance with proper safety protocols. If they fail to follow them, dangerous accidents can occur as well as large fines and penalties.  

OSHA sets and enforces standards through training and education that touches a variety of industries such as healthcare, oil and gas, and even maritime. Employers are responsible for ensuring that all of their workers are aware of OSHA requirements and they must train them properly on the best safety practices.

A Key Requirement

One important OSHA requirement that employers must adhere to is making sure that their workers receive imperative information and training regarding safety measures, workplace hazards, how to prevent accidents and any OSHA standards that apply to their workplace. An even more important requirement is that employers must provide that information and training to their employees in a language and vocabulary that the worker can understand clearly and absolutely. 

For workplaces that have any Hispanic employees, translating e-learning materials into Spanish may be absolutely necessary to stay in compliance with OSHA.

How to Meet OSHA Language Requirements

Given the pandemic and many workplaces operating remotely or keeping their employees separated while on the job, online training can be an extremely effective and safe way to deploy employee training. E-learning can help boost engagement, give employees the flexibility to take training when and where is convenient for them, and it can be an enjoyable way to learn. 

Another benefit of online training is that they are easy to adapt to other languages for employers that have a diverse staff. The localization of e-learning materials takes not only language differences into account, but cultural differences as well. To help employers meet their training obligations, OSHA has a web-based assistance tool that can aid employers with a Spanish-speaking workforce in identifying the Spanish-language outreach resources on OSHA’s website. By providing training for employees in their native language, employers can make sure workers completely understand the instructions and rules that must be followed. This will create a safer work environment for everybody.

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The Major Benefits of VR in E-Learning
10/12/2020

The Major Benefits of VR in E-Learning

Posted on | by Jacqueline De Marco | Leave a Comment on The Major Benefits of VR in E-Learning

In some ways, virtual reality (VR) still feels very futuristic. Television and movies led us to believe that VR would be all encompassing, surrounding us in a complete fantasy world whenever we wanted. In reality, when it comes to VR, the future is here. It just doesn’t look like what we thought it would. VR applications touch many industries and one industry most people wouldn’t realize offhand is the e-learning industry. 

With it, VR brings the power of presence. Because our brains treat VR like a real experience, e-learning content that takes advantage of VR techniques has the potential to be extremely engaging, amongst a slew of other benefits. 

1. Engagement 

When it comes to fostering engagement during e-learning, VR is hard to beat. VR can captivate an audience, capturing students’ undivided attention and allowing them to learn in an immersive way. A 2016 study in China looked at VR’s effectiveness as a learning tool. The study found that the passing rate for students that engaged with the e-learning material via VR was 93%. The students that did not utilize VR techniques to study the exact same material only had a pass rate of 73%.

2. Experiential & Embodied Learning 

VR can offer students hands-on practice using their own bodies. Imagine during a training being able to interact with different objects in a scene and how much more tangible that experience would feel compared to reading about it or watching someone else doing it? This could be something as small as opening a door or a more in-depth equipment training. Research suggests that when we use our hands or move, we’re able to remember what we learned better.

3. State-Dependent Retention

Research shows that you can recall information better if you’re in the same environment you encoded that information in. VR provides a safe opportunity to learn in an environment similar to one where students may be tested one day, such as a fireman training to learn how to save someone from a burning building. 

4. Deliberate Practice

VR in e-learning thrives on mistakes. Why? When you utilize VR in e-learning, students can practice and get feedback immediately after making a mistake. Students will have the opportunity to fail and test out new solutions in a risk-free setting. This is especially ideal for job training that requires someone to react quickly in stressful situations. VR can help identify performance gaps when the stakes are much lower and can provide valuable online training experiences before entering real-life situations.

5. Visualization

Visualization helps students learn. Instead of staring at a page in a book or hearing a lecturer discuss their experiences, imagine being able to have those experiences yourself? While VR is not a replacement for true reality, it can provide visualized learning experiences. For example, during a VR e-learning opportunity, you may be able to move your head and as you do see what changes around you, just as you would in real life. Visualization can lead to a greater understanding of the material and can help with retention.

6. Storytelling & Empathy With Characters

A famous Stanford study from 1969 found that students who were tasked with memorizing words retained six to seven times more words when incorporating them into a story compared to the students who simply tried to memorize a list. Storytelling has always had an impact on humans, especially when we can empathize with characters. VR can incorporate both storytelling and empathetic characters into e-learning. The potential to impersonate a character yourself while interacting with other characters in the story can enhance the feeling of being immersed in the story, can make the student more invested in the characters, and can increase retention rates.

7. Analysis Abilities

From a creator standpoint, VR can give the opportunity to have more data and insight into the learning experience. Techniques like head and eye tracking, head and body tracking, and heatmaps can give creators insight into how they can improve the learning experience for students. Creators can receive analytics that illustrate the time it takes students to complete tasks in the virtual world or can alert students of any mistakes they make. This high-level access to such valuable data means that VR techniques in e-learning will keep getting better and better.

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It's time to learn why back translation could benefit your project!
08/12/2020

A Quality Cycle: About Back Translation and Reconciliation Services

Posted on | by Marisol Pérez Laglaive | Leave a Comment on A Quality Cycle: About Back Translation and Reconciliation Services

Assuring quality in all its aspects —semantics, grammar, stylistic and cultural accuracy, optimal format, correct terminology— is one of the pillars of localization workflows. In this regard, quality is not ensured by applying one single action. On the contrary, many factors contribute to quality, such as linguist selection, efficient use of tools, and different processes of quality control.

There are certain textual materials that are highly sensitive and have a major impact on the life of people related to them. This is the case, for instance, with pharmaceutical and clinical protocols, clinical research, and financial or medical reports. When working with these documents, clients and/or Language Service Providers (LSPs) can opt for adding another quality assurance step, called back translation. This step can be useful in the following scenarios:

  • The content needs rigorous control since any semantic error can have practical consequences.
  • Sometimes clients don’t speak nor read in the target language and want to check the accuracy of the translation by themselves.
  • When reviewing transcreated text, clients want to assess how the linguistic team translated a slogan or other marketing copy, and what meaning it conveys in the target language.

The three-column text

The aim of back translation is to have another instance of control of the target text’s quality; mostly in terms of terminology and semantic accuracy. It consists of performing another translation, but this time of the target text into the source text language.

For example, if we translated a clinical protocol from English into Spanish, we would apply another process of translation, but from the Spanish target into English again. The resulting new English text will never be an outbound translation. The new English translation is not intended for publishing or distribution. The outcome of a back translation process is only for internal use in the localization process. The linguistic team performs it only for quality assurance purposes.

Moreover, we can point out the following characteristics for back translation outcomes:

  • They are literal.
  • They will never result in a version exactly the same as the original source; it helps to identify discrepancies or errors in the translation.
  • A different linguist not involved in the original translation workflow works on it. Sometimes, they don’t even have access to the first source text (blind translation). 

Let’s reconcile

After the above-mentioned step, the same linguist or a different one will read and compare the source text against this new outcome. If no critical difference in meaning or mistranslations are flagged, the translation is considered accurate, and the process finishes. On the other hand, if the reviewer spots discrepancies, he or she will mark them up for further review, in which the team fixes the translation. Sometimes, they fill reports with the errors found and corrected in this step.

Evaluate

The process of back translation is very thorough and implies an exhausting revision of the translation that goes beyond editing or proofreading. However, it demands a well-planned and wide deadline, and the use of several professionals. Because of this, LSPs and/or clients should consider if the back translation is appropriate for a certain project considering time, resources, and budget. If not, there may be other ways of ensuring quality too, through one of the multiple means the localization industry has come to develop.

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In Team We Trust Virtual Leadership
02/12/2020

In Team We Trust: Virtual Leadership

Posted on | by Marisol Pérez Laglaive | Leave a Comment on In Team We Trust: Virtual Leadership

Unexpected times come along with unexpected outcomes. Recently, many companies around the globe had to face this fact. In order to continue their operations (providing essential services), they found themselves in need of moving the workplace from the office to home. Organizations that are new to this setting are discovering and dealing with the specificities of working remotely. For example, communicating face-to-face differs from a briefing by email. Or scheduling activities for on-premises staff implies different strategies than planning tasks for a disperse remote team. Thus, leadership is not the same either: managers who are accustomed to working in the office need to refine their skills for the purpose of leading and having a positive influence over a virtual staff.

Terra Translations has put together virtual teams and achieved goals every day for 20 years, with the invaluable support of its operations managers and language leads. Based on that asset built over two decades, here we provide some insight into organizational and communication strategies to support the switch into a model of remote leadership.

Enhancing vs. controlling

Monitoring and over-controlling sometimes are common reactions when shifting to a remote workplace. Leaders can’t see what the team is doing, and that could be upsetting for them. But soon that kind of supervision will be proven limited and unnecessary. When operating remotely, controlling a team at all times isn’t possible nor desirable, because engaging in those attitudes is very exhausting for every member of a team, and also an obstacle for building strong interpersonal relationships. 

Successful leaders will enhance the potential of the members of their team and motivate them to achieve the outcomes desired. This is done by establishing daily workflows based more on projects than on daily fixed schedules. Project-based workflows imply working target-oriented, so every member of a team can provide their skills and competencies with this shared goal in mind. In contrast to monitoring compliance with a fixed schedule (like from 9 to 5), leaders will assess projects’ progress, productivity and well-being of the employees regularly. It’s trust, motivation and a shared sense of purpose that’s behind the cohesion of a team, not control nor fear.

One and others

In Team We Trust Virtual Leadership

The essence of leadership implies building a relationship with others, even when the task is carried out in a remote environment. Communication is the ground and the means to do so. In that regard, experts suggest that, first of all, leaders need to learn how to communicate through the media that works best for each team or member. Maybe some colleagues are more receptive to oral communication, while others receive better input by emails or briefs. 

Moreover, efficient virtual leaders build a healthy self-image that helps them in their roles. With that in mind, despite being aware that they are not perfect and are not able to do it all, leaders build a confident self-sense around their capabilities and competencies. In that regard, in the process of developing a leading personality, continuous learning is crucial. Leaders should always be receptive to feedback and need to ask open questions to the colleagues they trust the most to learn from their insights and opinions. 

Lastly, a virtual leader embraces and masters the available technology, because it’s an ally, not a barrier. Successful managers explore the possibilities that software offers to daily operations: file-sharing, dynamic scheduling, pervasive communication and automation.

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