Best Practice Guides

Localization solutions providers constantly lament the sorry state of projects they receive from clients, who somehow expect them to work magic. At the same time, purchasers of localization services are often dismayed by the quality of the results they receive from their localization partners and blame the service provider for returning a shoddy product. So where does the truth lie? Whose responsibility is it to produce high-quality localizations? The truth is that the localization process is a partnership between the client and the solutions provider and that both parties bear responsibility for the outcome. If either party fails to live up to its end of the partnership, the results will suffer.

In an effort to address the client side of the equation, this Best Practice Guide examines topics of importance to the globalization industry and promotes best practices for dealing with those topics. This first Guide focuses on the steps clients can take to help ensure that they are providing their solutions provider with the necessary materials and information to provide a quality localization. The Guide addresses topics such as selecting an appropriate partner, organizing files, checking source material, resolving problems and planning for localization. While the Guide is aimed primarily at neophytes to localization, it contains the distilled insights of some of the best localization managers on the client side of the business and will be useful even to seasoned veterans.

Available as a free PDF download, the 39-page document contains a series of questions and answers on topics of fundamental importance, articles from the archives of the Globalization Insider, and the Localization Project Bill of Materials (a checklist of common items that can be used to assure project completeness and the accuracy of the delivered materials).

Overview

The development of increasingly robust and powerful computers in the 1980s and skyrocketing globalization have paved the way for a resurgence in the use of machine translation (MT). It is now a critical component for meeting the language demands of the 21st century, enabling applications that human translators cannot handle and enhancing their performance in other settings.

The core technology continues to evolve and improve, and innovative uses for MT are constantly appearing. Its use is so pervasive that, in the last few years, it has surpassed human translation: today, more words are translated per year using MT than are translated by human translators, and the demand continues to grow.

Topics and Contents

LISA Best Practice Guide – Implementing MT provides the basis for understanding MT: its uses, its limitations and how to implement it to meet your own needs. Each section listed below contains a series of questions and answers that will help you find relevant content and answers to the questions that need to be addressed when implementing MT:

• Understanding Machine Translation
• What Is Machine Translation Used For?
• Building a Business Case for Machine Translation
• Evaluating, Choosing and Customizing a Machine Translation System
• Using Machine Translation

Available as a free download, this 65-page Guide also contains the following:

• A list of Additional Resources that will allow you to explore the issues raised in the Guide in greater depth.
• An appendix that describes the various types of MT systems available today
• Case studies that show how various organizations have implemented MT to meet their needs

This Guide is the second in a series of LISA Best Practice Guides that examine issues of importance to the language industry and promote best practices for dealing with those issues.

Overview

Download the Detailed Table of Contents and a Short Excerpt

Leverage the expertise of two of the world’s most experienced implementers of Global Content Management Systems (GCMS). Order Managing Global Content today. The new 3rd edition includes updated benchmarking data and case studies for decision makers, and specific do’s and don’ts for all aspects of implementing GCMS. Learn how to develop your own International Content Model and how to prepare your Request for Proposal (RFP) from the experts.

Four Reasons to Order

Why reinvent the wheel? Leverage the experience of experts who have implemented many Global Content Management Systems in many different environments:

• to understand your global content management needs and to compare your requirements with others
• to learn how to prepare your Request for Proposal (RFP) to develop your own International Content Model
• to implement your solution

The Guide includes specific do’s and don’ts for all aspects of implementing Global Content Management and Global Translation Management Systems, with the emphasis on how to manage a successful implementation from the user point of view. The Guide provides invaluable support materials for your implementation in the form of the Hartman Communicatie Listing of CMS Tools, case studies, a reference model for automated localization workflow, product information and a glossary.

All purchasers will receive periodic free updates to the Guide that include new product reviews, customer testimonials, case studies, etc. NOTE: All participants in a LISA Global Content Management workshop receive the Guide and all the subsequent updates as part of the workshop.