The Survey

The Terminology SIG demonstrates what LISA can achieve through member collaboration and teamwork. My employer, IBM Corporation (a LISA GA member), enthusiastically endorsed my candidacy to head this SIG. IBM generously supported my involvement by allowing me to manage the SIG on company time and by covering travel costs. IBM also provided a User-Centered Design professional, an editor, and technical support to assist with creating the online Terminology Survey.

The LISA administration provided us with Web space, e-mail distribution services, an online bulletin board, opportunities to speak at LISA forums, and general advice and guidance. LISA members contributed content to the Terminology Survey before it was released, promoted the survey, and completed it themselves. And the OSCAR SIG provided any needed expertise with respect to terminology markup standards.

The Terminology Survey involved planning and teamwork. First, I prepared a proposal which was reviewed by the LISA administration to ensure that the project fell within the scope and aims of LISA. Having ensured that a similar survey wasn't done in the past, I then developed an initial set of questions with input from experienced terminologists. LISA members reviewed the questions and I implemented their feedback. After an IBM editor cleaned up the English, the structure of the survey was evaluated by an IBM UCD professional with expertise in developing effective surveys.

Three parts

At this stage, it was decided to split the survey into three separate ones, custom tailored to specific types of respondents. IBM technical support then stepped in and imported the surveys into the WebSurveyor online survey tool. Finally, to ensure everything ran smoothly, I conducted a trial run of the survey with an initial set of 'guinea pig' respondents. With everything ready, in July the LISA administration announced the survey, widely distributed e-mail invitations, and provided a link to the survey from the LISA Web site.

In spite of the surveys' specialized focus and their length (the longest of the three surveys contained 45 questions), the response rate was within the norm for surveys. Nearly 80 companies responded, providing detailed information about their terminology processes and needs. (For a summary of the survey report, see http://www.lisa.org/2001/termsurveyresults.html). I presented the surveys' findings at the LISA Forum in Vienna in November. That session's attendance and participant evaluations suggest that terminology management is a topic of significant interest to LISA members.

The Terminology SIG will draw from this interest and energy in 2002. The newly created Terminology Bulletin Board already has more postings than that of any other LISA SIG. I hope that by promoting the bulletin board to a wide net of terminology contacts gained in 2001, both within and outside of LISA, it will be an effective forum of exchange. With input from several other LISA members, I plan to further define best practices in terminology management for the localization industry.

The LISA Terminology SIG Bulletin Board