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(S. Kuo) Hello everyone and welcome to the GTC's first kick-off hangout on air event.

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We're so excited in having [you] join us and to answer your questions live

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I am Sébastien, you may have received an email from me

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I am the program manager for localization here at Coursera

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And I am joined by Eli over here, on your right,

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who is Product Manager for International Growth,

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as well as Daphne, our illustrious co-founder and President of Coursera.

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First off, I want to thank our volunteers.

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In just a short two and half weeks since we launched the program,

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we've had over (check) 25'000 people who joined across a variety of languages.

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The response has been overwhelming and truly impressive

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and I am impressed everyday by the dedication

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that the Coursera community is showing towards this translation's program.

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In that short time, we've already had nine courses translated

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70% or more towards completion, which represents over a milion words.

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So I want to thank you again and again for your tireless effort and hard work.

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So, the structure of today's event:

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We'll begin with Daphne giving us a brief welcome

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and answering any questions that you may have about Coursera

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and our international growth strategy.

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Following that, Eli and I will be happy to take questions about the GTC

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its logistics or any other thing that may have to do with your daily interaction

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and feedback about the translation's program.

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In order to ask questions through Google Hangouts on Air,

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you'll notice a section on the right that has a 'Ask a question' button.

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So if you click on that, it'll allow you to type in your question into the text box

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and when you're ready to send it, click 'Submit'.

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Eli will be fielding and moderating the questions as they come through.

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So, without much further ado, Daphne,

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would you like to say something, say hello?

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(D. Koller) Hi everyone! It's a real privilege for me to be able to speak with you

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and thank you all for the amazing contributions that you're all making

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toward making education accessible to a much, much larger number of people.

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I'd also like to start off by thanking not only you, the individual volunteers,

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but also the organizations that have been working with us here at Coursera

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to help you and to help us with this amazing project.

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And these include GUOKR in China, the Lemann Foundation in Brazil,

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ABBYY Language services in Russia, the Slim Foundation in Mexico

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and many other organizations that we hope will come on board soon and (unclear ...ully)

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or that are already with us in order to help this translation project.

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Coursera has always been an international platform.

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As it happens, both my co-founder Andrew Ng and myself are not originally from the United States.

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I grew up in Israel and Andrew grew up in Hong Kong and Singapore.

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And so, we've always realized the importance of having an effort that spans the globe

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and appeals -- and that's accessible to everyone.

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In fact, even from the earliest days of the MOOC effort,

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we had only 40% of the audience from the United States, 60% from outside the United States.

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And that fraction of people outside the United States has only been growing over time,

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where (check) now only a third of our audience comes from the United States.

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And so, we're really excited to have -- to be able to expand that reach to an even larger number of people.

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Half or more of our users are currently from countries where the primary language is not English.

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Now, this is pretty incredible when you think about this.

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Our courses are hard.

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They're hard even if you're listening to them in your native language.

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And if you're listening to them in a language where you have to simultaneously

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think about understanding what's being said as well as to understand the material,

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I mean, that's really an incredible challenge,

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and it's quite amazing that these many people have been able to deal with that,

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but at the same time, we realize that there's many many more for whom this is a barrier,

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that is, that their inability to simultaneously understand English and the content

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prevents them from having the benefit of access to our courses.

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And so, because of that, we knew that we needed to make Coursera more accessible

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and a better place for learners all over the world, regardless of what their native language is.

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And so, we've been doing a number of things to help move that along,

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we've been partnering with institutions that teach in native languages other than English,

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and currently, we have, I think, ten different -- nine different languages offered on the platform

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and we hope to increase both the number of languages

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as well as the number of courses in each of those languages,

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to make a much broader range of content available to people.

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We've internationalized the user interface of the platform into six languages,

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so as to make people whose native language is that language

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feel at home when they came onto the site.

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And now, in what I think is likely to be our biggest-impact project yet

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in terms of increasing access regardless of language barriers,

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we have the Global Translation Community project,

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lead by my amazing colleagues Sébastien and Eli, here

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and it's a -- all the credit goes to them, by the way.

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So, we've been just awe-struck by the passion and commitment

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that we've seen among all of you in joining this effort.

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And I know we've heard from many of you that for you, this is an opportunity to give something back

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but it's sort of, you know, I think there is an amazing opportunity here of free, high-quality education

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and this is a way for you to share that education with people that,

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you now, might not otherwise have access tools -- in many cases your fellow country-people

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and it's really amazing that you decided to give of your time, your energy and your passions

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to make that possible.

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And I know that many people in your countries and in other countries that speak the same language

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will be very grateful for your effort and I know we are as well: so thank you all.

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(E. Bildner) Thank you, thank you so much for that introduction (inaudible) Daphne.

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Again, just as I mentioned, my name is Eli and I work on the International Grow team

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and we'll field some of the great questions that we're seeing coming in.

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Just a couple of logistical notes:

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I see there are a few questions about the nature of the community logistics

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and Sébastien and I will get to those, I guess after (inaudible) Daphne.

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So we'll let Daphne talk about more general stuff about Coursera and international growth

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in a second. I see there are a couple more comments about the hangout being a little bit hard to hear,

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if you're watching through YouTube, it might be better to click through to the link to the live hangout

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and close the YouTube tab, so you can only hear it once. I hope that will take care of that.

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So, with that started, with that all said, I wanted to - let's see,

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I saw a question here about the effect, you know,

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what impact Coursera will have on the globalization of higher education.

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So, I guess, you characteristically (check) talked about that,

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you know, what does this mean for having universities in many different countries

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(inaudible) worldwide higher education (inaudible)

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(D. Koller) So I think, in some sense, this is a tremendous opportunity

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for higher education and for the world

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because it allows people to see education as it's offered in parts of the world

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that many will just never have the opportunity to visit

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and so, you can view this as a way of allowing people

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to share perspectives and opinions across national boundaries

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and many of our courses, in fact, are very much contextualized.

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So for example, if you're teaching a course on sociology

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or on sustainability or on business, or many other topics,

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the perspectives that you'd get from someone in China

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is very different from what you would get from someone in Nigeria or in the United States.

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So this ability to really get these diverse points of view and share those with other learners

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is really, I think, one of the things that both the learners on our platform get

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but also the instructors who are teaching benefit a lot from this.

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So I think that's one aspect of globalization.

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The other aspect, I think, is just the capacity issue that is present in many parts of the world.

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Those of us who live in countries that are -- where the educational infrastructure is better developed

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often take for granted the ability that we have to just sign up for a college

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and obviously, we have to pass the admission criteria,

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but if we do, then there is a place for us and we have the opportunity to learn;

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but in many parts of the world, that's just not true.

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And there are people that would dearly love to have the opportunity for an educational experience

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and that opportunity is just not there for them,

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because of a lack of capacity in the educational system,

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because they don't have enough money,

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because of social circumstances and -- or economic circumstances --

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and this really, I think, allows the opportunity for people in those countries

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to have access to something that just otherwise would not exist.

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And hopefully, over time, the educational infrastructure will catch up,

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maybe, perhaps, to some extent by having this content there

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that helps further development and create more qualified instructors within the country.

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And so we hope to actually use this as a spur to develop the develop--

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-- to spur the development of educational infrastructure around the world.

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(10:52 E. Bildner) Daphne, I guess we're seeing a couple of other questions come in.

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How do you see Coursera interacting with other online initiatives in --

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that are specifically focused on individual countries, you know,

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Coursera is this international platform, but there are lots of local resources that come streaming up (check) to you

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and how do you see that interaction working?

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(D. Koller) So I think there is a diverse -- with this move towards online education

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that really started out with the efforts that Andrew and I did at Stanford in September 2001,

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there is now realization that there is a big opportunity there,

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and there is a number of initiatives that are coming up to leverage that and move that forward.

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You know, I think that some of these are efforts that are very,

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in some sense, complementary to what we're doing.

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So, for example, there are portals in certain countries, like Nadees (check) portal for example,

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that is one of our Chinese partners, that really point to great content from Coursera,

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from Khan Academy, from other resources

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and serve as a place where people in that country can find out about great educational content.

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And there a few that are a little bit more similar to what we're doing, so you could view this,

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they're trying to do the same thing, but perhaps focused on the needs of a particular country

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and I think that's totally fine, because there is a limited capacity to what we can host on Coursera

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in terms of number of university partners,

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and so if you have a site that says "I'm going to allow the many universities within a given country

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that can't be on Coursera to still offer content in language, in -- you know, that's really,

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that's about local -- that really focus on aspects that are tied to the local culture,"

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I think that's absolutely fine (check).

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(E. Bildner) Thanks. We get a great question coming in from Akram Dahab,

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I guess in Chad. Thank you, Akram.

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"What would you do to help people from poor countries with limited connection speed,

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like Chad where I live?"

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(D. Koller) Well, first of all, thank you so much for joining us from Tchad.

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That's very far away and it's wonderful that people from all over the world are part of this effort.

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So thank you for participating.

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We completely realize that there are serious infrastructure issues

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in allowing people from parts of the world where broadband internet, for example,

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is not readily available, to access our kind of content.

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And so, there is a two-part answer to this.

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The first is that the digital divide is a prevalent problem

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that we at Coursera are not going to be the solution for,

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because there are only so many problems that an organization can tackle.

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But fortunately, there is a number of organizations, governments and NGOs,

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that are working to try and overcome those infrastructure issues in a much broader basis

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and we're delighted to see that happening.

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There has been tremendous progress in India, for example, recently,

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and I hope other countries will follow suit.

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At the same time, we're doing what we can on our side, until that happens, to try and increase access.

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And that includes programs like the Global Translation Community,

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which hope (check) to overcome language barriers,

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the significant effort that we've made on building mobile apps

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that allow those people who access the internet primarily by their mobile device

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to have a much better experience, and that's specifically, I think,

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common in developing countries.

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And then there is a number of efforts that we've made in the Learning Hub project,

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which are these physical spaces that have high broadband internet connectivity

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in places like US embassies, or the digital libraries of the Slim Foundation in Mexico and Latin America,

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as well as a number of other partners that we have around the world

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that provide local hubs where people who don't necessarily have access to the internet

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can come and study quietly, often with the guidance of the (inaudible)

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and we see amazing learning outcomes in those places,

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with much higher completion rates than we see in just the general population,

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and people having incredible experiences with that.

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And so that's another thing that we've done.

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(E. Bildner) Thanks, Daphne. A couple of other questions:

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Interesting one here from Mrityunjay, if I'm mispronouncing your name, Yunjay in a --

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I'm not sure where you come from, thanks for asking the question:

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"Will Coursera be focusing on elistic education, as in knowledge for the sake of knowledge,

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or will be filling the gaps in reward system"

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so, I guess, more of a kind of vocational education.

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How do you think about that (inaudible) about Coursera's place is?

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(D. Koller) So, we're committed to education in multiple forms.

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We believe that it's wonderful that, if someone wants to study poetry or philosophy,

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we think that has an important place, even though that might not, for most people,

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be along their career projectory (check).

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At the same time, we also realize that, for many people, one of their goals in education

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is to increase their ability to provide for themselves and their families,

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and have access to a more, you know, stimulating job than they currently do.

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And so we really try to do both things:

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we have a very broad range of disciplines represented on our platform,

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including music and the arts and philosophy, and archeology

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a whole bunch of topics like that, but also we simply --

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there's a whole lot of topics that are much more applied,

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and if you call them "vocational" in the sense that they cater only to academic disciplines,

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but there are things like Android development, (inaudible) science,

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programming, finance, accounting,

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things that are really very much in line with the possibility of getting a better job.

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Our recently launched specializations also are very much in that vein,

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because there's not only a curriculum that allows -- that spans multiple courses

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and allows one to achieve mastery in a given discipline

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that can really give much stronger chances of a better job,

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but is also accompanied with a capstone project, like a final project

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that allows learners to demonstrate their ability to apply their skills in the context of the real world.

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Problem (check) in that gets -- that's something that can then

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be used as a part of their portfolio when applying for a job.

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And so, we believe that we'd like to give those learners who want this

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the opportunity to use the educational platform in order to make a better life for themselves.

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(E. Bildner) Thanks Daphne. Interesting question here from Andres.

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Andres asks "Udacity recently decided to discontinue their free certification programs,

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so they changed their model somewhat. What's Coursera's view on, I guess, that."

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But I guess, more generally, how do we think about for the importance of free education

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and I guess, incorporating that into our own business and long term strategy?"

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(D. Koller) Right. So, we are very committed to the notion of free education,

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and having the content remain free and available to everyone.

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(18:22) We have two kinds of outcomes, if you will, that we offer learners currently on the platform

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and we view them quite differently.

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There is our verified certificate and our statement of accomplishment.

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We view the statement of accomplishment not as a credential or a certificate.

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We view that as more of a memento that the learner can say:

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"OK, I feel good because I took something away with me from the course."

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It's not a credential because it doesn't have any kind of validation associated with it.

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It's not identity-verified, so Eli here can take the class in my place and get a certificate

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that says "Daphne Koller" and it's not, you know,

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there is no guarantee that I was the one who did the work, and in fact it's Eli who did the work.

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So -- and furthermore, creating one of these statements of accomplishment is really easy,

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you can take the PDF and you can (inaudible),

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you know, I can put my name instead of Eli's name --

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(E. Bildner 19:22) Don't try this at home.
(D. Koller) OK, don't try this athome (laughter)

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But the point is that there is no academic integrity associated with the statement of accomplishment:

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it's a memento.

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The verified certificate that we offer as part of our Signature Track is a credential.

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It's identity-verified, it's unforgeable because it has a verification code.

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It's true that that one does have a modest cost, you know, $40-50 is about typical,

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but at the same time, we have from the very beginning, day 1,

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have had a financial aid program, so that learners from backgrounds

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that don't allow them to afford that $40 or $50, can still basically fill out a very simple 1-page application

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and we waive that $40 or $50 fee for that credential.

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And so, you can basically say: "Look, it's free to those learners who need it to be free"

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and the other ones who can afford the $40 or $50, which for a large number of our learners,

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is, you know, not a very signi-- not a very onerous burden,

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they help pay for the free education that we are providing to everyone.

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(E. Bildner) Thanks, Daphne. All right, let's see.

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Interesting question here from Rishkash. Apoplogies again, if I'm mispronouncing it --

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(D. Koller) Rishikesh
(E. Bildner) Rishikesh.

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"Do you think that translating courses will get people to learn the subject?

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Because I think the course will probably require English somewhere down the line."

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So I guess, the question, more broadly, is, you know, right now, translations are focused on subtitles,

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I guess the user interface is translated too, but how are we thinking about

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helping people experience a full course in either in translation,

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or in a language that's more comp-- that's a little easier for them to get along?

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(D. Koller) No, I think that's an excellent question, thank you, Rishikesh.

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So, right now, as Eli said, the translations are solely for the subtitles to the course.

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And we realize that there is many parts of the experience,

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like the assessments, for example, where you still need English in order to do the course completely.

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So, let's see: where do we sit on that?

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Right now, we think that there is still -- in certain courses, you can use Google Translate,

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for example for some of the assessments, because if the questions are short and mostly,

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are just like writing, you know, answering the multiple choice questions or writing a program,

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you don't really need that much English if accompanied by Google Translate,

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really, to do that.

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But that's only a sub-set of courses.

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In order to provide a fully translated course experience,

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we would need to do some really fairly heavy lifting on the product's side, on the platform.

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It's definitely something that we plan to do.

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We haven't had a chance to do that yet:

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we're a small company, there's many things that we'd like to do,

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and we just haven't got around to this one

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but we hope to get around to it soon,

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and so be able to provide people with a much more internationalized course experience,

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where you will also potentially have, you know, forums that are in different languages and, you know,

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hopefully we will be able to do peer-grading in different languages,

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so that people who speak Chinese will grade people who wrote their essays in Chinese and --

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versus other languages.

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and so, there is a lot of things that we still have to do and we hope to be able to get to that soon.

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(E. Bildner) Thank you. Interesting question here from David. David asks:

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"Will we ever see language courses on Coursera?"

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I mean, you know, I love learning languages, (inaudible) people out there,

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whether it's perfecting their English or different languages.

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Have you got something we'll see in the future?

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(D. Koller) You know, I hope the answer to that is yes.

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We are in some ways, you know, dependent on our university partners

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in which courses they elect to put on the platform.

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Right now, we've not yet had someone jump up and say:

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"I'd like to teach a language course."

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We do have one course which is an English as a Second Language course,

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intended for teachers of English as a second language,

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but we don't have any real language courses and you can give this as a call to all our university partners:

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If you're interested in offering a language course, please let me know and we'd love to have one.

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(E. Bildner) Great and I look forward to that.
(D. Koller) Yes, and me too.

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(E. Bildner) Let's see. Here is a question from Mahmoud (check). Mahmoud asks:

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"Does Coursera plan to set up any infrastructure

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a distant (check) infrastructure in different countries to (inaudible) in person testing?"

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I guess, you know, the idea being that that would be, you know,

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if that would improve the authentication experience towards earning a verified certificate.

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How do you think about that?

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(D. Koller) I think that this is a very interesting notion,

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and right now, we haven't seen a huge demand for it yet,

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partly because I think the incidences, at this point, of cheating on our platform,

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they are definitely there, but they're not hugely common

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and so, it's not something that people really clamored for.

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But I think as the stakes grow, you know, for example,

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as more and more employers start recognizing these credentials,

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or as universities start accepting them for credit and in some cases, perhaps,

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we'll need to have a higher level of academic integrity,

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at which point we might explore this possibility.

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(E. Bildner) Great, thank you. Let's see here. So Christian (check) asks:

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"How do we plan to give, can foster the strength of credentials."

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So you own a verified certificate, you want to use it to improve your job--

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to improve your carreer prospects, for getting any jobs, how are we working to improve that?

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(D. Koller) Yeah. So we actually have an effort here at Coursera on what we call "credential value,"

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which is really intended to address exactly that question, Christian, so thank you for that,

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of demonstrating more broadly the value of our credentials to a number of constituencies:

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to our learners, to employers, to educational institutions.

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So we've done a number of things:

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First is, for example, we've had a partnership with LinkedIn

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that allows us -- that allows our learners via the click of a button

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to post their credential on LinkedIn, so that employers can see that

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and know that this person has achieved a lot of mastery in a very rigorous academic topic.

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We're working with employers to recognize the value of our courses

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and somehow, many employers have expressed their interest in using this for internal training

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as well as have told us that they are excited about employee --

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perspective of employees who come in with that type of credential.

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One of our university partners, Duke University, recently did a survey among employers

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in their geographical basin in North Carolina and discovered that, I think,

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over 50% of employers are -- would be -- would consider the completion of one of the MOOCs

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as a strong factor in hiring decision.

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And so we're trying to encourage that as well.

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And then, really, just making sure that our courses are strong and rigorous

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and of high academic quality is, I think, eventually -- and it's already starting to happen --

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the value of those will become clear just because of market forces.

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The project-based courses, which allow students, for example in those specializations,

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to create an artifact, to demonstrate mastery in terms of applying skills to a real world problem,

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I think, will really help reinforce the fact that our learners emerge from a really valuable use of skills.

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(E. Bildner) Thanks, Daphne. I see a couple of questions or comments on the (inaudible) tool, about --

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specifically about, very specific GTC-related stuff.

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So just remind once again, we'll take a couple more questions for Daphne

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and then Sébastien and I will field the bunch of questions

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that are specifically about the Translator Community and we'll let Daphne get on her day,

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to try improve Coursera and do other things that all you folks are asking about.

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So I guess, a couple more questions for Daphne. Interesting question here from Catalin,

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who asks, you know, if there are any plans to allow

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non universities and non institutions to create courses on Coursera, I guess, more broadly,

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how are we thinking about building up a diversity of courses on the platform?

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(D. Koller) So, right now, we're focused on working with our university partners

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and some non-university partners that are offering mostly contents

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in teacher professional development (check).

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That is not because we believe that there is no good education to be had elsewhere.

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So we know that there is great teachers to be had at institutions that are not among our partners as well,

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it's just, you know, people out there in the world will not affiliate with any educational institution. (check)

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So, we think -- I think it's great, Catalin, that you're producing your own course

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and making it available to people.

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We are -- we came into this with a model of having a very highly curated platform

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rather than a more YouTube-like model that has anyone being able to upload content.

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So, in order for us to maintain that level of curation, we would have to go and, you know,

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examine the courses of people like you and evaluate them for quality and academic rigor,

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and so on and so forth, and I'm sure we'd find some really amazing gems if we did that,

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but we just don't have the capacity to do that level of screening,

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nor do we have the ability to train a much larger number of instructors in the use of our platform

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and in what we consider to be the best practices for high-quality content, and so on,

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and so, I'm sure we're missing some really amazing things right now,

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but as we're trying to, you know, build thing out,

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it's better for us to maintain this somewhat narrow level of focus and hopefully in the future,

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be able to broaden out to a larger number of providers.

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(E. Bildner) Great, thanks. Maybe we can take one more question for Daphne.

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It seems like a lot of people are interested in knowing

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whether Coursera's certified courses are recognized by companies.

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I know you talked about that a little already, but, you know,

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have we seen any examples of companies saying, you know:

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"If you take this course, you'll have an advantage in some way, either internally or --

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what have we seen there with companies and Coursera?

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(D. Koller) So, you know, the company is only 2-years old,

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which is kind of hard to believe, given the amount of interest that we've seen and the --

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and the amazing community that we've been able to build up, including yourselves,

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but it's a relatively young company, with maybe only about a year's worth of actual "graduates,"

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if you will, from courses, a year and half at the most,

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and so, it takes a while for the market to catch up with the value of a particular form of education,

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to recognize that yes, this is like -- this education provides real value

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and the learners who emerge from this are, you know, really qualified to do what they claim they can do.

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Nevertheless, even with that short time frame,

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we've already seen significant recognition of these credentials by employers.

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I've mentioned the Duke University study a moment ago,

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that had surveyed several hundred employers in North Carolina,

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and importantly, this was not surveyed on, for example,

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here in the San Francisco Bay area of, you know, tech-savvy employers,

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all of whom are sort of familiar with internet technologies and so on,

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this was in a different part of the country, with a very diverse range of employers,

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from very different sectors, and nevertheless, we see a very large fraction of them

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-- I don't remember the exact number, I think 50 to 60% who said that

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they will recognize the validity of these credentials in terms of preferring to --

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treating these candidates in some preferen --

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in some way preferentially recognizing they're bringing something that you need to the table.

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And so, people are starting to see a very significant uptake on the value of these credentials,

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and I think, in a year, this question probably would be asked (inaudible).

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(E. Bildner) OK. Well, Daphne, I just want to thank you again,

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I don't know if you have any heartening words for the GTC friends we have with us today.

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( D. Koller) Sure, so, you know, I've already said this at the very beginning,

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but I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you all again.

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You have already 9 courses that have been translate

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as well as the many others that I'm sure you'll contribute

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towards making a hugely important dent in the issues of accessibility

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to the vast majority of this world population that -- for whom English is not their native language.

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So we're very, very grateful for your efforts, and also grateful for the efforts of Eli and Sébastien

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and our translation partners for helping you make that possible.

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So thank you very much.

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(Eli Bildner) Great, thanks so much, Daphne, and then again, just to remind everyone here,

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so now I will spend some time talking more specifically about the GTC and we'll let you get on with your day

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But thanks again for having been with us.
(Koller) Thank you. - Thank you

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(Bildner) Just a reminder: if you see questions that are being asked on the ...... (check 33:50)

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and that you're really in ........ (check) boost them up so they come to our attention.

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00:34:00,180 --> 00:34:06,075
And - let's take a quick look at kind of questions have been asked already.

432
00:34:06,075 --> 00:34:10,668
So, I see that there is a great question here about translation quality.

433
00:34:10,668 --> 00:34:17,786
Sébastien, do you want to talk a little about what we're thinking about ensuring translation quality in the GTC

434
00:34:17,786 --> 00:34:19,398
and what kind of procedure ...... (check) on place?

435
00:34:19,398 --> 00:34:30,083
(Kuo) Sure. So, the way we tried to continually up quality of the translations from GTC

436
00:34:30,083 --> 00:34:37,393
is to have sort of a tutoring system for, you know, as individual like volunteers (check)

437
00:34:37,393 --> 00:34:44,393
we rely on you just sort of submit the translations and let us know what you think would be the best translation

438
00:34:44,393 --> 00:34:52,440
but obviously, there is a lot of range of opinions and a lot of different ways you can translate something.

439
00:34:52,440 --> 00:34:59,350
And so, I think it's always important to have at least one person per language

440
00:34:59,350 --> 00:35:04,398
to sort of be that voice and have the final say in deciding,

441
00:35:04,398 --> 00:35:09,008
this is how we want to present translations of our content in this language.

442
00:35:09,008 --> 00:35:14,450
And so, in this capacity, we have a specific role, known as the language coordinator.

443
00:35:14,988 --> 00:35:17,408
Not all languages have this at the moment.

444
00:35:17,703 --> 00:35:26,493
As we scale up the program and learn from the particular needs of each community,

445
00:35:26,876 --> 00:35:32,456
we intend to fill those spots where we can, strategically

446
00:35:32,843 --> 00:35:39,126
and give that person the responsibility of deciding the directions of translation for the language

447
00:35:39,126 --> 00:35:45,364
but also having the daily task of reviewing translations on Transifex,

448
00:35:45,364 --> 00:35:49,149
to make sure that everything is always correct,

449
00:35:49,149 --> 00:35:53,370
but also in line with what they sort of are wanting to project,

450
00:35:53,370 --> 00:35:58,353
like when we have that translated content shown to our international users. (35:56)

451
00:35:59,009 --> 00:36:00,634
(Bildner) Thanks, Sébastien.

452
00:36:00,985 --> 00:36:02,130
I wanted to talk a little bit

453
00:36:02,130 --> 00:36:07,192
-- there's a question here from .... (check) about when language coordinators will be chosen.

454
00:36:07,458 --> 00:36:17,692
So, as Sébastien mentioned, ....... (check) is being totally thrilled and overwhelmed, frankly, with response to the GTC

455
00:36:17,692 --> 00:36:19,832
and are really grateful to everyone.

456
00:36:19,849 --> 00:36:25,223
Part of the challenge for us, now, is that we're a tiny team here ...... (check 36:23)

457
00:36:25,223 --> 00:36:32,737
and we're trying to help kind of enable this program and channel the great work that everyone here is doing.

458
00:36:32,737 --> 00:36:36,848
So, as part of that, we're working a little bit more slowly than I think we would have liked.

459
00:36:37,403 --> 00:36:44,607
But as a first step, we really wanted to bring everyone onto this internal translation portal, these GTC Headquarters,

460
00:36:44,607 --> 00:36:48,552
and also give everyone the ability to just kind of jump into things.

461
00:36:48,871 --> 00:36:51,502
And as Sébastien mentioned, we sort of have this tutorate system

462
00:36:51,502 --> 00:36:54,504
where we work with partners in certain languages

463
00:36:54,504 --> 00:36:57,204
and then, for other languages where we don't have partners yet,

464
00:36:57,204 --> 00:37:01,778
although youknow, we very well might in the future, it's a little bit more unstructured now.

465
00:37:01,778 --> 00:37:06,831
But part of the structure that we will be building into these currently unpartnered languages

466
00:37:06,831 --> 00:37:08,682
is by bringing in language partners

467
00:37:08,682 --> 00:37:15,145
So we've been thrilled to see a lot of interest from people all around in serving as language coordinators.

468
00:37:15,145 --> 00:37:19,610
And over the next week or two, we'll be looking through those applications

469
00:37:19,610 --> 00:37:22,552
and working out procedures to add more language coordinators.

470
00:37:22,552 --> 00:37:25,852
An idea is that right now, things are very unstructured.

471
00:37:25,858 --> 00:37:29,678
If you -- you know, you just have a list of courses, you can jump in and translate,

472
00:37:29,678 --> 00:37:33,437
there's no one for unpartnered languages to really review

473
00:37:33,850 --> 00:37:38,060
but the idea is that we'll be building out a lot more structure around that

474
00:37:38,077 --> 00:37:40,052
and we think that structure is really effective,

475
00:37:40,052 --> 00:37:45,152
- we've seen it be really effective in our Portuguese and Chinese language communities

476
00:37:45,152 --> 00:37:51,854
that work on this team model, where there are team leaders and they help recruit a team

477
00:37:51,869 --> 00:37:55,902
and then at the end, when the course is finished, the team leaders help review the content

478
00:37:55,902 --> 00:37:58,289
and then you can ensure really high-quality translation,

479
00:37:58,289 --> 00:38:02,421
while also creating a really good experience for everyone participating.

480
00:38:02,623 --> 00:38:05,475
So, that's one model that's worked really well

481
00:38:05,475 --> 00:38:11,165
and we hope to bring some of that into our currently unpartnered languages too.

482
00:38:11,172 --> 00:38:16,180
So again, thank you for your patience in these initital days and couple of weeks

483
00:38:16,180 --> 00:38:22,453
and over the next week (check) we'll be digging much more into the currently unpartnered languages

484
00:38:22,453 --> 00:38:26,774
to help create a more structured and smoother experience around those.

485
00:38:26,794 --> 00:38:29,619
Amazingly -- this is a final note and sorry to talk so much --

486
00:38:30,929 --> 00:38:33,564
you know, we've been totally overwhelmed by how

487
00:38:33,575 --> 00:38:37,737
-- even for these languages where there hasn't been a lot of structure --

488
00:38:37,737 --> 00:38:43,146
how busy ....... (check) and how a lot of you are creating structure in the absence of structure.

489
00:38:43,813 --> 00:38:46,108
So, really, really impressed and grateful for that,

490
00:38:46,108 --> 00:38:49,646
and we're hoping to help a little bit more on our end over the next .... weeks (38:50)

491
00:38:50,055 --> 00:38:56,690
(Kuo) Yes, and I also want to mention that, you know, as we sort of are getting over this, sic, initial

492
00:38:56,690 --> 00:39:02,848
-- I guess I'll catch up in trying to get everyone into the community and get started --

493
00:39:04,143 --> 00:39:07,717
we're freeing up more time to sort of engage with you directly.

494
00:39:08,135 --> 00:39:16,012
I think it's, you know, I think the beauty of -- ....... (check) like you said, Eli -- of crowdsourcing

495
00:39:16,012 --> 00:39:20,401
is the fact that, like, we all have different skills and different interests

496
00:39:20,404 --> 00:39:25,616
and, you know, different amounts of time that we're able to contribute.

497
00:39:25,618 --> 00:39:30,504
And, you know, [to match check], I look at it as our job to figure out

498
00:39:31,157 --> 00:39:34,873
how to best enable everyone to work the way that they want to work together,

499
00:39:35,194 --> 00:39:36,982
and complement those skills.

500
00:39:36,982 --> 00:39:41,799
So, that's sort of the philosophy behind the way that we are approaching

501
00:39:42,486 --> 00:39:44,813
building up this structure of the translations programs.

502
00:39:44,813 --> 00:39:48,479
The other aspect, though, is community,

503
00:39:48,496 --> 00:39:51,346
which I feel like is the primary focus.

504
00:39:51,823 --> 00:39:56,186
And, you know, as we have more bandwidth (check) to sort of personally engage with you,

505
00:39:57,599 --> 00:40:03,477
either through forums or emails, you know, I can see this consistently like

506
00:40:04,279 --> 00:40:07,785
this is a learning experience for a lot of us, you know,

507
00:40:07,785 --> 00:40:12,633
and you know, I -- as the people on the ground, like I want to hear, you know,

508
00:40:12,633 --> 00:40:15,076
your feedback and your ideas, you know,

509
00:40:15,076 --> 00:40:17,779
like Eli mentioned that some people are creating structures on their own

510
00:40:18,115 --> 00:40:24,105
and that is stuff that should be shared with us, you know, so that we can, you know, learn from

511
00:40:24,105 --> 00:40:29,002
how you guys best work and what we can promote to other people

512
00:40:29,285 --> 00:40:35,017
and evolve, so that we take the best of what's happening within the community

513
00:40:35,497 --> 00:40:37,641
and make the entire community better.

514
00:40:38,556 --> 00:40:43,709
(Bildner) Thanks, Sébastien. There's a question here, asked from Luis (check) - thank you Luis.

515
00:40:43,960 --> 00:40:47,046
"Are you going to offer some capacitation for translators?"

516
00:40:47,647 --> 00:40:52,137
I'm not -- I hope I'm answering this as you intended but I think the question is,

517
00:40:52,137 --> 00:41:00,165
"What kind of recognition does Coursera provide for people that are participating in this program?"

518
00:41:00,575 --> 00:41:07,888
And as we tried to mention in different areas in the forums and emails,

519
00:41:08,288 --> 00:41:12,007
we really want to recognize the amazing work that's going on in the community

520
00:41:12,007 --> 00:41:14,162
and so we're doing a number of things for that.

521
00:41:14,162 --> 00:41:20,136
So one is, once you translate, once a member of the GTC translates a certain threshold,

522
00:41:20,136 --> 00:41:24,955
a certain amount of content, they will be recognized on our public site

523
00:41:24,955 --> 00:41:30,837
and we think that this is hopefully a nice way to recognize people putting in time and energy

524
00:41:30,837 --> 00:41:38,334
by recognizing them on our public site on coursera.org/about/meetourtranslators

525
00:41:39,103 --> 00:41:44,343
-- I think that's the URL but we'll make sure that it's clear in our GTC headquarters --

526
00:41:44,590 --> 00:41:45,764
and that's one way.

527
00:41:45,969 --> 00:41:49,508
Another way is by offering certificates.

528
00:41:49,508 --> 00:41:55,123
I know there is another question about, will Coursera have some formal recognition for translators,

529
00:41:55,123 --> 00:41:58,661
and so, for translators who have participated at a certain level,

530
00:41:59,647 --> 00:42:03,887
you'll receive a statement of accomplishment, just like one from a course,

531
00:42:04,332 --> 00:42:07,747
and that's something that we're also open to ............ (check) including,

532
00:42:07,747 --> 00:42:13,255
but as a start, that's just one form of recognition that we want to give, for

533
00:42:13,713 --> 00:42:17,112
-- you know, we -- once we have a little bit more structure,

534
00:42:17,112 --> 00:42:19,465
particularly for languages that are currently unpartnered,

535
00:42:19,465 --> 00:42:22,574
it'll be easier for us to introduce some of these reward systems.

536
00:42:22,575 --> 00:42:27,581
So one thing that we're doing both in the Chinese and Portuguese communities now,

537
00:42:27,581 --> 00:42:32,385
where we do have a little bit more structure, is that we are offering team leaders,

538
00:42:32,385 --> 00:42:36,588
so, people who are ...... (check) effort and pouring a lot of energy into translation,

539
00:42:37,470 --> 00:42:40,717
get a free signature track, and that's something that will continue

540
00:42:40,990 --> 00:42:43,860
and then we want to do all sorts of small things too.

541
00:42:43,860 --> 00:42:49,676
I'm sure I'm missing things, l -- let's have a peak on our Global Translator Community Headquarters

542
00:42:49,676 --> 00:42:53,606
and go through this stuff in detail, so I recommend .... (check) check that out

543
00:42:54,134 --> 00:42:57,336
But we want to do lots of small things too, for instance this sort of hangout,

544
00:42:57,336 --> 00:43:02,372
which is only open to you GTC members, other special events, you know,

545
00:43:02,372 --> 00:43:06,381
one thing -- things we've done in the past, are bringing in professors of courses

546
00:43:06,381 --> 00:43:08,622
to do hangouts on air like this,

547
00:43:09,381 --> 00:43:15,204
facilitating regional meetups of translators, maybe providing some, you know, financial support

548
00:43:15,500 --> 00:43:17,985
to make those kinds of regional meetups possible.

549
00:43:17,985 --> 00:43:24,038
And I think there are tons of ways that we can help recognize the work that is going on in the community.

550
00:43:25,627 --> 00:43:27,939
And I think at the end of the day, Sébastien

551
00:43:27,939 --> 00:43:32,774
-- ............ (check) community supportive of the people who are involved in it --

552
00:43:32,774 --> 00:43:38,533
so, this is really important to us and we really, we welcome your feedback and any ideas that you have.

553
00:43:38,533 --> 00:43:40,396
So hopefully, that answers your question, Luis,

554
00:43:40,411 --> 00:43:42,180
and I know that lots of other people are interested in that as well.

555
00:43:46,793 --> 00:43:49,027
Let's take a look at some of these other questions here.

556
00:43:49,050 --> 00:43:53,531
So, there's a good question about choosing courses.

557
00:43:53,531 --> 00:43:56,907
Sébastien, do you want to talk a little bit about how, you know,

558
00:43:56,907 --> 00:44:02,718
how we might allow volunteers to help choose the courses that we're working on?

559
00:44:03,645 --> 00:44:06,776
(Sébastien) Errh, totally. So just some background about

560
00:44:07,311 --> 00:44:12,748
-- some insight into how we choose the courses that we currently translate,

561
00:44:12,879 --> 00:44:16,192
because I realize that's, like, a little bit "black box" at the moment.

562
00:44:17,128 --> 00:44:23,258
We work with either partners in different countries, like you already mentioned,

563
00:44:23,624 --> 00:44:31,113
or using analytics data to just sort of understand the needs of various populations

564
00:44:31,521 --> 00:44:34,165
and determine the appropriateness of courses

565
00:44:34,165 --> 00:44:40,331
and that's sort of like the primary driver of how we decide that we want to translate a course.

566
00:44:41,471 --> 00:44:44,996
And then, even before that happens, a lot of --

567
00:44:46,212 --> 00:44:51,260
course instructors, you know, they are ultimately the ones that can --

568
00:44:51,788 --> 00:44:55,680
we work with course instructors to enable courses for tranlation, right?

569
00:44:55,858 --> 00:44:59,901
And so, in order to make sure that translation work is not,

570
00:45:01,272 --> 00:45:04,157
I don't (check) want to say, like, wasted,

571
00:45:04,502 --> 00:45:10,815
but we work with course instructors to make sure that their course content is stable,

572
00:45:11,035 --> 00:45:16,303
as in, like, it will be reused in the future and won't change significantly,

573
00:45:16,303 --> 00:45:19,739
so that, like, the translation work that you guys will put in

574
00:45:20,657 --> 00:45:28,651
won't be just eliminated if they just decide to change individual modules.

575
00:45:29,083 --> 00:45:33,739
And so, there's sort of a discussion process here about, like,

576
00:45:33,739 --> 00:45:36,917
selecting the courses and making sure that they are appropriate for translation.

577
00:45:37,643 --> 00:45:42,250
And then, to get to your specific question, I think that having a feedback module

578
00:45:42,250 --> 00:45:47,958
for community members to tell us what they want to see translated is really important

579
00:45:48,163 --> 00:45:53,923
and something that is on our, like, near-future road map.

580
00:45:54,229 --> 00:45:57,811
I don't know if it will be like a Google form, or something in the forums,

581
00:45:57,822 --> 00:46:04,272
but I think it's really important to collect that kind of -- those requests from people

582
00:46:04,282 --> 00:46:08,193
who actually are the people who would be most interested in taking those courses.

583
00:46:08,543 --> 00:46:14,146
And so, good idea, something we've already thought about and hope to implement soon.

584
00:46:15,070 --> 00:46:22,060
(Bildner) Thanks, Sébastien. A really fundamental and important question from Tasia.

585
00:46:22,565 --> 00:46:28,006
Tasia asks: "I'm not sure how to get started. Do we get assigned to a project or do we choose one?

586
00:46:28,006 --> 00:46:29,522
What should we do. Thanks."

587
00:46:29,522 --> 00:46:34,184
Thank you, Tasia. So, right -- so, basically, this is how it works:

588
00:46:34,184 --> 00:46:38,100
so, you're part of the GTC community, you're part --

589
00:46:38,492 --> 00:46:44,898
you've access to this internal private translators' portal, the Global Translator Community Headquarters.

590
00:46:45,825 --> 00:46:49,934
And once you come on the Headquarters, there are different features for each language community.

591
00:46:50,415 --> 00:46:54,122
And the pages explain how to get started within that language community

592
00:46:54,122 --> 00:46:57,568
and each language community will be a little bit different.

593
00:46:58,032 --> 00:47:01,913
That's part of, you know, in designing the program we wanted maintain flexibility.

594
00:47:01,913 --> 00:47:05,194
So, for instance, if you want to join the Chinese language community

595
00:47:05,201 --> 00:47:06,335
if you're a Chinese speaker,

596
00:47:07,062 --> 00:47:10,751
we work with a partner, a wonderful partner, Guokr, in China

597
00:47:10,751 --> 00:47:16,040
and so, you go to the page and Guokr explains how to join the Guokr program.

598
00:47:17,065 --> 00:47:20,657
Our Portuguese community, which is managed by Tatiana,

599
00:47:20,657 --> 00:47:25,040
I don't know if Tatiana is here today, but thank you for all the amazing work you're doing,

600
00:47:25,040 --> 00:47:27,250
our friends of the Lemann Foundation in Brazil.

601
00:47:28,943 --> 00:47:30,836
This is a Brazilian Portuguese community.

602
00:47:31,615 --> 00:47:36,594
There is a page for that, you go to that page, and then you can apply to work on a particular program.

603
00:47:36,594 --> 00:47:38,863
So they work on a team-based model.

604
00:47:39,615 --> 00:47:45,030
Right now, as I mentioned before, besides Portuguese and Chinese and Russian

605
00:47:45,030 --> 00:47:47,551
-- I'm sorry, so Russian ..... our friends at ABBYY --

606
00:47:48,486 --> 00:47:53,495
have a system where you go to a different platform outside Coursera

607
00:47:53,495 --> 00:47:57,807
and it's a kind of crowdsourcing model, so you can add a sentence,

608
00:47:57,807 --> 00:48:02,364
or upload or download existent translations, it's a really really wonderful platform

609
00:48:02,702 --> 00:48:05,974
and their page on the Coursera Translator Headquarters explains

610
00:48:05,974 --> 00:48:07,542
how to get started on that.

611
00:48:08,089 --> 00:48:11,528
So, if you're not from one of those communities right now, we have other pages,

612
00:48:11,762 --> 00:48:16,702
our page for Other Languages and Spanish, which is also currently still a little bit more "free for all" (check)

613
00:48:17,003 --> 00:48:22,049
and again, we'll be building in structure to that by this language coordinators mechanism.

614
00:48:22,049 --> 00:48:27,660
So once language coordinators come onboard, there'll be more structure in these communities as well.

615
00:48:27,660 --> 00:48:31,060
But for now, you should feel free to jump in to Transifex,

616
00:48:31,060 --> 00:48:35,665
which is our main translation platform, and just start working on translations.

617
00:48:36,007 --> 00:48:40,522
And we realize that there are going to be inconsistencies in the courses,

618
00:48:40,969 --> 00:48:43,580
that these courses need to be reviewed,

619
00:48:43,892 --> 00:48:48,673
but very quickly, we will get a language coordinator system moving,

620
00:48:48,890 --> 00:48:53,340
and a reviewer system in place and so, things will be better on that part.

621
00:48:53,994 --> 00:48:59,284
That's a summary of how you should get started translating.

622
00:48:59,829 --> 00:49:04,077
(Sébastien) And it's also worth mentioning that we've listed a few projects

623
00:49:04,077 --> 00:49:08,569
that represent some of those most popular courses on Coursera

624
00:49:08,569 --> 00:49:13,397
under that Other Languages tab, and so, even if you want, like, more --

625
00:49:13,807 --> 00:49:20,014
if you just want to dive in and like, choose a course out of the vast number of courses

626
00:49:20,014 --> 00:49:23,664
that we are offering for translation, then that's also a good starting point.

627
00:49:24,477 --> 00:49:29,543
(Bildner) Thanks. There is a good question here about native language course transcripts.

628
00:49:29,867 --> 00:49:34,322
By the way, another housekeeping note: I see it's already 8:50 a.m. PST,

629
00:49:34,322 --> 00:49:37,021
so, Sébastien and I will chat for another 10 minutes.

630
00:49:37,482 --> 00:49:42,542
There are definitely questions we are not going to get to, but we'll go through the questions

631
00:49:42,543 --> 00:49:47,730
and we'll make sure that any questions that are, you know, that need to be answered,

632
00:49:47,730 --> 00:49:51,054
are answered in the discussion forums of the GTC portal.

633
00:49:51,695 --> 00:49:55,319
We'll do this again, I think it is a great mechanism for sharing information with our community

634
00:49:55,319 --> 00:49:57,191
Thanks again to everyone for being here.

635
00:49:57,204 --> 00:49:59,577
That said, let's take a couple more questions.

636
00:49:59,577 --> 00:50:01,705
So about the English language transcripts.

637
00:50:01,705 --> 00:50:05,825
So how it works right now is when a -- so Coursera is a platform.

638
00:50:05,838 --> 00:50:10,540
Our university partners use the platform and when they create content on the platform,

639
00:50:10,540 --> 00:50:15,891
when they add videos to the platform, they can request captioning, native-language captioning for those videos,

640
00:50:17,001 --> 00:50:20,603
When they request captioning, that goes to a company that we work with,

641
00:50:20,931 --> 00:50:23,668
that does human language-captioning of videos.

642
00:50:23,668 --> 00:50:27,380
So then people listen to the videos and actually,

643
00:50:27,699 --> 00:50:32,950
humans write out the words that are being spoken on the screens.

644
00:50:32,964 --> 00:50:37,552
Now, the people who are doing these captions, they are not subject-matter experts,

645
00:50:37,552 --> 00:50:40,911
so, for instance in the course on Machine Learning, you know,

646
00:50:40,911 --> 00:50:44,718
they're probably going to get some words wrong, there are going to be grammatical mistakes

647
00:50:45,003 --> 00:50:48,462
and, you know, one of the challenges that I realize, that we certainly realize is a challenge,

648
00:50:48,462 --> 00:50:50,581
is that English transcripts are not perfect.

649
00:50:50,845 --> 00:50:54,917
We think that they've improved a lot, we've worked with this provider that we use to improve that.

650
00:50:55,342 --> 00:50:59,544
I don't know if any, if actually some of you had been on the platform for a couple of years

651
00:50:59,544 --> 00:51:01,636
and saw the transcripts back in 2012,

652
00:51:01,636 --> 00:51:04,753
and maybe you can tell that they have gone better -- I hope so.

653
00:51:05,431 --> 00:51:07,937
But one thing that we'd really love to do in the future

654
00:51:07,938 --> 00:51:13,131
is that native English speakers participate in this translation program as well

655
00:51:13,131 --> 00:51:16,772
and work on correcting the English language transcription,

656
00:51:16,772 --> 00:51:18,724
verifying that as corrected (check).

657
00:51:19,268 --> 00:51:23,724
This is somewhat difficult technically and we don't really have an infrastructure for it

658
00:51:23,724 --> 00:51:26,127
-- infrastructure or a program for it right now,

659
00:51:26,370 --> 00:51:29,017
but I think it's a great idea, it's something that we'd love to do,

660
00:51:29,017 --> 00:51:36,410
because we realize that as Aurelia (check) says, it does make translation harder,

661
00:51:37,385 --> 00:51:40,580
because you have to consult the videos as you're going through the transcripts.

662
00:51:40,580 --> 00:51:44,434
So, thanks for the question. Definitely agreeing and would love to --

663
00:51:44,438 --> 00:51:46,853
and we're planning on working on it in the future.

664
00:51:49,749 --> 00:51:52,103
Alright. Other questions.

665
00:51:56,505 --> 00:51:59,755
Sorry, looking through the great questions here.

666
00:52:00,296 --> 00:52:03,518
Sébastien, one for you: "Is there any Coursera-approved information

667
00:52:03,518 --> 00:52:09,856
on tech details of translating subtitles, such as, what is the longest line that would fit into a screen?

668
00:52:10,159 --> 00:52:16,157
Other kinds of technical details about using the platform, or maybe kind of translation best practices?

669
00:52:16,974 --> 00:52:25,882
(Kuo) Ehm, yeah, I mean, as like, I think I can, like, if you just follow sort of the --

670
00:52:27,335 --> 00:52:31,463
like general translation best practices, they should cover almost any issues that you'll face.

671
00:52:31,463 --> 00:52:37,823
I think one will be working with something as, I want to say like a rigid format like subtitles,

672
00:52:38,820 --> 00:52:41,882
you know, there's not a whole lot of margin for errors.

673
00:52:41,882 --> 00:52:46,730
So the advice that I would give for translating is that, you know,

674
00:52:47,215 --> 00:52:54,153
first and foremost, like, you know, consider the semantic meaning of the text that you're translating.

675
00:52:54,525 --> 00:53:00,770
So, if you are in Transifex and you see the subtitles, you'll see that they're grouped by sort of lines,

676
00:53:00,770 --> 00:53:05,387
where it, like, the screen, the individual sentences that will come up at a time,

677
00:53:05,697 --> 00:53:08,605
and a lot of people sort of, like, fall into this trap of like,

678
00:53:08,605 --> 00:53:13,667
"Oh I need to, like, format my translations in, like, exact same line breaks"

679
00:53:13,667 --> 00:53:19,035
or like, where, like, the English sentence, like, starts on a new line

680
00:53:19,035 --> 00:53:26,472
and I would say, don't give yourself a headache like doing that, you know,

681
00:53:26,801 --> 00:53:31,769
I've seen like a lot of trans-- innovative (check) translators, like,

682
00:53:32,424 --> 00:53:36,389
take source text and translate it into for example Russian,

683
00:53:36,389 --> 00:53:40,728
and they will rearrange the sentences so it makes more sense in Russian.

684
00:53:40,728 --> 00:53:46,109
And so, feel free to do that if you feel, like, that is what is valuable for you as a native speaker.

685
00:53:47,417 --> 00:53:53,572
In terms of length, I would also try -- that's kind of the one concern I would advise for,

686
00:53:53,572 --> 00:53:57,495
like try to stick within, or under the length of the subtitles,

687
00:53:57,505 --> 00:54:02,471
because subtitles, if you go on too long, it can impact the readability

688
00:54:02,809 --> 00:54:06,381
and so, always err on sort of shorter translations

689
00:54:06,753 --> 00:54:12,902
and use the source text as your bar to measure against.

690
00:54:13,999 --> 00:54:17,806
And then, you know, as I've been sort of explaining through Transifex

691
00:54:17,806 --> 00:54:24,250
when people submit a translation, I try to keep a list of sort of these, like, issues where that came from,

692
00:54:24,574 --> 00:54:28,246
I haven't noticed very many so far, but if you do have questions,

693
00:54:28,972 --> 00:54:31,089
feel free to sort of write.

694
00:54:31,089 --> 00:54:37,407
I can even actually start a sort of, like a Translation Best Practices forum within our GTC,

695
00:54:37,407 --> 00:54:42,657
just keep that discussion going and collect your feedback and, you know,

696
00:54:42,659 --> 00:54:47,888
help you guys with sort of the daily questions you might have about the work that you do.

697
00:54:48,840 --> 00:54:53,550
(Bildner) Thanks, Sébastien. Another question here from Hunadahs

698
00:54:53,550 --> 00:54:56,115
about promoting courses.

699
00:54:56,115 --> 00:55:00,448
So, you know, the Translation Community translates a course,

700
00:55:00,449 --> 00:55:02,520
the course is now available in another language.

701
00:55:03,409 --> 00:55:04,726
a) how does this work?

702
00:55:04,726 --> 00:55:10,394
And b) how do you students on Coursera know that that course is now available in this other language?

703
00:55:11,787 --> 00:55:15,541
So, Sébastien, do you want to field that one, so how does,

704
00:55:15,544 --> 00:55:21,522
how do courses get from the translation platform to the Coursera class site?

705
00:55:21,522 --> 00:55:26,563
And then, how do students on the class site know that these courses are now available in a new language?

706
00:55:26,998 --> 00:55:36,257
(Kuo) Sure. So, once a course's content is both complete and reviewed,

707
00:55:36,447 --> 00:55:41,740
which are two separate sets on Transifex, we actually have an automated script

708
00:55:41,740 --> 00:55:48,325
that sort of checks for these two things to be true, and then we'll, you know,

709
00:55:48,325 --> 00:55:54,682
import the translated subtitles to that course's class site on Coursera.

710
00:55:55,445 --> 00:56:01,851
And so, first and foremost, as, when you visit like the class page

711
00:56:02,237 --> 00:56:04,383
that kind of introduces the course information,

712
00:56:04,384 --> 00:56:10,470
there'll be a little, like, a module on the right that displays information about the course.

713
00:56:10,470 --> 00:56:13,974
And one of those facets is available subtitles.

714
00:56:13,974 --> 00:56:19,482
And so you'll see, if there's available subtitles for Chinese and Spanish,

715
00:56:19,482 --> 00:56:22,724
then it'll say "English, Chinese and Spanish subtitles."

716
00:56:23,111 --> 00:56:27,716
And so, that's kind of the first point where somebody would notice something about that (check)

717
00:56:28,030 --> 00:56:31,923
And then also, as it works on YouTube, like while you're watching a video,

718
00:56:31,934 --> 00:56:34,783
there'll be a sort of a closed caption / subtitle button

719
00:56:35,024 --> 00:56:39,152
and hopefully, you know, people will see that and click it

720
00:56:39,152 --> 00:56:42,898
and see that there's the list of, like, available subtitles,

721
00:56:43,562 --> 00:56:46,522
and one that may match, like the one that they're trying to look for.

722
00:56:46,969 --> 00:56:50,779
We also work with course instructors to sort of have them,

723
00:56:50,785 --> 00:56:58,687
like a lot of course instructors, you know, market and promote their own courses themselves

724
00:56:58,687 --> 00:57:03,319
and so, you know, through our partnership managers and also us,

725
00:57:03,319 --> 00:57:08,829
like, we work very closely with them to sort of keep them abreast about translation progress

726
00:57:08,829 --> 00:57:13,019
and you know, let them know, like oh, like these language subtitles (check) are available

727
00:57:13,021 --> 00:57:16,494
and so that they can also promote that to their students outside of Coursera

728
00:57:16,494 --> 00:57:20,188
or on Coursera itself through an e-mail or their forums.

729
00:57:21,270 --> 00:57:25,280
(Eli Bildner) Thanks, Sébastien. So let me just answer a couple more questions very quickly

730
00:57:25,280 --> 00:57:27,294
and then wrap things up.

731
00:57:28,471 --> 00:57:31,012
So there is a great question about translating the user interface,

732
00:57:31,012 --> 00:57:33,966
" Is it possible to translate that with Transifex?"

733
00:57:34,187 --> 00:57:38,289
So right now, we work with professional translators to translate our user interface

734
00:57:39,041 --> 00:57:44,345
and in the future it's something we'd love to consider opening up to the community as well.

735
00:57:45,515 --> 00:57:50,841
You know, part of, I guess -- what we're thinking is that once the community develops and grows, that

736
00:57:50,841 --> 00:57:54,364
-- and matures and there is more structure in it -- and that will be the appropriate time

737
00:57:54,364 --> 00:57:55,812
to open up the interface.

738
00:57:55,812 --> 00:57:58,781
Because obviously, the interface is something that's very visible

739
00:57:58,781 --> 00:58:02,204
and, you know, it's really important that the quality is super-high.

740
00:58:02,532 --> 00:58:08,046
Right now, we're still working on improving the technical aspects of translating the user interface.

741
00:58:08,046 --> 00:58:14,149
It's actually somewhat tricky, when you pull down the text from the interface to a translation form,

742
00:58:14,149 --> 00:58:17,037
making sure that there is enough context there to translate it.

743
00:58:17,295 --> 00:58:20,255
So, you know, for instance, sole example:

744
00:58:21,077 --> 00:58:24,435
you know, someone reported a translation error the other day

745
00:58:24,435 --> 00:58:29,743
where it said "There are three days left to register for signature track."

746
00:58:29,749 --> 00:58:35,039
And "left" was translated as, in French, as the word meaning, physically left.

747
00:58:35,879 --> 00:58:40,448
And, you know, clearly, this is a big problem but on our translations platform,

748
00:58:40,449 --> 00:58:45,959
that string "left" was in isolation and was used in two separate locations,

749
00:58:45,959 --> 00:58:50,754
so it actually takes a lot of work, technically and programatically

750
00:58:50,754 --> 00:58:55,737
to make sure that the interface translations work well and you don't have silly errors like that.

751
00:58:55,737 --> 00:58:59,325
So, it's something we'd love to do in future. Thanks for the great question, Leonardo.

752
00:59:00,766 --> 00:59:05,904
Another question about: "Currently, most of the translations are English course to other languages,"

753
00:59:05,909 --> 00:59:08,251
you know, would we consider going the other way around?

754
00:59:08,251 --> 00:59:10,670
Great question: the answer is definitely yes.

755
00:59:11,843 --> 00:59:14,494
Already, you know, I've seen some amazing things.

756
00:59:14,494 --> 00:59:20,991
Our Chinese community has translated Russian and is now working on Russian and French courses,

757
00:59:20,991 --> 00:59:25,710
translating them into Chinese or adding Chinese subtitles: totally amazing

758
00:59:26,282 --> 00:59:29,293
and we'd love to introduce other language pairs in the near future.

759
00:59:29,293 --> 00:59:33,195
Again: on the road map and and once the community matures a little bit,

760
00:59:33,195 --> 00:59:35,852
it's something that we definitely want to do.

761
00:59:35,852 --> 00:59:39,301
I would love to work on translating Chinese courses: I speak Chinese

762
00:59:39,852 --> 00:59:43,198
[blurred] some amazing Chinese courses on our platform

763
00:59:43,514 --> 00:59:45,237
and I'd love to see those available.

764
00:59:45,237 --> 00:59:49,053
So, thanks for the great question, Yufan. And--

765
00:59:49,053 --> 00:59:54,899
(Kuo) You know, Eli, it'd be pretty cool one day for you to lead a Chinese community

766
00:59:54,899 --> 00:59:59,644
-- GTC Community --- Google Hangout On Air, your Chinese is really impressive.

767
00:59:59,644 --> 01:00:01,941
As a native speaker I can say that.
(EB overlaps - incomprehensible)

768
01:00:01,941 --> 01:00:04,776
(Bildner) Yes, that would be fun with me and Kuo co-partners.

769
01:00:04,776 --> 01:00:08,950
There's another question about Chinese, I think this is a broader question about --

770
01:00:08,951 --> 01:00:13,561
the question is, you know, obviously there are different dialects of Chinese,

771
01:00:13,561 --> 01:00:17,851
there's Cantonese, there is, you know, traditional characters and simplified characters,

772
01:00:17,851 --> 01:00:22,127
slightly different usages in, say, Taiwan and Mainland: how do we deal with that?

773
01:00:22,127 --> 01:00:24,457
I think there's a broader question of, you know,

774
01:00:24,457 --> 01:00:26,754
there is Brazilian Portuguese and there is European Portuguese, you know,

775
01:00:26,754 --> 01:00:29,177
what kind of Spanish are we accepting on the platform?

776
01:00:29,587 --> 01:00:34,483
These are all great questions and these are things that we'll kind of need to work out on a case-by-case basis.

777
01:00:35,044 --> 01:00:38,707
You know, we'll talk about this more in our forums but, you know,

778
01:00:38,717 --> 01:00:40,065
we think that it makes sense

779
01:00:40,065 --> 01:00:44,663
to have separate languages for European Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese, for instance,

780
01:00:44,663 --> 01:00:49,441
that it'll just be a clearer and cleaner experience for both students and translators

781
01:00:50,062 --> 01:00:53,542
and certainly, there are things that can be done

782
01:00:53,552 --> 01:00:58,789
in converting from Simplified Chinese to Traditional Chinese, programmatically,

783
01:00:59,268 --> 01:01:01,902
but, you know, that's something that we'll need to consider as well.

784
01:01:01,902 --> 01:01:07,144
So, great question from Wah, thank you for asking it, and the answer is that

785
01:01:07,153 --> 01:01:09,684
we'll need to work this out on a case-by-case basis.

786
01:01:11,435 --> 01:01:14,840
Let's see if there's any really quick questions that we can answer.

787
01:01:20,554 --> 01:01:25,104
I think, because we're at 9 o'clock and I want to be respectful of everyone's time,

788
01:01:25,104 --> 01:01:28,879
and so I think we should probably wrap this up and again,

789
01:01:28,879 --> 01:01:34,354
we'll look through the questions that are outstanding and I'll make sure that any, kind of fine ones (check)

790
01:01:34,354 --> 01:01:37,458
are answered in the forums or in other channels.

791
01:01:38,051 --> 01:01:40,670
For my part, I just want to thank everyone for being here today.

792
01:01:40,670 --> 01:01:46,407
I know it's probably crazy time zones, some of you are turning in at, you know, 11 p.m.,

793
01:01:46,407 --> 01:01:53,986
and others at 3 a.m., and ......................... (check) sometimes.

794
01:01:54,596 --> 01:01:58,944
But we're really, really grateful for everyone being here and spending the time with us,

795
01:01:58,944 --> 01:02:02,019
asking great questions, and for all your work.

796
01:02:02,476 --> 01:02:07,673
Thanks for inviting Daphne and for the rest of the time i'll share with you, Sébastien,

797
01:02:07,682 --> 01:02:11,454
are there any final words you wanted to add as well.

798
01:02:11,871 --> 01:02:18,702
(Kuo) Yeah, I mean, you know, everyday I am super-impressed with the dedication

799
01:02:18,702 --> 01:02:23,406
from both Coursera learners and our GTC members.

800
01:02:24,435 --> 01:02:32,392
You know, as a person who works in localization, languages has always been my passion, like,

801
01:02:32,392 --> 01:02:33,712
since I was a little kid.

802
01:02:33,712 --> 01:02:36,794
I would go to public libraries and take out, like phrasebooks,

803
01:02:36,794 --> 01:02:40,685
just to sort of, like, look at these weird words and try to understand what they mean.

804
01:02:40,685 --> 01:02:44,828
And I think one of the most gratifying things about building out a community like this

805
01:02:44,828 --> 01:02:50,063
is that, you know, reading through all your responses, especially to that question on the application

806
01:02:50,063 --> 01:02:51,586
that's like (check): "Why do I want to translate?"

807
01:02:52,350 --> 01:02:58,271
you know, I see that there are so many people like me, like you, that are really --

808
01:02:58,756 --> 01:03:05,021
that not only believe in Coursera's mission of increasing the accessibility of education

809
01:03:05,021 --> 01:03:10,323
but also, really believe in the value of translation and community building.

810
01:03:10,323 --> 01:03:15,103
And so, I just want to let you guys know that Eli and I are committed

811
01:03:15,103 --> 01:03:24,698
to sort of -- to build out a program that not only lets you shine and lets you contribute back to Coursera,

812
01:03:25,934 --> 01:03:34,514
but also, you know, take that work and, you know, use it to make other Coursera learners

813
01:03:35,807 --> 01:03:40,689
more enabled to access our really great content. So, thank you.

814
01:03:40,690 --> 01:03:45,971
(Eli Bildner) Okay, well, as we say, thank you, gracias, спасибо, actually we could go on,

815
01:03:45,971 --> 01:03:49,553
but we really appreciate everyone being here, and we'll see you, see you out.

816
01:03:49,935 --> 01:03:52,456
(Kuo) Definitely. Thanks.