Welcome to the first episode of our blog series “Interview with Sal”. First of all, I’m Sal, the instructional designer of Content Tree and it’s an honour to be given this chance to host this blog series. For each episode, I’ll invite e-learning experts as well as e-learning enthusiasts to share their experiences. In this interview series, we will talk more about what’s going on when developing e-learning modules.
For our first exclusive interview, let’s uncover Ben’s challenges while managing the technical issues in SCORM development, and how he efficiently overcame the challenges with the team.
Encountering Multiple Languages Issue in SCORM Development
Hi, Ben. We’ve worked with each other for some time right now. I believe that it is great to share with others your experiences. Remember when we had this challenge while working on a project for including multiple languages in one SCORM?
Hi, Sal. I’m glad to be invited to share my experience with everyone! Oh ya, I remember that project. Usually, most of our customers request for English language SCORM. However, the challenge arises when we handle this project requiring additional languages to cater to their diverse employees. Eventually, we worked tirelessly together with the team, but in the end, we had a breakthrough! As a result, this saves a lot of time and makes it easier for our customer to switch multiple languages in one SCORM.
While considering solutions, we knew that producing 2 SCORM files to cater to 2 different languages would result in 2 sets of Learning Records in our customer’s LMS. Then, they would have to consolidate the reports into one. Overall, we can imagine the trouble they have to go through, knowing that this company has a huge number of employees around the globe.
The Challenges of Consolidating Multiple Reports
That was quite challenging and I’m glad that we pulled it off. So now, our customers can enjoy this breakthrough. Let’s get down to business and can you tell us what are the decisions needed from customer before embarking on multilanguage e-learning content?
It’s good that you mentioned about our breakthrough as it has made the reporting more efficient for our customer and beneficial to our development team.
We start by asking our customers on their language needs for the SCORM such as:
- How many languages are required in the SCORM?
- A single language
- Multiple languages (2 languages in this case)
- Do they want all languages integrated in
- A single SCORM? or
- Multiple SCORM files (2 SCORM files in this case)?
- How do they want to display the secondary language option?
- Add the closed caption of the translation for the secondary language but other areas remained the same.
- Change all areas of the main language, including text-on-screen and voice-over.
So, our customers can either choose to publish multiple languages in either a single SCORM or multiple SCORM files. Could you explain further about these two different choices?
Sure, no problem. Ok, for both choices, the customer can either:
- Use the subtitle to show the secondary language(s) and
- Change the voice-over and text-on-screen
It can be a bit difficult for us to visualize how you deliver the secondary language option. Care to share with us some examples of how the multiple languages are displayed?
I’ll be glad to show you. For a single SCORM with 2 languages, we can display the translation of the second language as a closed caption. Let me show you what it looks like:
Examples of Closed Caption in English and Malay
There’s also another option of displaying a single SCORM with 2 languages, where learners select their preferred language first. Then, a all the content will be according to the selected language – including text on screen, voice-over, and closed caption. Here, let me show you what it looks like:
Examples Showing the Selection of English Content
Examples Showing the Selection of Malay Content
Thanks for sharing. I noticed that we’ve managed to provide the option of switching to multiple languages. From my understanding, popular authoring tools like Articulate Storyline or Adobe Captivate only support single-language closed captions. Could you share how you accomplish the multiple languages option?
I believe that we accomplished this with our team’s expertise in writing scripts, logic with variables, and triggers. Furthermore, we fully utilise the advanced programming functions in the authoring tools to include closed captions for multiple languages within a single file. By doing this, we have successfully reduced the effort to work efficiently with the production team.
That’s great teamwork I can say it myself. For the next question, who decides on the engagement of the translator?
Well, it depends. The customer can recommend their frequently used translator to us, or they can give us the autonomy to choose the translator. After completion of translation work, we will send the final translation work to the customer for approval. Typically, our customers don’t have any preference for a specific translator.
Since our work deals with a lot of business terms/terminologies, how would the professional translator know how to handle this type of translation work?
For modules requiring complex terms, we will study the customer’s website, especially the products and services page, and request our customers to provide their product/service brochures. Then, we will send the collected information to our translator.
For cases where the customer has dealt with their preferred translator before, we will ask them to send us their translator’s work as a reference. As a result, this helps us to align with our customer’s language preference style.
That’s a good practice! After completing the translation work, would there be any approval process?
Yes! We will send the translation file with the main language (usually English) and the second language side by side to make it easier for our customers to review them.
I see. Oh, look at the time! I wish we could talk more about this, but how about we continue with more questions in our next sessio
That’s alright. Sure, I’ll be glad to share more next time!