The LocData Project is a crowdsourcing research project based on the collection of data points related to translation and localization. The data points are collected in a survey format and synthesized into an interactive map. The project focused on collecting data from the following categories: education, technology, language service providers, professional organizations, research/consulting, and certifications. The survey is open to the public to add data to the survey, the survey entries are screened for quality control by the LocData Project team.
This year 2022-2023 LocData Project team decided to focus on Education programs. We analyzed data provided by the American Translator’s Association to assess the state of language and translation education programs in the US today. The goal is to create a comprehensive resource that people can visit to start building the necessary market awareness for producing professional language services and products. For instance, human resource and vendor managers can use the map to develop an understanding of the educational opportunities available in a market to later design training programs that address gaps. Or a new customer could learn more about the language industry before making any purchases. Another usage case would be where companies can find professional organizations to connect with experts in the field.
One usage case we envision for this project would be the analysis of educational programs. Educators or researchers who want to look into the state of language and translation education programs in the US can look at the data that has been validated, collected, and cleaned by the LocData team. The data from the project can also be used for long-term analyses of the effects of Covid-19 on schools offering translation and interpretation programs.
LocData Project Team 2022-2023 accomplished three main things: building an official website for the project, embedding visualized ArcGIS and Tableau maps on the website, and validating data of the T&I programs in the U.S.
Due to the time limit, Team 2022-2023 focused on data Translation and interpreting education programs, but there is much more data within the six categories mentioned to explore. Overall, there are still many challenges left to bringing the LocData Project to its full capacity as a public data source for people to reference. There’s so much potential to the project and we believe that the goal of visualizing these data points will provide valuable information to the translation and localization industry. We look forward to seeing future iterations and improvements for this project.