This is an ADLAB PRO video.
ADLAB PRO is a project funded by the European Union.
This video is made available to you on a Creative Commons licence.
Hi, I'm Anna Jankowska from UAB. In this ADLABPRO video
I will talk about crowdsourcing and collaboration in AD.
This is Unit 5 in Module 6.
It is believed that the term crowdsourcing was created in 2006
by Jeff Howe, who created this neologism
by joining the words "crowd" and "outsourcing".
He defined crowdsourcing as the act of taking a job
traditionally performed by a designated agent,
usually an employee, and outsourcing it to an undefined,
generally large group of people in the form of an open call.
But what is crowdsourcing in translation?
What are its characteristic features? Let's find out.
There are some definitions of what crowdsourcing in translation is.
In this presentation we will use the taxonomy proposed
by Jiménez-Crespo in his book
"Crowdsourcing and Online Collaborative Translations.
Expanding the limits of Translation Studies."
He distinguishes two types of crowdsourcing:
translation crowdsourcing and online collaborative translation.
Jiménez-Crespo defines online collaborative translation
as collaborative translation processes in the web
initiated by self-organized on-line communities in which participants
collaborate with motivations other than monetary.
He defines translation crowdsourcing
as "collaborative translation processes
performed through dedicated web platforms that are initiated
by companies or organizations and in which participants
collaborate with motivations other than those strictly monetary".
Both of these definitions can be applied
to what is happening in AD now.
Before we move on, you should know
that when it comes to crowdsourcing in AD
up to now very little has been happening
both in practice and in the academia.
But let me show you the few things that are happening.
Let us start with online collaborative tools.
There are the already available YouDescribe and Scribit,
that is going to be launched in 2018.
YouDescribe was developed by the Smith-Kettlewell
Video Description Research and Development Center.
It is a free tool that allows anyone to write and record ADs
for YouTube videos. All you need is a computer,
internet connection, web browser, Google account and microphone.
With them you can create and record AD
and then publish the accessible video you produced.
Scribit is a project developed by Bartimeus,
a Netherlands-based NGO.
It will launch in 2018 and it is an online editor
enabling people to create their own ADs
and add them to online videos.
The ADs will be voiced by synthetic speech.
Crowdsourcing was used to provide AD by a Polish NGO,
the Seventh Sense Foundation, in 2017 and 2018.
In 2017, a team of 11 describers
crowdwrote AD.
Each team member wrote a piece of the AD script
which was later put together. In 2018,
a team of 5 describers worked on crowdtranslating
an AD script from English to Polish.
Again, each team member worked on their piece of text.
When asked about their opinions, the describers said
that crowdtranslation was less time-consuming
and more effective than crowdwriting.
But at the same time they all felt that both of these workflows
could be implemented in professional practice.
You can read more about this experiment in my presentation
"Translation, crowdsourcing, collaboration
and quality in audio description".
Those new workflows are already being implemented by the industry.
Some companies assign more than one describer to create AD
to a series or film if the description is needed quickly
or more than one translator to translate AD scripts.
I hope that you've learned a little
about crowdsourcing and collaboration in AD.
But as you see, there is still a lot to be done in this area.
The preparation of this presentation
was supported by ADLAB PRO. Audio Description:
A Laboratory for the Development of a New Professional Profile
financed by the European Union under the Erasmus+ Programme,
Key Action 2, Strategic Partnerships.
Project number:
2016-1-IT02-KA203-024311.
The information and views set out in this presentation
are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect
the official opinion of the European Union.
Neither the European Union institutions and bodies
nor any persona acting on their behalf
may be held responsible for the use
which may be made of the information contained therein.
This was an ADLAB PRO video.
ADLAB PRO partners are: University of Trieste,
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona,
University of Antwerp, Adam Mickiewicz University,
RTV Slovenia, Utopian Voices,
Soundfocus and Royal National Institute of Blind People.
ADLAB PRO was funded by the European Union.
This video was made available to you
on a Creative Commons licence.