(S. Kuo) Hello everyone and welcome to the GTC's first kick-off hangout on air event.
We're so excited in having [you] join us and to answer your questions live
I am Sébastien, you may have received an email from me
I am the program manager for localization here at Coursera
And I am joined by Eli over here, on your right,
who is Product Manager for International Growth,
as well as Daphne, our illustrious co-founder and President of Coursera.
First off, I want to thank our volunteers.
In just a short two and half weeks since we launched the program,
we've had over (check) 25'000 people who joined across a variety of languages.
The response has been overwhelming and truly impressive
and I am impressed everyday by the dedication
that the Coursera community is showing towards this translation's program.
In that short time, we've already had nine courses translated
70% or more towards completion, which represents over a milion words.
So I want to thank you again and again for your tireless effort and hard work.
So, the structure of today's event:
We'll begin with Daphne giving us a brief welcome
and answering any questions that you may have about Coursera
and our international growth strategy.
Following that, Eli and I will be happy to take questions about the GTC
its logistics or any other thing that may have to do with your daily interaction
and feedback about the translation's program.
In order to ask questions through Google Hangouts on Air,
you'll notice a section on the right that has a 'Ask a question' button.
So if you click on that, it'll allow you to type in your question into the text box
and when you're ready to send it, click 'Submit'.
Eli will be fielding and moderating the questions as they come through.
So, without much further ado, Daphne,
would you like to say something, say hello?
(D. Koller) Hi everyone! It's a real privilege for me to be able to speak with you
and thank you all for the amazing contributions that you're all making
toward making education accessible to a much, much larger number of people.
I'd also like to start off by thanking not only you, the individual volunteers,
but also the organizations that have been working with us here at Coursera
to help you and to help us with this amazing project.
And these include GUOKR in China, the Lemann Foundation in Brazil,
ABBYY Language services in Russia, the Slim Foundation in Mexico
and many other organizations that we hope will come on board soon and (unclear ...ully)
or that are already with us in order to help this translation project.
Coursera has always been an international platform.
As it happens, both my co-founder Andrew Ng and myself are not originally from the United States.
I grew up in Israel and Andrew grew up in Hong Kong and Singapore.
And so, we've always realized the importance of having an effort that spans the globe
and appeals -- and that's accessible to everyone.
In fact, even from the earliest days of the MOOC effort,
we had only 40% of the audience from the United States, 60% from outside the United States.
And that fraction of people outside the United States has only been growing over time,
where (check) now only a third of our audience comes from the United States.
And so, we're really excited to have -- to be able to expand that reach to an even larger number of people.
Half or more of our users are currently from countries where the primary language is not English.
Now, this is pretty incredible when you think about this.
Our courses are hard.
They're hard even if you're listening to them in your native language.
And if you're listening to them in a language where you have to simultaneously
think about understanding what's being said as well as to understand the material,
I mean, that's really an incredible challenge,
and it's quite amazing that these many people have been able to deal with that,
but at the same time, we realize that there's many many more for whom this is a barrier,
that is, that their inability to simultaneously understand English and the content
prevents them from having the benefit of access to our courses.
And so, because of that, we knew that we needed to make Coursera more accessible
and a better place for learners all over the world, regardless of what their native language is.
And so, we've been doing a number of things to help move that along,
we've been partnering with institutions that teach in native languages other than English,
and currently, we have, I think, ten different -- nine different languages offered on the platform
and we hope to increase both the number of languages
as well as the number of courses in each of those languages,
to make a much broader range of content available to people.
We've internationalized the user interface of the platform into six languages,
so as to make people whose native language is that language
feel at home when they came onto the site.
And now, in what I think is likely to be our biggest-impact project yet
in terms of increasing access regardless of language barriers,
we have the Global Translation Community project,
lead by my amazing colleagues Sébastien and Eli, here
and it's a -- all the credit goes to them, by the way.
So, we've been just awe-struck by the passion and commitment
that we've seen among all of you in joining this effort.
And I know we've heard from many of you that for you, this is an opportunity to give something back
but it's sort of, you know, I think there is an amazing opportunity here of free, high-quality education
and this is a way for you to share that education with people that,
you now, might not otherwise have access tools -- in many cases your fellow country-people
and it's really amazing that you decided to give of your time, your energy and your passions
to make that possible.
And I know that many people in your countries and in other countries that speak the same language
will be very grateful for your effort and I know we are as well: so thank you all.
(E. Bildner) Thank you, thank you so much for that introduction (inaudible) Daphne.
Again, just as I mentioned, my name is Eli and I work on the International Grow team
and we'll field some of the great questions that we're seeing coming in.
Just a couple of logistical notes:
I see there are a few questions about the nature of the community logistics
and Sébastien and I will get to those, I guess after (inaudible) Daphne.
So we'll let Daphne talk about more general stuff about Coursera and international growth
in a second. I see there are a couple more comments about the hangout being a little bit hard to hear,
if you're watching through YouTube, it might be better to click through to the link to the live hangout
and close the YouTube tab, so you can only hear it once. I hope that will take care of that.
So, with that started, with that all said, I wanted to - let's see,
I saw a question here about the effect, you know,
what impact Coursera will have on the globalization of higher education.
So, I guess, you characteristically (check) talked about that,
you know, what does this mean for having universities in many different countries
(inaudible) worldwide higher education (inaudible)
(D. Koller) So I think, in some sense, this is a tremendous opportunity
for higher education and for the world
because it allows people to see education as it's offered in parts of the world
that many will just never have the opportunity to visit
and so, you can view this as a way of allowing people
to share perspectives and opinions across national boundaries
and many of our courses, in fact, are very much contextualized.
So for example, if you're teaching a course on sociology
or on sustainability or on business, or many other topics,
the perspectives that you'd get from someone in China
is very different from what you would get from someone in Nigeria or in the United States.
So this ability to really get these diverse points of view and share those with other learners
is really, I think, one of the things that both the learners on our platform get
but also the instructors who are teaching benefit a lot from this.
So I think that's one aspect of globalization.
The other aspect, I think, is just the capacity issue that is present in many parts of the world.
Those of us who live in countries that are -- where the educational infrastructure is better developed
often take for granted the ability that we have to just sign up for a college
and obviously, we have to pass the admission criteria,
but if we do, then there is a place for us and we have the opportunity to learn;
but in many parts of the world, that's just not true.
And there are people that would dearly love to have the opportunity for an educational experience
and that opportunity is just not there for them,
because of a lack of capacity in the educational system,
because they don't have enough money,
because of social circumstances and -- or economic circumstances --
and this really, I think, allows the opportunity for people in those countries
to have access to something that just otherwise would not exist.
And hopefully, over time, the educational infrastructure will catch up,
maybe, perhaps, to some extent by having this content there
that helps further development and create more qualified instructors within the country.
And so we hope to actually use this as a spur to develop the develop--
-- to spur the development of educational infrastructure around the world.
(10:52 E. Bildner) Daphne, I guess we're seeing a couple of other questions come in.
How do you see Coursera interacting with other online initiatives in --
that are specifically focused on individual countries, you know,
Coursera is this international platform, but there are lots of local resources that come streaming up (check) to you
and how do you see that interaction working?
(D. Koller) So I think there is a diverse -- with this move towards online education
that really started out with the efforts that Andrew and I did at Stanford in September 2001,
there is now realization that there is a big opportunity there,
and there is a number of initiatives that are coming up to leverage that and move that forward.
You know, I think that some of these are efforts that are very,
in some sense, complementary to what we're doing.
So, for example, there are portals in certain countries, like Nadees (check) portal for example,
that is one of our Chinese partners, that really point to great content from Coursera,
from Khan Academy, from other resources
and serve as a place where people in that country can find out about great educational content.
And there a few that are a little bit more similar to what we're doing, so you could view this,
they're trying to do the same thing, but perhaps focused on the needs of a particular country
and I think that's totally fine, because there is a limited capacity to what we can host on Coursera
in terms of number of university partners,
and so if you have a site that says "I'm going to allow the many universities within a given country
that can't be on Coursera to still offer content in language, in -- you know, that's really,
that's about local -- that really focus on aspects that are tied to the local culture,"
I think that's absolutely fine (check).
(E. Bildner) Thanks. We get a great question coming in from Akram Dahab,
I guess in Chad. Thank you, Akram.
"What would you do to help people from poor countries with limited connection speed,
like Chad where I live?"
(D. Koller) Well, first of all, thank you so much for joining us from Tchad.
That's very far away and it's wonderful that people from all over the world are part of this effort.
So thank you for participating.
We completely realize that there are serious infrastructure issues
in allowing people from parts of the world where broadband internet, for example,
is not readily available, to access our kind of content.
And so, there is a two-part answer to this.
The first is that the digital divide is a prevalent problem
that we at Coursera are not going to be the solution for,
because there are only so many problems that an organization can tackle.
But fortunately, there is a number of organizations, governments and NGOs,
that are working to try and overcome those infrastructure issues in a much broader basis
and we're delighted to see that happening.
There has been tremendous progress in India, for example, recently,
and I hope other countries will follow suit.
At the same time, we're doing what we can on our side, until that happens, to try and increase access.
And that includes programs like the Global Translation Community,
which hope (check) to overcome language barriers,
the significant effort that we've made on building mobile apps
that allow those people who access the internet primarily by their mobile device
to have a much better experience, and that's specifically, I think,
common in developing countries.
And then there is a number of efforts that we've made in the Learning Hub project,
which are these physical spaces that have high broadband internet connectivity
in places like US embassies, or the digital libraries of the Slim Foundation in Mexico and Latin America,
as well as a number of other partners that we have around the world
that provide local hubs where people who don't necessarily have access to the internet
can come and study quietly, often with the guidance of the (inaudible)
and we see amazing learning outcomes in those places,
with much higher completion rates than we see in just the general population,
and people having incredible experiences with that.
And so that's another thing that we've done.
(E. Bildner) Thanks, Daphne. A couple of other questions:
Interesting one here from Mrityunjay, if I'm mispronouncing your name, Yunjay in a --
I'm not sure where you come from, thanks for asking the question:
"Will Coursera be focusing on elistic education, as in knowledge for the sake of knowledge,
or will be filling the gaps in reward system"
so, I guess, more of a kind of vocational education.
How do you think about that (inaudible) about Coursera's place is?
(D. Koller) So, we're committed to education in multiple forms.
We believe that it's wonderful that, if someone wants to study poetry or philosophy,
we think that has an important place, even though that might not, for most people,
be along their career projectory (check).
At the same time, we also realize that, for many people, one of their goals in education
is to increase their ability to provide for themselves and their families,
and have access to a more, you know, stimulating job than they currently do.
And so we really try to do both things:
we have a very broad range of disciplines represented on our platform,
including music and the arts and philosophy, and archeology
a whole bunch of topics like that, but also we simply --
there's a whole lot of topics that are much more applied,
and if you call them "vocational" in the sense that they cater only to academic disciplines,
but there are things like Android development, (inaudible) science,
programming, finance, accounting,
things that are really very much in line with the possibility of getting a better job.
Our recently launched specializations also are very much in that vein,
because there's not only a curriculum that allows -- that spans multiple courses
and allows one to achieve mastery in a given discipline
that can really give much stronger chances of a better job,
but is also accompanied with a capstone project, like a final project
that allows learners to demonstrate their ability to apply their skills in the context of the real world.
Problem (check) in that gets -- that's something that can then
be used as a part of their portfolio when applying for a job.
And so, we believe that we'd like to give those learners who want this
the opportunity to use the educational platform in order to make a better life for themselves.
(E. Bildner) Thanks Daphne. Interesting question here from Andres.
Andres asks "Udacity recently decided to discontinue their free certification programs,
so they changed their model somewhat. What's Coursera's view on, I guess, that."
But I guess, more generally, how do we think about for the importance of free education
and I guess, incorporating that into our own business and long term strategy?"
(D. Koller) Right. So, we are very committed to the notion of free education,
and having the content remain free and available to everyone.
(18:22) We have two kinds of outcomes, if you will, that we offer learners currently on the platform
and we view them quite differently.
There is our verified certificate and our statement of accomplishment.
We view the statement of accomplishment not as a credential or a certificate.
We view that as more of a memento that the learner can say:
"OK, I feel good because I took something away with me from the course."
It's not a credential because it doesn't have any kind of validation associated with it.
It's not identity-verified, so Eli here can take the class in my place and get a certificate
that says "Daphne Koller" and it's not, you know,
there is no guarantee that I was the one who did the work, and in fact it's Eli who did the work.
So -- and furthermore, creating one of these statements of accomplishment is really easy,
you can take the PDF and you can (inaudible),
you know, I can put my name instead of Eli's name --
(E. Bildner 19:22) Don't try this at home. (D. Koller) OK, don't try this athome (laughter)
But the point is that there is no academic integrity associated with the statement of accomplishment:
it's a memento.
The verified certificate that we offer as part of our Signature Track is a credential.
It's identity-verified, it's unforgeable because it has a verification code.
It's true that that one does have a modest cost, you know, $40-50 is about typical,
but at the same time, we have from the very beginning, day 1,
have had a financial aid program, so that learners from backgrounds
that don't allow them to afford that $40 or $50, can still basically fill out a very simple 1-page application
and we waive that $40 or $50 fee for that credential.
And so, you can basically say: "Look, it's free to those learners who need it to be free"
and the other ones who can afford the $40 or $50, which for a large number of our learners,
is, you know, not a very signi-- not a very onerous burden,
they help pay for the free education that we are providing to everyone.
(E. Bildner) Thanks, Daphne. All right, let's see.
Interesting question here from Rishkash. Apoplogies again, if I'm mispronouncing it --
(D. Koller) Rishikesh (E. Bildner) Rishikesh.
"Do you think that translating courses will get people to learn the subject?
Because I think the course will probably require English somewhere down the line."
So I guess, the question, more broadly, is, you know, right now, translations are focused on subtitles,
I guess the user interface is translated too, but how are we thinking about
helping people experience a full course in either in translation,
or in a language that's more comp-- that's a little easier for them to get along?
(D. Koller) No, I think that's an excellent question, thank you, Rishikesh.
So, right now, as Eli said, the translations are solely for the subtitles to the course.
And we realize that there is many parts of the experience,
like the assessments, for example, where you still need English in order to do the course completely.
So, let's see: where do we sit on that?
Right now, we think that there is still -- in certain courses, you can use Google Translate,
for example for some of the assessments, because if the questions are short and mostly,
are just like writing, you know, answering the multiple choice questions or writing a program,
you don't really need that much English if accompanied by Google Translate,
really, to do that.
But that's only a sub-set of courses.
In order to provide a fully translated course experience,
we would need to do some really fairly heavy lifting on the product's side, on the platform.
It's definitely something that we plan to do.
We haven't had a chance to do that yet:
we're a small company, there's many things that we'd like to do,
and we just haven't got around to this one
but we hope to get around to it soon,
and so be able to provide people with a much more internationalized course experience,
where you will also potentially have, you know, forums that are in different languages and, you know,
hopefully we will be able to do peer-grading in different languages,
so that people who speak Chinese will grade people who wrote their essays in Chinese and --
versus other languages.
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.
(E. Bildner) Thank you. Interesting question here from David. David asks:
"Will we ever see language courses on Coursera?"
I mean, you know, I love learning languages, (inaudible) people out there,
whether it's perfecting their English or different languages.
Have you got something we'll see in the future?
(D. Koller) You know, I hope the answer to that is yes.
We are in some ways, you know, dependent on our university partners
in which courses they elect to put on the platform.
Right now, we've not yet had someone jump up and say:
"I'd like to teach a language course."
We do have one course which is an English as a Second Language course,
intended for teachers of English as a second language,
but we don't have any real language courses and you can give this as a call to all our university partners:
If you're interested in offering a language course, please let me know and we'd love to have one.
(E. Bildner) Great and I look forward to that. (D. Koller) Yes, and me too.
(E. Bildner) Let's see. Here is a question from Mahmoud (check). Mahmoud asks:
"Does Coursera plan to set up any infrastructure
a distant (check) infrastructure in different countries to (inaudible) in person testing?"
I guess, you know, the idea being that that would be, you know,
if that would improve the authentication experience towards earning a verified certificate.
How do you think about that?
(D. Koller) I think that this is a very interesting notion,
and right now, we haven't seen a huge demand for it yet,
partly because I think the incidences, at this point, of cheating on our platform,
they are definitely there, but they're not hugely common
and so, it's not something that people really clamored for.
But I think as the stakes grow, you know, for example,
as more and more employers start recognizing these credentials,
or as universities start accepting them for credit and in some cases, perhaps,
we'll need to have a higher level of academic integrity,
at which point we might explore this possibility.
(E. Bildner) Great, thank you. Let's see here. So Christian (check) asks:
"How do we plan to give, can foster the strength of credentials."
So you own a verified certificate, you want to use it to improve your job--
to improve your carreer prospects, for getting any jobs, how are we working to improve that?
(D. Koller) Yeah. So we actually have an effort here at Coursera on what we call "credential value,"
which is really intended to address exactly that question, Christian, so thank you for that,
of demonstrating more broadly the value of our credentials to a number of constituencies:
to our learners, to employers, to educational institutions.
So we've done a number of things:
First is, for example, we've had a partnership with LinkedIn
that allows us -- that allows our learners via the click of a button
to post their credential on LinkedIn, so that employers can see that
and know that this person has achieved a lot of mastery in a very rigorous academic topic.
We're working with employers to recognize the value of our courses
and somehow, many employers have expressed their interest in using this for internal training
as well as have told us that they are excited about employee --
perspective of employees who come in with that type of credential.
One of our university partners, Duke University, recently did a survey among employers
in their geographical basin in North Carolina and discovered that, I think,
over 50% of employers are -- would be -- would consider the completion of one of the MOOCs
as a strong factor in hiring decision.
And so we're trying to encourage that as well.
And then, really, just making sure that our courses are strong and rigorous
and of high academic quality is, I think, eventually -- and it's already starting to happen --
the value of those will become clear just because of market forces.
The project-based courses, which allow students, for example in those specializations,
to create an artifact, to demonstrate mastery in terms of applying skills to a real world problem,
I think, will really help reinforce the fact that our learners emerge from a really valuable use of skills.
(E. Bildner) Thanks, Daphne. I see a couple of questions or comments on the (inaudible) tool, about --
specifically about, very specific GTC-related stuff.
So just remind once again, we'll take a couple more questions for Daphne
and then Sébastien and I will field the bunch of questions
that are specifically about the Translator Community and we'll let Daphne get on her day,
to try improve Coursera and do other things that all you folks are asking about.
So I guess, a couple more questions for Daphne. Interesting question here from Catalin,
who asks, you know, if there are any plans to allow
non universities and non institutions to create courses on Coursera, I guess, more broadly,
how are we thinking about building up a diversity of courses on the platform?
(D. Koller) So, right now, we're focused on working with our university partners
and some non-university partners that are offering mostly contents
in teacher professional development (check).
That is not because we believe that there is no good education to be had elsewhere.
So we know that there is great teachers to be had at institutions that are not among our partners as well,
it's just, you know, people out there in the world will not affiliate with any educational institution. (check)
So, we think -- I think it's great, Catalin, that you're producing your own course
and making it available to people.
We are -- we came into this with a model of having a very highly curated platform
rather than a more YouTube-like model that has anyone being able to upload content.
So, in order for us to maintain that level of curation, we would have to go and, you know,
examine the courses of people like you and evaluate them for quality and academic rigor,
and so on and so forth, and I'm sure we'd find some really amazing gems if we did that,
but we just don't have the capacity to do that level of screening,
nor do we have the ability to train a much larger number of instructors in the use of our platform
and in what we consider to be the best practices for high-quality content, and so on,
and so, I'm sure we're missing some really amazing things right now,
but as we're trying to, you know, build thing out,
it's better for us to maintain this somewhat narrow level of focus and hopefully in the future,
be able to broaden out to a larger number of providers.
(E. Bildner) Great, thanks. Maybe we can take one more question for Daphne.
It seems like a lot of people are interested in knowing
whether Coursera's certified courses are recognized by companies.
I know you talked about that a little already, but, you know,
have we seen any examples of companies saying, you know:
"If you take this course, you'll have an advantage in some way, either internally or --
what have we seen there with companies and Coursera?
(D. Koller) So, you know, the company is only 2-years old,
which is kind of hard to believe, given the amount of interest that we've seen and the --
and the amazing community that we've been able to build up, including yourselves,
but it's a relatively young company, with maybe only about a year's worth of actual "graduates,"
if you will, from courses, a year and half at the most,
and so, it takes a while for the market to catch up with the value of a particular form of education,
to recognize that yes, this is like -- this education provides real value
and the learners who emerge from this are, you know, really qualified to do what they claim they can do.
Nevertheless, even with that short time frame,
we've already seen significant recognition of these credentials by employers.
I've mentioned the Duke University study a moment ago,
that had surveyed several hundred employers in North Carolina,
and importantly, this was not surveyed on, for example,
here in the San Francisco Bay area of, you know, tech-savvy employers,
all of whom are sort of familiar with internet technologies and so on,
this was in a different part of the country, with a very diverse range of employers,
from very different sectors, and nevertheless, we see a very large fraction of them
-- I don't remember the exact number, I think 50 to 60% who said that
they will recognize the validity of these credentials in terms of preferring to --
treating these candidates in some preferen --
in some way preferentially recognizing they're bringing something that you need to the table.
And so, people are starting to see a very significant uptake on the value of these credentials,
and I think, in a year, this question probably would be asked (inaudible).
(E. Bildner) OK. Well, Daphne, I just want to thank you again,
I don't know if you have any heartening words for the GTC friends we have with us today.
( D. Koller) Sure, so, you know, I've already said this at the very beginning,
but I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you all again.
You have already 9 courses that have been translate
as well as the many others that I'm sure you'll contribute
towards making a hugely important dent in the issues of accessibility
to the vast majority of this world population that -- for whom English is not their native language.
So we're very, very grateful for your efforts, and also grateful for the efforts of Eli and Sébastien
and our translation partners for helping you make that possible.
So thank you very much.
(Eli Bildner) Great, thanks so much, Daphne, and then again, just to remind everyone here,
so now I will spend some time talking more specifically about the GTC and we'll let you get on with your day
But thanks again for having been with us. (Koller) Thank you. - Thank you
(Bildner) Just a reminder: if you see questions that are being asked on the ...... (check 33:50)
and that you're really in ........ (check) boost them up so they come to our attention.
And - let's take a quick look at kind of questions have been asked already.
So, I see that there is a great question here about translation quality.
Sébastien, do you want to talk a little about what we're thinking about ensuring translation quality in the GTC
and what kind of procedure ...... (check) on place?
(Kuo) Sure. So, the way we tried to continually up quality of the translations from GTC
is to have sort of a tutoring system for, you know, as individual like volunteers (check)
we rely on you just sort of submit the translations and let us know what you think would be the best translation
but obviously, there is a lot of range of opinions and a lot of different ways you can translate something.
And so, I think it's always important to have at least one person per language
to sort of be that voice and have the final say in deciding,
this is how we want to present translations of our content in this language.
And so, in this capacity, we have a specific role, known as the language coordinator.
Not all languages have this at the moment.
As we scale up the program and learn from the particular needs of each community,
we intend to fill those spots where we can, strategically
and give that person the responsibility of deciding the directions of translation for the language
but also having the daily task of reviewing translations on Transifex,
to make sure that everything is always correct,
but also in line with what they sort of are wanting to project,
like when we have that translated content shown to our international users. (35:56)
(Bildner) Thanks, Sébastien.
I wanted to talk a little bit
-- there's a question here from .... (check) about when language coordinators will be chosen.
So, as Sébastien mentioned, ....... (check) is being totally thrilled and overwhelmed, frankly, with response to the GTC
and are really grateful to everyone.
Part of the challenge for us, now, is that we're a tiny team here ...... (check 36:23)
and we're trying to help kind of enable this program and channel the great work that everyone here is doing.
So, as part of that, we're working a little bit more slowly than I think we would have liked.
But as a first step, we really wanted to bring everyone onto this internal translation portal, these GTC Headquarters,
and also give everyone the ability to just kind of jump into things.
And as Sébastien mentioned, we sort of have this tutorate system
where we work with partners in certain languages
and then, for other languages where we don't have partners yet,
although youknow, we very well might in the future, it's a little bit more unstructured now.
But part of the structure that we will be building into these currently unpartnered languages
is by bringing in language partners
So we've been thrilled to see a lot of interest from people all around in serving as language coordinators.
And over the next week or two, we'll be looking through those applications
and working out procedures to add more language coordinators.
An idea is that right now, things are very unstructured.
If you -- you know, you just have a list of courses, you can jump in and translate,
there's no one for unpartnered languages to really review
but the idea is that we'll be building out a lot more structure around that
and we think that structure is really effective,
- we've seen it be really effective in our Portuguese and Chinese language communities
that work on this team model, where there are team leaders and they help recruit a team
and then at the end, when the course is finished, the team leaders help review the content
and then you can ensure really high-quality translation,
while also creating a really good experience for everyone participating.
So, that's one model that's worked really well
and we hope to bring some of that into our currently unpartnered languages too.
So again, thank you for your patience in these initital days and couple of weeks
and over the next week (check) we'll be digging much more into the currently unpartnered languages
to help create a more structured and smoother experience around those.
Amazingly -- this is a final note and sorry to talk so much --
you know, we've been totally overwhelmed by how
-- even for these languages where there hasn't been a lot of structure --
how busy ....... (check) and how a lot of you are creating structure in the absence of structure.
So, really, really impressed and grateful for that,
and we're hoping to help a little bit more on our end over the next .... weeks (38:50)
(Kuo) Yes, and I also want to mention that, you know, as we sort of are getting over this, sic, initial
-- I guess I'll catch up in trying to get everyone into the community and get started --
we're freeing up more time to sort of engage with you directly.
I think it's, you know, I think the beauty of -- ....... (check) like you said, Eli -- of crowdsourcing
is the fact that, like, we all have different skills and different interests
and, you know, different amounts of time that we're able to contribute.
And, you know, [to match check], I look at it as our job to figure out
how to best enable everyone to work the way that they want to work together,
and complement those skills.
So, that's sort of the philosophy behind the way that we are approaching
building up this structure of the translations programs.
The other aspect, though, is community,
which I feel like is the primary focus.
And, you know, as we have more bandwidth (check) to sort of personally engage with you,
either through forums or emails, you know, I can see this consistently like
this is a learning experience for a lot of us, you know,
and you know, I -- as the people on the ground, like I want to hear, you know,
your feedback and your ideas, you know,
like Eli mentioned that some people are creating structures on their own
and that is stuff that should be shared with us, you know, so that we can, you know, learn from
how you guys best work and what we can promote to other people
and evolve, so that we take the best of what's happening within the community
and make the entire community better.
(Bildner) Thanks, Sébastien. There's a question here, asked from Luis (check) - thank you Luis.
"Are you going to offer some capacitation for translators?"
I'm not -- I hope I'm answering this as you intended but I think the question is,
"What kind of recognition does Coursera provide for people that are participating in this program?"
And as we tried to mention in different areas in the forums and emails,
we really want to recognize the amazing work that's going on in the community
and so we're doing a number of things for that.
So one is, once you translate, once a member of the GTC translates a certain threshold,
a certain amount of content, they will be recognized on our public site
and we think that this is hopefully a nice way to recognize people putting in time and energy
by recognizing them on our public site on coursera.org/about/meetourtranslators
-- I think that's the URL but we'll make sure that it's clear in our GTC headquarters --
and that's one way.
Another way is by offering certificates.
I know there is another question about, will Coursera have some formal recognition for translators,
and so, for translators who have participated at a certain level,
you'll receive a statement of accomplishment, just like one from a course,
and that's something that we're also open to ............ (check) including,
but as a start, that's just one form of recognition that we want to give, for
-- you know, we -- once we have a little bit more structure,
particularly for languages that are currently unpartnered,
it'll be easier for us to introduce some of these reward systems.
So one thing that we're doing both in the Chinese and Portuguese communities now,
where we do have a little bit more structure, is that we are offering team leaders,
so, people who are ...... (check) effort and pouring a lot of energy into translation,
get a free signature track, and that's something that will continue
and then we want to do all sorts of small things too.
I'm sure I'm missing things, l -- let's have a peak on our Global Translator Community Headquarters
and go through this stuff in detail, so I recommend .... (check) check that out
But we want to do lots of small things too, for instance this sort of hangout,
which is only open to you GTC members, other special events, you know,
one thing -- things we've done in the past, are bringing in professors of courses
to do hangouts on air like this,
facilitating regional meetups of translators, maybe providing some, you know, financial support
to make those kinds of regional meetups possible.
And I think there are tons of ways that we can help recognize the work that is going on in the community.
And I think at the end of the day, Sébastien
-- ............ (check) community supportive of the people who are involved in it --
so, this is really important to us and we really, we welcome your feedback and any ideas that you have.
So hopefully, that answers your question, Luis,
and I know that lots of other people are interested in that as well.
Let's take a look at some of these other questions here.
So, there's a good question about choosing courses.
Sébastien, do you want to talk a little bit about how, you know,
how we might allow volunteers to help choose the courses that we're working on?
(Sébastien) Errh, totally. So just some background about
-- some insight into how we choose the courses that we currently translate,
because I realize that's, like, a little bit "black box" at the moment.
We work with either partners in different countries, like you already mentioned,
or using analytics data to just sort of understand the needs of various populations
and determine the appropriateness of courses
and that's sort of like the primary driver of how we decide that we want to translate a course.
And then, even before that happens, a lot of --
course instructors, you know, they are ultimately the ones that can --
we work with course instructors to enable courses for tranlation, right?
And so, in order to make sure that translation work is not,
I don't (check) want to say, like, wasted,
but we work with course instructors to make sure that their course content is stable,
as in, like, it will be reused in the future and won't change significantly,
so that, like, the translation work that you guys will put in
won't be just eliminated if they just decide to change individual modules.
And so, there's sort of a discussion process here about, like,
selecting the courses and making sure that they are appropriate for translation.
And then, to get to your specific question, I think that having a feedback module
for community members to tell us what they want to see translated is really important
and something that is on our, like, near-future road map.
I don't know if it will be like a Google form, or something in the forums,
but I think it's really important to collect that kind of -- those requests from people
who actually are the people who would be most interested in taking those courses.
And so, good idea, something we've already thought about and hope to implement soon.
(Bildner) Thanks, Sébastien. A really fundamental and important question from Tasia.
Tasia asks: "I'm not sure how to get started. Do we get assigned to a project or do we choose one?
What should we do. Thanks."
Thank you, Tasia. So, right -- so, basically, this is how it works:
so, you're part of the GTC community, you're part --
you've access to this internal private translators' portal, the Global Translator Community Headquarters.
And once you come on the Headquarters, there are different features for each language community.
And the pages explain how to get started within that language community
and each language community will be a little bit different.
That's part of, you know, in designing the program we wanted maintain flexibility.
So, for instance, if you want to join the Chinese language community
if you're a Chinese speaker,
we work with a partner, a wonderful partner, Guokr, in China
and so, you go to the page and Guokr explains how to join the Guokr program.
Our Portuguese community, which is managed by Tatiana,
I don't know if Tatiana is here today, but thank you for all the amazing work you're doing,
our friends of the Lemann Foundation in Brazil.
This is a Brazilian Portuguese community.
There is a page for that, you go to that page, and then you can apply to work on a particular program.
So they work on a team-based model.
Right now, as I mentioned before, besides Portuguese and Chinese and Russian
-- I'm sorry, so Russian ..... our friends at ABBYY --
have a system where you go to a different platform outside Coursera
and it's a kind of crowdsourcing model, so you can add a sentence,
or upload or download existent translations, it's a really really wonderful platform
and their page on the Coursera Translator Headquarters explains
how to get started on that.
So, if you're not from one of those communities right now, we have other pages,
our page for Other Languages and Spanish, which is also currently still a little bit more "free for all" (check)
and again, we'll be building in structure to that by this language coordinators mechanism.
So once language coordinators come onboard, there'll be more structure in these communities as well.
But for now, you should feel free to jump in to Transifex,
which is our main translation platform, and just start working on translations.
And we realize that there are going to be inconsistencies in the courses,
that these courses need to be reviewed,
but very quickly, we will get a language coordinator system moving,
and a reviewer system in place and so, things will be better on that part.
That's a summary of how you should get started translating.
(Sébastien) And it's also worth mentioning that we've listed a few projects
that represent some of those most popular courses on Coursera
under that Other Languages tab, and so, even if you want, like, more --
if you just want to dive in and like, choose a course out of the vast number of courses
that we are offering for translation, then that's also a good starting point.
(Bildner) Thanks. There is a good question here about native language course transcripts.
By the way, another housekeeping note: I see it's already 8:50 a.m. PST,
so, Sébastien and I will chat for another 10 minutes.
There are definitely questions we are not going to get to, but we'll go through the questions
and we'll make sure that any questions that are, you know, that need to be answered,
are answered in the discussion forums of the GTC portal.
We'll do this again, I think it is a great mechanism for sharing information with our community
Thanks again to everyone for being here.
That said, let's take a couple more questions.
So about the English language transcripts.
So how it works right now is when a -- so Coursera is a platform.
Our university partners use the platform and when they create content on the platform,
when they add videos to the platform, they can request captioning, native-language captioning for those videos,
When they request captioning, that goes to a company that we work with,
that does human language-captioning of videos.
So then people listen to the videos and actually,
humans write out the words that are being spoken on the screens.
Now, the people who are doing these captions, they are not subject-matter experts,
so, for instance in the course on Machine Learning, you know,
they're probably going to get some words wrong, there are going to be grammatical mistakes
and, you know, one of the challenges that I realize, that we certainly realize is a challenge,
is that English transcripts are not perfect.
We think that they've improved a lot, we've worked with this provider that we use to improve that.
I don't know if any, if actually some of you had been on the platform for a couple of years
and saw the transcripts back in 2012,
and maybe you can tell that they have gone better -- I hope so.
But one thing that we'd really love to do in the future
is that native English speakers participate in this translation program as well
and work on correcting the English language transcription,
verifying that as corrected (check).
This is somewhat difficult technically and we don't really have an infrastructure for it
-- infrastructure or a program for it right now,
but I think it's a great idea, it's something that we'd love to do,
because we realize that as Aurelia (check) says, it does make translation harder,
because you have to consult the videos as you're going through the transcripts.
So, thanks for the question. Definitely agreeing and would love to --
and we're planning on working on it in the future.
Alright. Other questions.
Sorry, looking through the great questions here.
Sébastien, one for you: "Is there any Coursera-approved information
on tech details of translating subtitles, such as, what is the longest line that would fit into a screen?
Other kinds of technical details about using the platform, or maybe kind of translation best practices?
(Kuo) Ehm, yeah, I mean, as like, I think I can, like, if you just follow sort of the --
like general translation best practices, they should cover almost any issues that you'll face.
I think one will be working with something as, I want to say like a rigid format like subtitles,
you know, there's not a whole lot of margin for errors.
So the advice that I would give for translating is that, you know,
first and foremost, like, you know, consider the semantic meaning of the text that you're translating.
So, if you are in Transifex and you see the subtitles, you'll see that they're grouped by sort of lines,
where it, like, the screen, the individual sentences that will come up at a time,
and a lot of people sort of, like, fall into this trap of like,
"Oh I need to, like, format my translations in, like, exact same line breaks"
or like, where, like, the English sentence, like, starts on a new line
and I would say, don't give yourself a headache like doing that, you know,
I've seen like a lot of trans-- innovative (check) translators, like,
take source text and translate it into for example Russian,
and they will rearrange the sentences so it makes more sense in Russian.
And so, feel free to do that if you feel, like, that is what is valuable for you as a native speaker.
In terms of length, I would also try -- that's kind of the one concern I would advise for,
like try to stick within, or under the length of the subtitles,
because subtitles, if you go on too long, it can impact the readability
and so, always err on sort of shorter translations
and use the source text as your bar to measure against.
And then, you know, as I've been sort of explaining through Transifex
when people submit a translation, I try to keep a list of sort of these, like, issues where that came from,
I haven't noticed very many so far, but if you do have questions,
feel free to sort of write.
I can even actually start a sort of, like a Translation Best Practices forum within our GTC,
just keep that discussion going and collect your feedback and, you know,
help you guys with sort of the daily questions you might have about the work that you do.
(Bildner) Thanks, Sébastien. Another question here from Hunadahs
about promoting courses.
So, you know, the Translation Community translates a course,
the course is now available in another language.
a) how does this work?
And b) how do you students on Coursera know that that course is now available in this other language?
So, Sébastien, do you want to field that one, so how does,
how do courses get from the translation platform to the Coursera class site?
And then, how do students on the class site know that these courses are now available in a new language?
(Kuo) Sure. So, once a course's content is both complete and reviewed,
which are two separate sets on Transifex, we actually have an automated script
that sort of checks for these two things to be true, and then we'll, you know,
import the translated subtitles to that course's class site on Coursera.
And so, first and foremost, as, when you visit like the class page
that kind of introduces the course information,
there'll be a little, like, a module on the right that displays information about the course.
And one of those facets is available subtitles.
And so you'll see, if there's available subtitles for Chinese and Spanish,
then it'll say "English, Chinese and Spanish subtitles."
And so, that's kind of the first point where somebody would notice something about that (check)
And then also, as it works on YouTube, like while you're watching a video,
there'll be a sort of a closed caption / subtitle button
and hopefully, you know, people will see that and click it
and see that there's the list of, like, available subtitles,
and one that may match, like the one that they're trying to look for.
We also work with course instructors to sort of have them,
like a lot of course instructors, you know, market and promote their own courses themselves
and so, you know, through our partnership managers and also us,
like, we work very closely with them to sort of keep them abreast about translation progress
and you know, let them know, like oh, like these language subtitles (check) are available
and so that they can also promote that to their students outside of Coursera
or on Coursera itself through an e-mail or their forums.
(Eli Bildner) Thanks, Sébastien. So let me just answer a couple more questions very quickly
and then wrap things up.
So there is a great question about translating the user interface,
" Is it possible to translate that with Transifex?"
So right now, we work with professional translators to translate our user interface
and in the future it's something we'd love to consider opening up to the community as well.
You know, part of, I guess -- what we're thinking is that once the community develops and grows, that
-- and matures and there is more structure in it -- and that will be the appropriate time
to open up the interface.
Because obviously, the interface is something that's very visible
and, you know, it's really important that the quality is super-high.
Right now, we're still working on improving the technical aspects of translating the user interface.
It's actually somewhat tricky, when you pull down the text from the interface to a translation form,
making sure that there is enough context there to translate it.
So, you know, for instance, sole example:
you know, someone reported a translation error the other day
where it said "There are three days left to register for signature track."
And "left" was translated as, in French, as the word meaning, physically left.
And, you know, clearly, this is a big problem but on our translations platform,
that string "left" was in isolation and was used in two separate locations,
so it actually takes a lot of work, technically and programatically
to make sure that the interface translations work well and you don't have silly errors like that.
So, it's something we'd love to do in future. Thanks for the great question, Leonardo.
Another question about: "Currently, most of the translations are English course to other languages,"
you know, would we consider going the other way around?
Great question: the answer is definitely yes.
Already, you know, I've seen some amazing things.
Our Chinese community has translated Russian and is now working on Russian and French courses,
translating them into Chinese or adding Chinese subtitles: totally amazing
and we'd love to introduce other language pairs in the near future.
Again: on the road map and and once the community matures a little bit,
it's something that we definitely want to do.
I would love to work on translating Chinese courses: I speak Chinese
[blurred] some amazing Chinese courses on our platform
and I'd love to see those available.
So, thanks for the great question, Yufan. And--
(Kuo) You know, Eli, it'd be pretty cool one day for you to lead a Chinese community
-- GTC Community --- Google Hangout On Air, your Chinese is really impressive.
As a native speaker I can say that. (EB overlaps - incomprehensible)
(Bildner) Yes, that would be fun with me and Kuo co-partners.
There's another question about Chinese, I think this is a broader question about --
the question is, you know, obviously there are different dialects of Chinese,
there's Cantonese, there is, you know, traditional characters and simplified characters,
slightly different usages in, say, Taiwan and Mainland: how do we deal with that?
I think there's a broader question of, you know,
there is Brazilian Portuguese and there is European Portuguese, you know,
what kind of Spanish are we accepting on the platform?
These are all great questions and these are things that we'll kind of need to work out on a case-by-case basis.
You know, we'll talk about this more in our forums but, you know,
we think that it makes sense
to have separate languages for European Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese, for instance,
that it'll just be a clearer and cleaner experience for both students and translators
and certainly, there are things that can be done
in converting from Simplified Chinese to Traditional Chinese, programmatically,
but, you know, that's something that we'll need to consider as well.
So, great question from Wah, thank you for asking it, and the answer is that
we'll need to work this out on a case-by-case basis.
Let's see if there's any really quick questions that we can answer.
I think, because we're at 9 o'clock and I want to be respectful of everyone's time,
and so I think we should probably wrap this up and again,
we'll look through the questions that are outstanding and I'll make sure that any, kind of fine ones (check)
are answered in the forums or in other channels.
For my part, I just want to thank everyone for being here today.
I know it's probably crazy time zones, some of you are turning in at, you know, 11 p.m.,
and others at 3 a.m., and ......................... (check) sometimes.
But we're really, really grateful for everyone being here and spending the time with us,
asking great questions, and for all your work.
Thanks for inviting Daphne and for the rest of the time i'll share with you, Sébastien,
are there any final words you wanted to add as well.
(Kuo) Yeah, I mean, you know, everyday I am super-impressed with the dedication
from both Coursera learners and our GTC members.
You know, as a person who works in localization, languages has always been my passion, like,
since I was a little kid.
I would go to public libraries and take out, like phrasebooks,
just to sort of, like, look at these weird words and try to understand what they mean.
And I think one of the most gratifying things about building out a community like this
is that, you know, reading through all your responses, especially to that question on the application
that's like (check): "Why do I want to translate?"
you know, I see that there are so many people like me, like you, that are really --
that not only believe in Coursera's mission of increasing the accessibility of education
but also, really believe in the value of translation and community building.
And so, I just want to let you guys know that Eli and I are committed
to sort of -- to build out a program that not only lets you shine and lets you contribute back to Coursera,
but also, you know, take that work and, you know, use it to make other Coursera learners
more enabled to access our really great content. So, thank you.
(Eli Bildner) Okay, well, as we say, thank you, gracias, спасибо, actually we could go on,
but we really appreciate everyone being here, and we'll see you, see you out.
(Kuo) Definitely. Thanks.