WEBVTT

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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.

00:18:37.706 --> 00:18:42.346
We view the statement of accomplishment not as a credential or a certificate.

00:18:42.346 --> 00:18:45.692
We view that as more of a memento that the learner can say:

00:18:45.692 --> 00:18:51.021
"OK, I feel good because I took something away with me from the course."

00:18:51.021 --> 00:18:56.984
It's not a credential because it doesn't have any kind of validation associated with it.

00:18:57.937 --> 00:19:04.340
It's not identity-verified, so Eli here can take the class in my place and get a certificate

00:19:04.340 --> 00:19:06.369
that says "Daphne Koller" and it's not, you know,

00:19:06.369 --> 00:19:11.719
there is no guarantee that I was the one who did the work, and in fact it's Eli who did the work.

00:19:11.726 --> 00:19:17.583
So -- and furthermore, creating one of these statements of accomplishment is really easy,

00:19:17.583 --> 00:19:20.286
you can take the PDF and you can (inaudible),

00:19:20.286 --> 00:19:22.606
you know, I can put my name instead of Eli's name --

00:19:22.606 --> 00:19:24.257
(E. Bildner 19:22) Don't try this at home.
(D. Koller) OK, don't try this athome (laughter)

00:19:24.257 --> 00:19:28.717
But the point is that there is no academic integrity associated with the statement of accomplishment:

00:19:28.717 --> 00:19:29.660
it's a memento.

00:19:30.303 --> 00:19:35.256
The verified certificate that we offer as part of our Signature Track is a credential.

00:19:35.585 --> 00:19:39.398
It's identity-verified, it's unforgeable because it has a verification code.

00:19:40.218 --> 00:19:45.930
It's true that that one does have a modest cost, you know, $40-50 is about typical,

00:19:45.930 --> 00:19:49.803
but at the same time, we have from the very beginning, day 1,

00:19:49.803 --> 00:19:55.144
have had a financial aid program, so that learners from backgrounds

00:19:55.144 --> 00:20:03.587
that don't allow them to afford that $40 or $50, can still basically fill out a very simple 1-page application

00:20:03.587 --> 00:20:07.565
and we waive that $40 or $50 fee for that credential.

00:20:07.859 --> 00:20:14.371
And so, you can basically say: "Look, it's free to those learners who need it to be free"

00:20:14.371 --> 00:20:19.906
and the other ones who can afford the $40 or $50, which for a large number of our learners,

00:20:19.906 --> 00:20:23.776
is, you know, not a very signi-- not a very onerous burden,

00:20:24.102 --> 00:20:28.765
they help pay for the free education that we are providing to everyone.

00:20:30.195 --> 00:20:33.268
(E. Bildner) Thanks, Daphne. All right, let's see.

00:20:35.198 --> 00:20:40.168
Interesting question here from Rishkash. Apoplogies again, if I'm mispronouncing it --

00:20:40.168 --> 00:20:41.611
(D. Koller) Rishikesh
(E. Bildner) Rishikesh.

00:20:41.611 --> 00:20:45.046
"Do you think that translating courses will get people to learn the subject?

00:20:45.046 --> 00:20:47.900
Because I think the course will probably require English somewhere down the line."

00:20:47.900 --> 00:20:52.942
So I guess, the question, more broadly, is, you know, right now, translations are focused on subtitles,

00:20:52.951 --> 00:20:57.175
I guess the user interface is translated too, but how are we thinking about

00:20:57.175 --> 00:21:01.515
helping people experience a full course in either in translation,

00:21:01.515 --> 00:21:05.217
or in a language that's more comp-- that's a little easier for them to get along?

00:21:05.217 --> 00:21:08.066
(D. Koller) No, I think that's an excellent question, thank you, Rishikesh.

00:21:09.401 --> 00:21:18.288
So, right now, as Eli said, the translations are solely for the subtitles to the course.

00:21:18.472 --> 00:21:22.728
And we realize that there is many parts of the experience,

00:21:22.728 --> 00:21:32.002
like the assessments, for example, where you still need English in order to do the course completely.

00:21:33.540 --> 00:21:35.906
So, let's see: where do we sit on that?

00:21:35.906 --> 00:21:41.726
Right now, we think that there is still -- in certain courses, you can use Google Translate,

00:21:41.726 --> 00:21:46.577
for example for some of the assessments, because if the questions are short and mostly,

00:21:46.577 --> 00:21:52.757
are just like writing, you know, answering the multiple choice questions or writing a program,

00:21:53.082 --> 00:21:57.433
you don't really need that much English if accompanied by Google Translate,

00:21:57.433 --> 00:21:59.759
really, to do that.

00:21:59.759 --> 00:22:01.729
But that's only a sub-set of courses.

00:22:02.852 --> 00:22:07.079
In order to provide a fully translated course experience,

00:22:07.461 --> 00:22:13.633
we would need to do some really fairly heavy lifting on the product's side, on the platform.

00:22:13.633 --> 00:22:15.562
It's definitely something that we plan to do.

00:22:15.562 --> 00:22:17.048
We haven't had a chance to do that yet:

00:22:17.048 --> 00:22:19.756
we're a small company, there's many things that we'd like to do,

00:22:19.756 --> 00:22:22.014
and we just haven't got around to this one

00:22:22.734 --> 00:22:25.554
but we hope to get around to it soon,

00:22:25.842 --> 00:22:31.422
and so be able to provide people with a much more internationalized course experience,

00:22:31.422 --> 00:22:38.013
where you will also potentially have, you know, forums that are in different languages and, you know,

00:22:38.013 --> 00:22:41.273
hopefully we will be able to do peer-grading in different languages,

00:22:41.273 --> 00:22:46.101
so that people who speak Chinese will grade people who wrote their essays in Chinese and --

00:22:47.262 --> 00:22:48.663
versus other languages.

00:22:48.663 --> 00:22:54.012
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.

00:22:55.216 --> 00:22:59.385
(E. Bildner) Thank you. Interesting question here from David. David asks:

00:22:59.385 --> 00:23:01.069
"Will we ever see language courses on Coursera?"

00:23:01.069 --> 00:23:04.606
I mean, you know, I love learning languages, (inaudible) people out there,

00:23:04.606 --> 00:23:07.111
whether it's perfecting their English or different languages.

00:23:07.445 --> 00:23:09.001
Have you got something we'll see in the future?

00:23:09.001 --> 00:23:13.064
(D. Koller) You know, I hope the answer to that is yes.

00:23:13.067 --> 00:23:17.713
We are in some ways, you know, dependent on our university partners

00:23:17.713 --> 00:23:20.898
in which courses they elect to put on the platform.

00:23:20.898 --> 00:23:24.768
Right now, we've not yet had someone jump up and say:

00:23:24.768 --> 00:23:26.655
"I'd like to teach a language course."

00:23:26.655 --> 00:23:30.327
We do have one course which is an English as a Second Language course,

00:23:30.327 --> 00:23:33.759
intended for teachers of English as a second language,

00:23:34.776 --> 00:23:43.137
but we don't have any real language courses and you can give this as a call to all our university partners:

00:23:43.137 --> 00:23:48.347
If you're interested in offering a language course, please let me know and we'd love to have one.

00:23:48.971 --> 00:23:51.619
(E. Bildner) Great and I look forward to that.
(D. Koller) Yes, and me too.

00:23:52.378 --> 00:23:59.331
(E. Bildner) Let's see. Here is a question from Mahmoud (check). Mahmoud asks:

00:23:59.331 --> 00:24:02.050
"Does Coursera plan to set up any infrastructure

00:24:02.490 --> 00:24:06.459
a distant (check) infrastructure in different countries to (inaudible) in person testing?"

00:24:06.715 --> 00:24:10.907
I guess, you know, the idea being that that would be, you know,

00:24:10.907 --> 00:24:16.912
if that would improve the authentication experience towards earning a verified certificate.

00:24:16.912 --> 00:24:17.991
How do you think about that?

00:24:18.444 --> 00:24:23.130
(D. Koller) I think that this is a very interesting notion,

00:24:23.130 --> 00:24:26.871
and right now, we haven't seen a huge demand for it yet,

00:24:26.871 --> 00:24:33.024
partly because I think the incidences, at this point, of cheating on our platform,

00:24:33.024 --> 00:24:36.498
they are definitely there, but they're not hugely common

00:24:36.498 --> 00:24:43.118
and so, it's not something that people really clamored for.

00:24:43.118 --> 00:24:49.069
But I think as the stakes grow, you know, for example,

00:24:49.069 --> 00:24:52.380
as more and more employers start recognizing these credentials,

00:24:52.380 --> 00:24:57.075
or as universities start accepting them for credit and in some cases, perhaps,

00:24:57.513 --> 00:25:00.614
we'll need to have a higher level of academic integrity,

00:25:00.614 --> 00:25:03.219
at which point we might explore this possibility.

00:25:04.315 --> 00:25:13.660
(E. Bildner) Great, thank you. Let's see here. So Christian (check) asks:

00:25:14.049 --> 00:25:18.579
"How do we plan to give, can foster the strength of credentials."

00:25:18.601 --> 00:25:23.166
So you own a verified certificate, you want to use it to improve your job--

00:25:23.166 --> 00:25:28.275
to improve your carreer prospects, for getting any jobs, how are we working to improve that?

00:25:28.275 --> 00:25:34.587
(D. Koller) Yeah. So we actually have an effort here at Coursera on what we call "credential value,"

00:25:34.587 --> 00:25:39.388
which is really intended to address exactly that question, Christian, so thank you for that,

00:25:39.845 --> 00:25:46.101
of demonstrating more broadly the value of our credentials to a number of constituencies:

00:25:46.101 --> 00:25:50.879
to our learners, to employers, to educational institutions.

00:25:51.970 --> 00:25:53.778
So we've done a number of things:

00:25:54.261 --> 00:25:58.583
First is, for example, we've had a partnership with LinkedIn

00:25:58.583 --> 00:26:02.473
that allows us -- that allows our learners via the click of a button

00:26:02.473 --> 00:26:08.977
to post their credential on LinkedIn, so that employers can see that

00:26:08.977 --> 00:26:14.316
and know that this person has achieved a lot of mastery in a very rigorous academic topic.

00:26:14.808 --> 00:26:21.903
We're working with employers to recognize the value of our courses

00:26:21.903 --> 00:26:26.887
and somehow, many employers have expressed their interest in using this for internal training

00:26:26.887 --> 00:26:34.216
as well as have told us that they are excited about employee --

00:26:34.216 --> 00:26:37.076
perspective of employees who come in with that type of credential.

00:26:37.432 --> 00:26:42.377
One of our university partners, Duke University, recently did a survey among employers

00:26:42.377 --> 00:26:47.996
in their geographical basin in North Carolina and discovered that, I think,

00:26:47.996 --> 00:26:55.589
over 50% of employers are -- would be -- would consider the completion of one of the MOOCs

00:26:55.589 --> 00:26:58.688
as a strong factor in hiring decision.

00:26:58.688 --> 00:27:01.696
And so we're trying to encourage that as well.

00:27:02.423 --> 00:27:08.716
And then, really, just making sure that our courses are strong and rigorous

00:27:08.716 --> 00:27:13.677
and of high academic quality is, I think, eventually -- and it's already starting to happen --

00:27:15.227 --> 00:27:22.215
the value of those will become clear just because of market forces.

00:27:22.561 --> 00:27:28.829
The project-based courses, which allow students, for example in those specializations,

00:27:28.829 --> 00:27:35.545
to create an artifact, to demonstrate mastery in terms of applying skills to a real world problem,

00:27:35.545 --> 00:27:42.039
I think, will really help reinforce the fact that our learners emerge from a really valuable use of skills.

00:27:42.481 --> 00:27:48.541
(E. Bildner) Thanks, Daphne. I see a couple of questions or comments on the (inaudible) tool, about --

00:27:48.541 --> 00:27:52.050
specifically about, very specific GTC-related stuff.

00:27:52.050 --> 00:27:55.897
So just remind once again, we'll take a couple more questions for Daphne

00:27:55.897 --> 00:27:58.960
and then Sébastien and I will field the bunch of questions

00:27:58.960 --> 00:28:03.807
that are specifically about the Translator Community and we'll let Daphne get on her day,

00:28:03.807 --> 00:28:09.500
to try improve Coursera and do other things that all you folks are asking about.

00:28:09.500 --> 00:28:14.691
So I guess, a couple more questions for Daphne. Interesting question here from Catalin,

00:28:15.060 --> 00:28:17.573
who asks, you know, if there are any plans to allow

00:28:17.573 --> 00:28:22.462
non universities and non institutions to create courses on Coursera, I guess, more broadly,

00:28:22.462 --> 00:28:27.797
how are we thinking about building up a diversity of courses on the platform?

00:28:28.497 --> 00:28:34.400
(D. Koller) So, right now, we're focused on working with our university partners

00:28:34.400 --> 00:28:38.223
and some non-university partners that are offering mostly contents

00:28:38.223 --> 00:28:41.434
in teacher professional development (check).

00:28:41.434 --> 00:28:46.773
That is not because we believe that there is no good education to be had elsewhere.

00:28:46.773 --> 00:28:52.437
So we know that there is great teachers to be had at institutions that are not among our partners as well,

00:28:52.437 --> 00:28:57.334
it's just, you know, people out there in the world will not affiliate with any educational institution. (check)

00:28:57.675 --> 00:29:02.846
So, we think -- I think it's great, Catalin, that you're producing your own course

00:29:02.846 --> 00:29:04.816
and making it available to people.

00:29:05.646 --> 00:29:16.661
We are -- we came into this with a model of having a very highly curated platform

00:29:16.661 --> 00:29:21.529
rather than a more YouTube-like model that has anyone being able to upload content.

00:29:21.779 --> 00:29:27.934
So, in order for us to maintain that level of curation, we would have to go and, you know,

00:29:27.934 --> 00:29:33.863
examine the courses of people like you and evaluate them for quality and academic rigor,

00:29:33.863 --> 00:29:40.145
and so on and so forth, and I'm sure we'd find some really amazing gems if we did that,

00:29:40.145 --> 00:29:46.444
but we just don't have the capacity to do that level of screening,

00:29:46.799 --> 00:29:56.464
nor do we have the ability to train a much larger number of instructors in the use of our platform

00:29:56.464 --> 00:30:02.278
and in what we consider to be the best practices for high-quality content, and so on,

00:30:02.621 --> 00:30:06.471
and so, I'm sure we're missing some really amazing things right now,

00:30:06.471 --> 00:30:09.287
but as we're trying to, you know, build thing out,

00:30:09.287 --> 00:30:15.789
it's better for us to maintain this somewhat narrow level of focus and hopefully in the future,

00:30:15.789 --> 00:30:19.176
be able to broaden out to a larger number of providers.

00:30:19.657 --> 00:30:22.494
(E. Bildner) Great, thanks. Maybe we can take one more question for Daphne.

00:30:23.371 --> 00:30:25.666
It seems like a lot of people are interested in knowing

00:30:25.666 --> 00:30:29.213
whether Coursera's certified courses are recognized by companies.

00:30:29.213 --> 00:30:33.319
I know you talked about that a little already, but, you know,

00:30:33.319 --> 00:30:35.950
have we seen any examples of companies saying, you know:

00:30:35.950 --> 00:30:41.150
"If you take this course, you'll have an advantage in some way, either internally or --

00:30:41.150 --> 00:30:43.879
what have we seen there with companies and Coursera?

00:30:43.879 --> 00:30:47.719
(D. Koller) So, you know, the company is only 2-years old,

00:30:47.720 --> 00:30:52.850
which is kind of hard to believe, given the amount of interest that we've seen and the --

00:30:52.858 --> 00:30:57.635
and the amazing community that we've been able to build up, including yourselves,

00:30:58.205 --> 00:31:05.756
but it's a relatively young company, with maybe only about a year's worth of actual "graduates,"

00:31:05.756 --> 00:31:08.813
if you will, from courses, a year and half at the most,

00:31:10.214 --> 00:31:19.271
and so, it takes a while for the market to catch up with the value of a particular form of education,

00:31:19.271 --> 00:31:25.325
to recognize that yes, this is like -- this education provides real value

00:31:25.325 --> 00:31:33.515
and the learners who emerge from this are, you know, really qualified to do what they claim they can do.

00:31:33.523 --> 00:31:36.637
Nevertheless, even with that short time frame,

00:31:36.637 --> 00:31:40.790
we've already seen significant recognition of these credentials by employers.

00:31:40.790 --> 00:31:43.640
I've mentioned the Duke University study a moment ago,

00:31:44.309 --> 00:31:48.093
that had surveyed several hundred employers in North Carolina,

00:31:48.429 --> 00:31:51.729
and importantly, this was not surveyed on, for example,

00:31:51.732 --> 00:31:57.586
here in the San Francisco Bay area of, you know, tech-savvy employers,

00:31:57.586 --> 00:32:02.179
all of whom are sort of familiar with internet technologies and so on,

00:32:02.179 --> 00:32:06.642
this was in a different part of the country, with a very diverse range of employers,

00:32:07.490 --> 00:32:13.150
from very different sectors, and nevertheless, we see a very large fraction of them

00:32:13.150 --> 00:32:16.037
-- I don't remember the exact number, I think 50 to 60% who said that

00:32:16.037 --> 00:32:24.241
they will recognize the validity of these credentials in terms of preferring to --

00:32:24.986 --> 00:32:27.797
treating these candidates in some preferen --

00:32:27.798 --> 00:32:31.834
in some way preferentially recognizing they're bringing something that you need to the table.

00:32:32.020 --> 00:32:38.710
And so, people are starting to see a very significant uptake on the value of these credentials,

00:32:38.710 --> 00:32:42.799
and I think, in a year, this question probably would be asked (inaudible).

00:32:43.915 --> 00:32:46.103
(E. Bildner) OK. Well, Daphne, I just want to thank you again,

00:32:46.103 --> 00:32:50.320
I don't know if you have any heartening words for the GTC friends we have with us today.

00:32:51.218 --> 00:32:55.055
( D. Koller) Sure, so, you know, I've already said this at the very beginning,

00:32:55.055 --> 00:32:59.715
but I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you all again.

00:33:00.396 --> 00:33:05.977
You have already 9 courses that have been translate

00:33:05.977 --> 00:33:08.882
as well as the many others that I'm sure you'll contribute

00:33:08.882 --> 00:33:14.440
towards making a hugely important dent in the issues of accessibility

00:33:14.440 --> 00:33:21.433
to the vast majority of this world population that -- for whom English is not their native language.

00:33:22.382 --> 00:33:28.712
So we're very, very grateful for your efforts, and also grateful for the efforts of Eli and Sébastien

00:33:28.725 --> 00:33:32.765
and our translation partners for helping you make that possible.

00:33:32.765 --> 00:33:33.890
So thank you very much.

00:33:34.061 --> 00:33:38.572
(Eli Bildner) Great, thanks so much, Daphne, and then again, just to remind everyone here,

00:33:38.573 --> 00:33:45.424
so now I will spend some time talking more specifically about the GTC and we'll let you get on with your day

00:33:45.424 --> 00:33:47.745
But thanks again for having been with us.
(Koller) Thank you. - Thank you

00:33:49.807 --> 00:33:54.781
(Bildner) Just a reminder: if you see questions that are being asked on the ...... (check 33:50)

00:33:54.781 --> 00:33:58.982
and that you're really in ........ (check) boost them up so they come to our attention.

00:34:00.180 --> 00:34:06.075
And - let's take a quick look at kind of questions have been asked already.

00:34:06.075 --> 00:34:10.668
So, I see that there is a great question here about translation quality.

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

00:34:17.786 --> 00:34:19.398
and what kind of procedure ...... (check) on place?

00:34:19.398 --> 00:34:30.083
(Kuo) Sure. So, the way we tried to continually up quality of the translations from GTC

00:34:30.083 --> 00:34:37.393
is to have sort of a tutoring system for, you know, as individual like volunteers (check)

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

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.

00:34:52.440 --> 00:34:59.350
And so, I think it's always important to have at least one person per language

00:34:59.350 --> 00:35:04.398
to sort of be that voice and have the final say in deciding,

00:35:04.398 --> 00:35:09.008
this is how we want to present translations of our content in this language.

00:35:09.008 --> 00:35:14.450
And so, in this capacity, we have a specific role, known as the language coordinator.

00:35:14.988 --> 00:35:17.408
Not all languages have this at the moment.

00:35:17.703 --> 00:35:26.493
As we scale up the program and learn from the particular needs of each community,

00:35:26.876 --> 00:35:32.456
we intend to fill those spots where we can, strategically

00:35:32.843 --> 00:35:39.126
and give that person the responsibility of deciding the directions of translation for the language

00:35:39.126 --> 00:35:45.364
but also having the daily task of reviewing translations on Transifex,

00:35:45.364 --> 00:35:49.149
to make sure that everything is always correct,

00:35:49.149 --> 00:35:53.370
but also in line with what they sort of are wanting to project,

00:35:53.370 --> 00:35:58.353
like when we have that translated content shown to our international users. (35:56)

00:35:59.009 --> 00:36:00.634
(Bildner) Thanks, Sébastien.

00:36:00.985 --> 00:36:02.130
I wanted to talk a little bit

00:36:02.130 --> 00:36:07.192
-- there's a question here from .... (check) about when language coordinators will be chosen.

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

00:36:17.692 --> 00:36:19.832
and are really grateful to everyone.

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)

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.

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.

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,

00:36:44.607 --> 00:36:48.552
and also give everyone the ability to just kind of jump into things.

00:36:48.871 --> 00:36:51.502
And as Sébastien mentioned, we sort of have this tutorate system

00:36:51.502 --> 00:36:54.504
where we work with partners in certain languages

00:36:54.504 --> 00:36:57.204
and then, for other languages where we don't have partners yet,

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.

00:37:01.778 --> 00:37:06.831
But part of the structure that we will be building into these currently unpartnered languages

00:37:06.831 --> 00:37:08.682
is by bringing in language partners

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.

00:37:15.145 --> 00:37:19.610
And over the next week or two, we'll be looking through those applications

00:37:19.610 --> 00:37:22.552
and working out procedures to add more language coordinators.

00:37:22.552 --> 00:37:25.852
An idea is that right now, things are very unstructured.

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,

00:37:29.678 --> 00:37:33.437
there's no one for unpartnered languages to really review

00:37:33.850 --> 00:37:38.060
but the idea is that we'll be building out a lot more structure around that

00:37:38.077 --> 00:37:40.052
and we think that structure is really effective,

00:37:40.052 --> 00:37:45.152
- we've seen it be really effective in our Portuguese and Chinese language communities

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

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

00:37:55.902 --> 00:37:58.289
and then you can ensure really high-quality translation,

00:37:58.289 --> 00:38:02.421
while also creating a really good experience for everyone participating.

00:38:02.623 --> 00:38:05.475
So, that's one model that's worked really well

00:38:05.475 --> 00:38:11.165
and we hope to bring some of that into our currently unpartnered languages too.

00:38:11.172 --> 00:38:16.180
So again, thank you for your patience in these initital days and couple of weeks

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

00:38:22.453 --> 00:38:26.774
to help create a more structured and smoother experience around those.

00:38:26.794 --> 00:38:29.619
Amazingly -- this is a final note and sorry to talk so much --

00:38:30.929 --> 00:38:33.564
you know, we've been totally overwhelmed by how

00:38:33.575 --> 00:38:37.737
-- even for these languages where there hasn't been a lot of structure --

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.

00:38:43.813 --> 00:38:46.108
So, really, really impressed and grateful for that,

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)

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

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 --

00:39:04.143 --> 00:39:07.717
we're freeing up more time to sort of engage with you directly.

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

00:39:16.012 --> 00:39:20.401
is the fact that, like, we all have different skills and different interests

00:39:20.404 --> 00:39:25.616
and, you know, different amounts of time that we're able to contribute.

00:39:25.618 --> 00:39:30.504
And, you know, [to match check], I look at it as our job to figure out

00:39:31.157 --> 00:39:34.873
how to best enable everyone to work the way that they want to work together,

00:39:35.194 --> 00:39:36.982
and complement those skills.

00:39:36.982 --> 00:39:41.799
So, that's sort of the philosophy behind the way that we are approaching

00:39:42.486 --> 00:39:44.813
building up this structure of the translations programs.

00:39:44.813 --> 00:39:48.479
The other aspect, though, is community,

00:39:48.496 --> 00:39:51.346
which I feel like is the primary focus.

00:39:51.823 --> 00:39:56.186
And, you know, as we have more bandwidth (check) to sort of personally engage with you,

00:39:57.599 --> 00:40:03.477
either through forums or emails, you know, I can see this consistently like

00:40:04.279 --> 00:40:07.785
this is a learning experience for a lot of us, you know,

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,

00:40:12.633 --> 00:40:15.076
your feedback and your ideas, you know,

00:40:15.076 --> 00:40:17.779
like Eli mentioned that some people are creating structures on their own

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

00:40:24.105 --> 00:40:29.002
how you guys best work and what we can promote to other people

00:40:29.285 --> 00:40:35.017
and evolve, so that we take the best of what's happening within the community

00:40:35.497 --> 00:40:37.641
and make the entire community better.

00:40:38.556 --> 00:40:43.709
(Bildner) Thanks, Sébastien. There's a question here, asked from Luis (check) - thank you Luis.

00:40:43.960 --> 00:40:47.046
"Are you going to offer some capacitation for translators?"

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,

00:40:52.137 --> 00:41:00.165
"What kind of recognition does Coursera provide for people that are participating in this program?"

00:41:00.575 --> 00:41:07.888
And as we tried to mention in different areas in the forums and emails,

00:41:08.288 --> 00:41:12.007
we really want to recognize the amazing work that's going on in the community

00:41:12.007 --> 00:41:14.162
and so we're doing a number of things for that.

00:41:14.162 --> 00:41:20.136
So one is, once you translate, once a member of the GTC translates a certain threshold,

00:41:20.136 --> 00:41:24.955
a certain amount of content, they will be recognized on our public site

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

00:41:30.837 --> 00:41:38.334
by recognizing them on our public site on coursera.org/about/meetourtranslators

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 --

00:41:44.590 --> 00:41:45.764
and that's one way.

00:41:45.969 --> 00:41:49.508
Another way is by offering certificates.

00:41:49.508 --> 00:41:55.123
I know there is another question about, will Coursera have some formal recognition for translators,

00:41:55.123 --> 00:41:58.661
and so, for translators who have participated at a certain level,

00:41:59.647 --> 00:42:03.887
you'll receive a statement of accomplishment, just like one from a course,

00:42:04.332 --> 00:42:07.747
and that's something that we're also open to ............ (check) including,

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

00:42:13.713 --> 00:42:17.112
-- you know, we -- once we have a little bit more structure,

00:42:17.112 --> 00:42:19.465
particularly for languages that are currently unpartnered,

00:42:19.465 --> 00:42:22.574
it'll be easier for us to introduce some of these reward systems.

00:42:22.575 --> 00:42:27.581
So one thing that we're doing both in the Chinese and Portuguese communities now,

00:42:27.581 --> 00:42:32.385
where we do have a little bit more structure, is that we are offering team leaders,

00:42:32.385 --> 00:42:36.588
so, people who are ...... (check) effort and pouring a lot of energy into translation,

00:42:37.470 --> 00:42:40.717
get a free signature track, and that's something that will continue

00:42:40.990 --> 00:42:43.860
and then we want to do all sorts of small things too.

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

00:42:49.676 --> 00:42:53.606
and go through this stuff in detail, so I recommend .... (check) check that out

00:42:54.134 --> 00:42:57.336
But we want to do lots of small things too, for instance this sort of hangout,

00:42:57.336 --> 00:43:02.372
which is only open to you GTC members, other special events, you know,

00:43:02.372 --> 00:43:06.381
one thing -- things we've done in the past, are bringing in professors of courses

00:43:06.381 --> 00:43:08.622
to do hangouts on air like this,

00:43:09.381 --> 00:43:15.204
facilitating regional meetups of translators, maybe providing some, you know, financial support

00:43:15.500 --> 00:43:17.985
to make those kinds of regional meetups possible.

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.

00:43:25.627 --> 00:43:27.939
And I think at the end of the day, Sébastien

00:43:27.939 --> 00:43:32.774
-- ............ (check) community supportive of the people who are involved in it --

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.

00:43:38.533 --> 00:43:40.396
So hopefully, that answers your question, Luis,

00:43:40.411 --> 00:43:42.180
and I know that lots of other people are interested in that as well.

00:43:46.793 --> 00:43:49.027
Let's take a look at some of these other questions here.

00:43:49.050 --> 00:43:53.531
So, there's a good question about choosing courses.

00:43:53.531 --> 00:43:56.907
Sébastien, do you want to talk a little bit about how, you know,

00:43:56.907 --> 00:44:02.718
how we might allow volunteers to help choose the courses that we're working on?

00:44:03.645 --> 00:44:06.776
(Sébastien) Errh, totally. So just some background about

00:44:07.311 --> 00:44:12.748
-- some insight into how we choose the courses that we currently translate,

00:44:12.879 --> 00:44:16.192
because I realize that's, like, a little bit "black box" at the moment.

00:44:17.128 --> 00:44:23.258
We work with either partners in different countries, like you already mentioned,

00:44:23.624 --> 00:44:31.113
or using analytics data to just sort of understand the needs of various populations

00:44:31.521 --> 00:44:34.165
and determine the appropriateness of courses

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.

00:44:41.471 --> 00:44:44.996
And then, even before that happens, a lot of --

00:44:46.212 --> 00:44:51.260
course instructors, you know, they are ultimately the ones that can --

00:44:51.788 --> 00:44:55.680
we work with course instructors to enable courses for tranlation, right?

00:44:55.858 --> 00:44:59.901
And so, in order to make sure that translation work is not,

00:45:01.272 --> 00:45:04.157
I don't (check) want to say, like, wasted,

00:45:04.502 --> 00:45:10.815
but we work with course instructors to make sure that their course content is stable,

00:45:11.035 --> 00:45:16.303
as in, like, it will be reused in the future and won't change significantly,

00:45:16.303 --> 00:45:19.739
so that, like, the translation work that you guys will put in

00:45:20.657 --> 00:45:28.651
won't be just eliminated if they just decide to change individual modules.

00:45:29.083 --> 00:45:33.739
And so, there's sort of a discussion process here about, like,

00:45:33.739 --> 00:45:36.917
selecting the courses and making sure that they are appropriate for translation.

00:45:37.643 --> 00:45:42.250
And then, to get to your specific question, I think that having a feedback module

00:45:42.250 --> 00:45:47.958
for community members to tell us what they want to see translated is really important

00:45:48.163 --> 00:45:53.923
and something that is on our, like, near-future road map.

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,

00:45:57.822 --> 00:46:04.272
but I think it's really important to collect that kind of -- those requests from people

00:46:04.282 --> 00:46:08.193
who actually are the people who would be most interested in taking those courses.

00:46:08.543 --> 00:46:14.146
And so, good idea, something we've already thought about and hope to implement soon.

00:46:15.070 --> 00:46:22.060
(Bildner) Thanks, Sébastien. A really fundamental and important question from Tasia.

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?

00:46:28.006 --> 00:46:29.522
What should we do. Thanks."

00:46:29.522 --> 00:46:34.184
Thank you, Tasia. So, right -- so, basically, this is how it works:

00:46:34.184 --> 00:46:38.100
so, you're part of the GTC community, you're part --

00:46:38.492 --> 00:46:44.898
you've access to this internal private translators' portal, the Global Translator Community Headquarters.

00:46:45.825 --> 00:46:49.934
And once you come on the Headquarters, there are different features for each language community.

00:46:50.415 --> 00:46:54.122
And the pages explain how to get started within that language community

00:46:54.122 --> 00:46:57.568
and each language community will be a little bit different.

00:46:58.032 --> 00:47:01.913
That's part of, you know, in designing the program we wanted maintain flexibility.

00:47:01.913 --> 00:47:05.194
So, for instance, if you want to join the Chinese language community

00:47:05.201 --> 00:47:06.335
if you're a Chinese speaker,

00:47:07.062 --> 00:47:10.751
we work with a partner, a wonderful partner, Guokr, in China

00:47:10.751 --> 00:47:16.040
and so, you go to the page and Guokr explains how to join the Guokr program.

00:47:17.065 --> 00:47:20.657
Our Portuguese community, which is managed by Tatiana,

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,

00:47:25.040 --> 00:47:27.250
our friends of the Lemann Foundation in Brazil.

00:47:28.943 --> 00:47:30.836
This is a Brazilian Portuguese community.

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.

00:47:36.594 --> 00:47:38.863
So they work on a team-based model.

00:47:39.615 --> 00:47:45.030
Right now, as I mentioned before, besides Portuguese and Chinese and Russian

00:47:45.030 --> 00:47:47.551
-- I'm sorry, so Russian ..... our friends at ABBYY --

00:47:48.486 --> 00:47:53.495
have a system where you go to a different platform outside Coursera

00:47:53.495 --> 00:47:57.807
and it's a kind of crowdsourcing model, so you can add a sentence,

00:47:57.807 --> 00:48:02.364
or upload or download existent translations, it's a really really wonderful platform

00:48:02.702 --> 00:48:05.974
and their page on the Coursera Translator Headquarters explains

00:48:05.974 --> 00:48:07.542
how to get started on that.

00:48:08.089 --> 00:48:11.528
So, if you're not from one of those communities right now, we have other pages,

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)

00:48:17.003 --> 00:48:22.049
and again, we'll be building in structure to that by this language coordinators mechanism.

00:48:22.049 --> 00:48:27.660
So once language coordinators come onboard, there'll be more structure in these communities as well.

00:48:27.660 --> 00:48:31.060
But for now, you should feel free to jump in to Transifex,

00:48:31.060 --> 00:48:35.665
which is our main translation platform, and just start working on translations.

00:48:36.007 --> 00:48:40.522
And we realize that there are going to be inconsistencies in the courses,

00:48:40.969 --> 00:48:43.580
that these courses need to be reviewed,

00:48:43.892 --> 00:48:48.673
but very quickly, we will get a language coordinator system moving,

00:48:48.890 --> 00:48:53.340
and a reviewer system in place and so, things will be better on that part.

00:48:53.994 --> 00:48:59.284
That's a summary of how you should get started translating.

00:48:59.829 --> 00:49:04.077
(Sébastien) And it's also worth mentioning that we've listed a few projects

00:49:04.077 --> 00:49:08.569
that represent some of those most popular courses on Coursera

00:49:08.569 --> 00:49:13.397
under that Other Languages tab, and so, even if you want, like, more --

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

00:49:20.014 --> 00:49:23.664
that we are offering for translation, then that's also a good starting point.

00:49:24.477 --> 00:49:29.543
(Bildner) Thanks. There is a good question here about native language course transcripts.

00:49:29.867 --> 00:49:34.322
By the way, another housekeeping note: I see it's already 8:50 a.m. PST,

00:49:34.322 --> 00:49:37.021
so, Sébastien and I will chat for another 10 minutes.

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

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,

00:49:47.730 --> 00:49:51.054
are answered in the discussion forums of the GTC portal.

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

00:49:55.319 --> 00:49:57.191
Thanks again to everyone for being here.

00:49:57.204 --> 00:49:59.577
That said, let's take a couple more questions.

00:49:59.577 --> 00:50:01.705
So about the English language transcripts.

00:50:01.705 --> 00:50:05.825
So how it works right now is when a -- so Coursera is a platform.

00:50:05.838 --> 00:50:10.540
Our university partners use the platform and when they create content on the platform,

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,

00:50:17.001 --> 00:50:20.603
When they request captioning, that goes to a company that we work with,

00:50:20.931 --> 00:50:23.668
that does human language-captioning of videos.

00:50:23.668 --> 00:50:27.380
So then people listen to the videos and actually,

00:50:27.699 --> 00:50:32.950
humans write out the words that are being spoken on the screens.

00:50:32.964 --> 00:50:37.552
Now, the people who are doing these captions, they are not subject-matter experts,

00:50:37.552 --> 00:50:40.911
so, for instance in the course on Machine Learning, you know,

00:50:40.911 --> 00:50:44.718
they're probably going to get some words wrong, there are going to be grammatical mistakes

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,

00:50:48.462 --> 00:50:50.581
is that English transcripts are not perfect.

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.

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

00:50:59.544 --> 00:51:01.636
and saw the transcripts back in 2012,

00:51:01.636 --> 00:51:04.753
and maybe you can tell that they have gone better -- I hope so.

00:51:05.431 --> 00:51:07.937
But one thing that we'd really love to do in the future

00:51:07.938 --> 00:51:13.131
is that native English speakers participate in this translation program as well

00:51:13.131 --> 00:51:16.772
and work on correcting the English language transcription,

00:51:16.772 --> 00:51:18.724
verifying that as corrected (check).

00:51:19.268 --> 00:51:23.724
This is somewhat difficult technically and we don't really have an infrastructure for it

00:51:23.724 --> 00:51:26.127
-- infrastructure or a program for it right now,

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,

00:51:29.017 --> 00:51:36.410
because we realize that as Aurelia (check) says, it does make translation harder,

00:51:37.385 --> 00:51:40.580
because you have to consult the videos as you're going through the transcripts.

00:51:40.580 --> 00:51:44.434
So, thanks for the question. Definitely agreeing and would love to --

00:51:44.438 --> 00:51:46.853
and we're planning on working on it in the future.

00:51:49.749 --> 00:51:52.103
Alright. Other questions.

00:51:56.505 --> 00:51:59.755
Sorry, looking through the great questions here.

00:52:00.296 --> 00:52:03.518
Sébastien, one for you: "Is there any Coursera-approved information

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?

00:52:10.159 --> 00:52:16.157
Other kinds of technical details about using the platform, or maybe kind of translation best practices?

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 --

00:52:27.335 --> 00:52:31.463
like general translation best practices, they should cover almost any issues that you'll face.

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,

00:52:38.820 --> 00:52:41.882
you know, there's not a whole lot of margin for errors.

00:52:41.882 --> 00:52:46.730
So the advice that I would give for translating is that, you know,

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.

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,

00:53:00.770 --> 00:53:05.387
where it, like, the screen, the individual sentences that will come up at a time,

00:53:05.697 --> 00:53:08.605
and a lot of people sort of, like, fall into this trap of like,

00:53:08.605 --> 00:53:13.667
"Oh I need to, like, format my translations in, like, exact same line breaks"

00:53:13.667 --> 00:53:19.035
or like, where, like, the English sentence, like, starts on a new line

00:53:19.035 --> 00:53:26.472
and I would say, don't give yourself a headache like doing that, you know,

00:53:26.801 --> 00:53:31.769
I've seen like a lot of trans-- innovative (check) translators, like,

00:53:32.424 --> 00:53:36.389
take source text and translate it into for example Russian,

00:53:36.389 --> 00:53:40.728
and they will rearrange the sentences so it makes more sense in Russian.

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.

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,

00:53:53.572 --> 00:53:57.495
like try to stick within, or under the length of the subtitles,

00:53:57.505 --> 00:54:02.471
because subtitles, if you go on too long, it can impact the readability

00:54:02.809 --> 00:54:06.381
and so, always err on sort of shorter translations

00:54:06.753 --> 00:54:12.902
and use the source text as your bar to measure against.

00:54:13.999 --> 00:54:17.806
And then, you know, as I've been sort of explaining through Transifex

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,

00:54:24.574 --> 00:54:28.246
I haven't noticed very many so far, but if you do have questions,

00:54:28.972 --> 00:54:31.089
feel free to sort of write.

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,

00:54:37.407 --> 00:54:42.657
just keep that discussion going and collect your feedback and, you know,

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.

00:54:48.840 --> 00:54:53.550
(Bildner) Thanks, Sébastien. Another question here from Hunadahs

00:54:53.550 --> 00:54:56.115
about promoting courses.

00:54:56.115 --> 00:55:00.448
So, you know, the Translation Community translates a course,

00:55:00.449 --> 00:55:02.520
the course is now available in another language.

00:55:03.409 --> 00:55:04.726
a) how does this work?

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?

00:55:11.787 --> 00:55:15.541
So, Sébastien, do you want to field that one, so how does,

00:55:15.544 --> 00:55:21.522
how do courses get from the translation platform to the Coursera class site?

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?

00:55:26.998 --> 00:55:36.257
(Kuo) Sure. So, once a course's content is both complete and reviewed,

00:55:36.447 --> 00:55:41.740
which are two separate sets on Transifex, we actually have an automated script

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,

00:55:48.325 --> 00:55:54.682
import the translated subtitles to that course's class site on Coursera.

00:55:55.445 --> 00:56:01.851
And so, first and foremost, as, when you visit like the class page

00:56:02.237 --> 00:56:04.383
that kind of introduces the course information,

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.

00:56:10.470 --> 00:56:13.974
And one of those facets is available subtitles.

00:56:13.974 --> 00:56:19.482
And so you'll see, if there's available subtitles for Chinese and Spanish,

00:56:19.482 --> 00:56:22.724
then it'll say "English, Chinese and Spanish subtitles."

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)

00:56:28.030 --> 00:56:31.923
And then also, as it works on YouTube, like while you're watching a video,

00:56:31.934 --> 00:56:34.783
there'll be a sort of a closed caption / subtitle button

00:56:35.024 --> 00:56:39.152
and hopefully, you know, people will see that and click it

00:56:39.152 --> 00:56:42.898
and see that there's the list of, like, available subtitles,

00:56:43.562 --> 00:56:46.522
and one that may match, like the one that they're trying to look for.

00:56:46.969 --> 00:56:50.779
We also work with course instructors to sort of have them,

00:56:50.785 --> 00:56:58.687
like a lot of course instructors, you know, market and promote their own courses themselves

00:56:58.687 --> 00:57:03.319
and so, you know, through our partnership managers and also us,

00:57:03.319 --> 00:57:08.829
like, we work very closely with them to sort of keep them abreast about translation progress

00:57:08.829 --> 00:57:13.019
and you know, let them know, like oh, like these language subtitles (check) are available

00:57:13.021 --> 00:57:16.494
and so that they can also promote that to their students outside of Coursera

00:57:16.494 --> 00:57:20.188
or on Coursera itself through an e-mail or their forums.

00:57:21.270 --> 00:57:25.280
(Eli Bildner) Thanks, Sébastien. So let me just answer a couple more questions very quickly

00:57:25.280 --> 00:57:27.294
and then wrap things up.

00:57:28.471 --> 00:57:31.012
So there is a great question about translating the user interface,

00:57:31.012 --> 00:57:33.966
" Is it possible to translate that with Transifex?"

00:57:34.187 --> 00:57:38.289
So right now, we work with professional translators to translate our user interface

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.

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

00:57:50.841 --> 00:57:54.364
-- and matures and there is more structure in it -- and that will be the appropriate time

00:57:54.364 --> 00:57:55.812
to open up the interface.

00:57:55.812 --> 00:57:58.781
Because obviously, the interface is something that's very visible

00:57:58.781 --> 00:58:02.204
and, you know, it's really important that the quality is super-high.

00:58:02.532 --> 00:58:08.046
Right now, we're still working on improving the technical aspects of translating the user interface.

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,

00:58:14.149 --> 00:58:17.037
making sure that there is enough context there to translate it.

00:58:17.295 --> 00:58:20.255
So, you know, for instance, sole example:

00:58:21.077 --> 00:58:24.435
you know, someone reported a translation error the other day

00:58:24.435 --> 00:58:29.743
where it said "There are three days left to register for signature track."

00:58:29.749 --> 00:58:35.039
And "left" was translated as, in French, as the word meaning, physically left.

00:58:35.879 --> 00:58:40.448
And, you know, clearly, this is a big problem but on our translations platform,

00:58:40.449 --> 00:58:45.959
that string "left" was in isolation and was used in two separate locations,

00:58:45.959 --> 00:58:50.754
so it actually takes a lot of work, technically and programatically

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.

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.

00:59:00.766 --> 00:59:05.904
Another question about: "Currently, most of the translations are English course to other languages,"

00:59:05.909 --> 00:59:08.251
you know, would we consider going the other way around?

00:59:08.251 --> 00:59:10.670
Great question: the answer is definitely yes.

00:59:11.843 --> 00:59:14.494
Already, you know, I've seen some amazing things.

00:59:14.494 --> 00:59:20.991
Our Chinese community has translated Russian and is now working on Russian and French courses,

00:59:20.991 --> 00:59:25.710
translating them into Chinese or adding Chinese subtitles: totally amazing

00:59:26.282 --> 00:59:29.293
and we'd love to introduce other language pairs in the near future.

00:59:29.293 --> 00:59:33.195
Again: on the road map and and once the community matures a little bit,

00:59:33.195 --> 00:59:35.852
it's something that we definitely want to do.

00:59:35.852 --> 00:59:39.301
I would love to work on translating Chinese courses: I speak Chinese

00:59:39.852 --> 00:59:43.198
[blurred] some amazing Chinese courses on our platform

00:59:43.514 --> 00:59:45.237
and I'd love to see those available.

00:59:45.237 --> 00:59:49.053
So, thanks for the great question, Yufan. And--

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

00:59:54.899 --> 00:59:59.644
-- GTC Community --- Google Hangout On Air, your Chinese is really impressive.

00:59:59.644 --> 01:00:01.941
As a native speaker I can say that.
(EB overlaps - incomprehensible)

01:00:01.941 --> 01:00:04.776
(Bildner) Yes, that would be fun with me and Kuo co-partners.

01:00:04.776 --> 01:00:08.950
There's another question about Chinese, I think this is a broader question about --

01:00:08.951 --> 01:00:13.561
the question is, you know, obviously there are different dialects of Chinese,

01:00:13.561 --> 01:00:17.851
there's Cantonese, there is, you know, traditional characters and simplified characters,

01:00:17.851 --> 01:00:22.127
slightly different usages in, say, Taiwan and Mainland: how do we deal with that?

01:00:22.127 --> 01:00:24.457
I think there's a broader question of, you know,

01:00:24.457 --> 01:00:26.754
there is Brazilian Portuguese and there is European Portuguese, you know,

01:00:26.754 --> 01:00:29.177
what kind of Spanish are we accepting on the platform?

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.

01:00:35.044 --> 01:00:38.707
You know, we'll talk about this more in our forums but, you know,

01:00:38.717 --> 01:00:40.065
we think that it makes sense

01:00:40.065 --> 01:00:44.663
to have separate languages for European Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese, for instance,

01:00:44.663 --> 01:00:49.441
that it'll just be a clearer and cleaner experience for both students and translators

01:00:50.062 --> 01:00:53.542
and certainly, there are things that can be done

01:00:53.552 --> 01:00:58.789
in converting from Simplified Chinese to Traditional Chinese, programmatically,

01:00:59.268 --> 01:01:01.902
but, you know, that's something that we'll need to consider as well.

01:01:01.902 --> 01:01:07.144
So, great question from Wah, thank you for asking it, and the answer is that

01:01:07.153 --> 01:01:09.684
we'll need to work this out on a case-by-case basis.

01:01:11.435 --> 01:01:14.840
Let's see if there's any really quick questions that we can answer.

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,

01:01:25.104 --> 01:01:28.879
and so I think we should probably wrap this up and again,

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)

01:01:34.354 --> 01:01:37.458
are answered in the forums or in other channels.

01:01:38.051 --> 01:01:40.670
For my part, I just want to thank everyone for being here today.

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.,

01:01:46.407 --> 01:01:53.986
and others at 3 a.m., and ......................... (check) sometimes.

01:01:54.596 --> 01:01:58.944
But we're really, really grateful for everyone being here and spending the time with us,

01:01:58.944 --> 01:02:02.019
asking great questions, and for all your work.

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,

01:02:07.682 --> 01:02:11.454
are there any final words you wanted to add as well.

01:02:11.871 --> 01:02:18.702
(Kuo) Yeah, I mean, you know, everyday I am super-impressed with the dedication

01:02:18.702 --> 01:02:23.406
from both Coursera learners and our GTC members.

01:02:24.435 --> 01:02:32.392
You know, as a person who works in localization, languages has always been my passion, like,

01:02:32.392 --> 01:02:33.712
since I was a little kid.

01:02:33.712 --> 01:02:36.794
I would go to public libraries and take out, like phrasebooks,

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.

01:02:40.685 --> 01:02:44.828
And I think one of the most gratifying things about building out a community like this

01:02:44.828 --> 01:02:50.063
is that, you know, reading through all your responses, especially to that question on the application

01:02:50.063 --> 01:02:51.586
that's like (check): "Why do I want to translate?"

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 --

01:02:58.756 --> 01:03:05.021
that not only believe in Coursera's mission of increasing the accessibility of education

01:03:05.021 --> 01:03:10.323
but also, really believe in the value of translation and community building.

01:03:10.323 --> 01:03:15.103
And so, I just want to let you guys know that Eli and I are committed

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,

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

01:03:35.807 --> 01:03:40.689
more enabled to access our really great content. So, thank you.

01:03:40.690 --> 01:03:45.971
(Eli Bildner) Okay, well, as we say, thank you, gracias, спасибо, actually we could go on,

01:03:45.971 --> 01:03:49.553
but we really appreciate everyone being here, and we'll see you, see you out.

01:03:49.935 --> 01:03:52.456
(Kuo) Definitely. Thanks.