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If you are into e-learning, making custom-designed e-learning programs for global consumption can bring your organization a large bouquet of benefits, both in terms of speed with which it reaches the market and the cost of making them, besides also retaining and translating your training objectives into global training.

If you are experienced in this field, you know that if training is to be beneficial to the learner, you need to localize your training modules. Obviously, this means much more than getting a good translator on the job. There are other more important factors that come into play when you consider taking your e-learning packages worldwide. These are:

• Is English enough? Perhaps not: It is widely known that most of the developed workforces of the world necessarily speak and work in English. But just because they know English well enough to use it as a working language, does that mean that they understand it best?  Studies have pointed to the fact that learning in one’s first language is understood best and is most effective. So, if English is one’s second or third language, the learner is bound to face immense difficulty in understanding and retaining what he is exposed to. This therefore not just reduces understanding of the subject but could also lead to misinterpretation of the same.

• The learner’s culture gives him a vision of life: For a learner, his culture is his pair of eyes through which he sees the world. A part of this is one’s language and the values his society gives important to. Such factors have an impact on learning styles. For this reason, it is necessary that an e-learning module be adapted to one’s culture and country. If this is impractical, an option is to design Web-based modules especially targeted to multicultural audiences which could radically improve efficiency of training.

• Adapting to the learner’s market and culture: Which country are you writing for? Get a handle on that and identify common cultural pointers between countries that speak the same language. If a particular country has some unique needs, find an expert in that country who can give you the best inputs on this.

• Use country-specific text or neutralize it: If you’re writing region-specific text, take care not to make culturally inappropriate comparisons in writing, or use slang, metaphors or make any other ethnic-related references that could be hurtful.

• Translate and localize e-courses: In order to get the best out of your e-learning courses, you need to plan in advance the design and delivery mode so that content can be suitably created to suit the country in which it is to be taught. If the content that must be localized is identified much in advance, the e-learning course can be easily deployed. The translation and localization can be the most costly aspect to course development if not done right. After the content is neutralized or adapted to suit key markets, the technical and design models can be internationalized and the translation initiated.

Share your thoughts on the same.

In a business, one of the chief aspects is manpower. How safe is the personnel of an enterprise? This question should be answered with confidence by the management of a company. Employers should undertake to see that all safety precautions are in place so that employees are not injured on the job. Besides, imparting safety training is the best way of educating staff on how not to get work-related injuries, illnesses and possible chances of death while working. It also demonstrates the use of using predetermined workplace safety procedures.

Safety training is a key element in the prevention of work-related injuries, illnesses and death. When educated on safety procedures, employees will know how- to prevent an incident in the workplace by properly operating machinery, and will also learn how to respond quickly if presented with a dangerous situation.

Whether an employee works for the company at the corporate office or plant or he is sent abroad on an assignment, he should still receive the benefit of this support from his management, aided by online training. Such training makes an employee aware of international ethical, cultural and safety tips that he could use wherever he goes. From an employer’s perspective, this online safety training is an investment as it provides long-term benefits to employees and to the organization as a whole. For an employee, it’s a confidence-building measure to think that the organization cares for him enough to introduce him to such online training courses.

When employees go abroad on an assignment, they need to be trained in several aspects of life there. When it comes to on-the-job safety, company trainers are entrusted with the duty of creating a one-point interface with content relating to different world locations that teach safety aspects to employees. All the knowledge gained through this means far exceeds all other conventional means of training employees. Another advantage of taking such courses is that the employee is given a certificate at the end of the training.

However, some employees feel that such training is totally unnecessary and a waste of time, so do not take it up sincerely. As an employer, you can give your employees online training courses on topics such as international travel safety or related topics. When imparted online, these programs can not only be interesting but fun too because it gives the user the opportunity of simulating the kind of experience he or she likes.

A training module can also be modified to suit your company’s needs. For instance, for a course on travel safety, information about the destination and things to do in a certain kind of emergency should be incorporated.

By giving employees online education in safety heightens their sense of security while performing their daily workplace activities, which in turn, leads to higher productivity. It also results in reducing the rates of accidents and incidents. Lastly, for companies this is documented proof that training of this nature has actually taken place, thus preventing the company from any likeliness of lawsuits involving workplace injuries.

These are my views on this subject. What are yours? Do write in and let me know.

When you go global with your business, it is important that the product you market blends with the intended country. Suppose you create courseware for Company X, based in France in French. Company X also has its presence in Germany and Japan. The company wants to train its employees on the same course across various locations. Will the courseware created in French help German or Japanese employees? Obviously not. So, how will Company X train its employees in Germany and Japan on the same course?

One option is to translate the French elearning courseware to the target language. Translation simply means changing the source language of the software, documentation, learning material, user manual, etc into a target language of the intended country. The disadvantage faced during word-for-word translation is that it yields many funny and offensive literal changes.

The other alternative is localizing the product for the intended country. So what is localization?

Localization, abbreviated as L10n, is the course of action of translating documentation, software, learning materials, user manuals, etc for a foreign market. It involves translating and adapting the text from the source language (including spelling issues and grammar) to the target language, semantic analysis of the source content, support of different character sets, as well as handling the formatting of the information such as date, time, local culture & habits, addresses, phone numbers, local colors and currency… By localizing the product, the company markets the same to the target audience by integrating both the culture and language of the intended country.

During the localization process, the linguist is the most important person to have onboard. He is the native speaker and regional expert of the proposed country. He/she must be aware of the verbal characteristics, cultural differences, language specific humor, forbidden subjects, etc of the targeted country and know how to deal with them accordingly.

At the end of the L10n process, the product should:

• Be appropriate for the target business/country
• Appear custom-designed for the end user’s cultural and linguistic background
• Retain the original meaning of the course/product.

Though many companies claim to offer translation and localization services, Localization of content is best done by experts in linguistic services having years of experience and a stable team of cross-country expert linguists. Failure in accurate localization can have dire effects, such as insulting the culture of the targeted country and its people, apart from causing embarrassment to you.

Here are a few tips to avoid common localization pitfalls:

• Write and/or create materials using simple terms and words, to render easy localization of the same.
• Do not embed text in an image. While localization, the same image would have to be re-created with text superimposed on it. Create text and graphics on different layers.
• Write properties for fonts in an external XML file like a style sheet. A CSS will allow you to define properties for font for individual languages in one accessible place.
• Applications handling localizable content should support the character set of your target language.
• As with fonts, do not embed text in script. Also avoid language constructions that combine text and numbers.

Minimize integrating content by using a mix of different technologies, formats and tools. The more complex the creation process, the more complex the localization process will be.

When a company localizes its content to meet the demands of the business abroad, it adds a personal touch and comforts the end user to read and interpret the product/courseware in his/her own language. The need to train a culturally and linguistically diverse workforce effectively is very important and using the targeted country’s own language as a medium is considered the best way.

Do share your thoughts on the same.

Have a look at a multi language course on electrical safety done in 8 languages.

In order to offer comprehensive technology-based learning solutions to corporate customers, CommLab and Learning Net have come together in a synergistic partnership, after almost a decade-long business association.

The Management of both companies believes that this partnership will be mutually beneficial and will also greatly benefit customers of both organizations.

Learning.net is a software services company that offers learning management systems to organizations of all sizes. These services complement the custom courseware services and catalog courses that CommLab offers to address corporate training need across the world in a much better, faster and more economical manner than before.

About Learning Net

Learning.net is totally focused on software services, hosting software solutions to their corporate customers. Trellis, the company LMS/ LCMS provides a very cost-effective solution for smaller learning communities. The Trellis family of products – TrellisManage, TrellisAuthor, TrellisTalk – offer an opportunity for larger organizations to customize a learning management system to their unique needs at the cost of what others offer off-the-shelf.

For more information, please contact info@learning.net

About CommLab India

CommLab India is a custom e-learning solutions company based in India. Since 2000, it has been providing state-of-the-art e-learning services to organizations across the world in the areas of Custom Courseware, Catalogue Courses and Learning Technology. Some of its reputed clients are BC Hydro, George Washington University, Kawasaki and Deloitte. They are preferred vendors to some Fortune 500 companies such as Alcoa, Uniliver and Pepco Holding Inc.

For more information, please contact info@commlabindia.com