Courses in Terminology Management

• Terminology management courses where students learn the principles and also work with tools should ideally be held in a room equipped enough computers – if possible, one for every students. An Internet connection, a translation memory tool with an integrated terminology management module and a word processor as well as CD-ROM dictionaries and other background materials should also be available for students.

The main learning objectives of these courses are to learn the basic concepts and principles of terminology and terminology management and to learn how to use terminology management tools.

These courses should be a prerequisite for courses in LSP and general translation.

• Terminology management courses must be planned for one or two semesters. Courses should be held regularly – e.g. two hours per week. This would depend on the time dedicated to them in the relevant study courses – Bachelors (BA), Masters (MA), etc.
• Depending on course objectives and students’ level, teachers can point out which parts of the eCoLoTrain courses are relevant for teaching theoretical issues: basic concepts of terminology theory, principles for creating databases, defining data categories, using input models, exchanging data between different terminology management tools, importing/exporting, and performing terminology extraction. The materials can be integrated into face-to-face scenarios or online independent study
• To practice theoretical principles, teachers can also use or refer to our eCoLoTrain exercises, which gradually introduce new concepts and contain activities such as adding entries, modifying existing entries, importing/exporting entries, using the interface between word processor and terminology tool used, etc.
• If raw materials are needed, eCoLoRe training kits can be used. The links to the specialised dictionaries listed on the eCoLoTrain website under Links/Terminology management could also be useful.
• Teachers should bear in mind that besides preparing and organising course contents (terminology databases, background material, file structure, etc.), they must also consider technical issues, such as defining user rights and user IDs for the use of databases by students – this is, however, usually done by system administrators or CAT tools specialists.

Since in this teaching scenario – in other words with respect to requirements of translation practice – students will be introduced to terminology theory and terminology management tools within the framework of translation studies, CAT tools teachers can design different course scenarios according to different professional translation environments, for example: freelancers, translation agency, and industry. Students can work individually or in groups according to class objectives, number of students and the number of available PCs.

To prepare for these scenarios, the eCoLoTrain Terminology management exercises can be used in class or given as assignments.

• Freelancer: In this scenario, students will play the role of freelance translators who have to maintain their own local database for translation purposes. Teachers will assist students in creating their terminology databases, in defining appropriate data categories for translation purposes and input models according to students' language pairs, etc. The teacher will specify a specialised field.
• Translation agency: In this scenario, students will play the role of professionals working in a translation agency – terminologists, translators, etc. In this scenario, teachers will assist students in creating a server-based – and, if possible, multi-user – database for several languages, containing, for example, various subject fields, which will be constantly updated by students and checked by the teacher. Students will also define different input models for the database according to the roles assigned to them individually or in groups (chief terminologist, translator, etc.).The teacher will specify one or more specialised fields.
• Industry: In this scenario, students will play the role of language or translation specialists working in a specific industry, which produces technical documentation in a specific subject field – e.g. automobile industry. As in the "Translation agency" scenario, teachers will assist students in creating a server-based – and, if possible, multi-user – database, which will have to be constantly updated by students and checked for correctness by the teacher. This terminology database will be designed for several languages (according to students’ language combinations) and will contain different data categories according to the subject field of the industry. The idea is to have a termbase to store "corporate language" and entries for monolingual terminology usage that can be used as a terminological reference by all employees and technical writers in the company.
• As further exercises, the students can practice importing and exporting entries in different file formats.
• Finally, students can be engaged in class discussions about the advantages and disadvantages, challenges and shortcomings of the terminology management tool(s) studied.

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