Management and training of linguistic volunteers: a case study of
translation at Cochrane Germany
Cadwell, PatrickORCID: 0000-0002-2371-4378, Bollig, Claudia and Reid, JulianeORCID: 0000-0002-6455-0701
(2019)
Management and training of linguistic volunteers: a case study of
translation at Cochrane Germany.
In: Federici, Federico M. and O'Brien, SharonORCID: 0000-0003-4864-5986, (eds.)
Translation in Cascading Crises.
Routledge (Taylor & Francis), Abingdon, UK.
ISBN 978-1138363410
Cochrane is a global, non-profit organisation that synthesizes health-related
research evidence. It established a translation strategy in 2014 to increase the
significance of its information beyond the English-speaking world. Under the
strategy, translation at Cochrane is achieved mostly through the efforts of
linguistic volunteers. Translation in crisis settings, too, relies on the work of
volunteers; however, appropriate ways to manage and train these volunteers are
unclear. We carried out a study of the case of translation at one part of Cochrane,
Cochrane Germany, to learn about the management and training of linguistic
volunteers there and in Cochrane more broadly. Thematic analysis of data
gathered by the researcher during a two-month secondment to the offices of
Cochrane Germany– including data from formal interviews, informal meetings,
field notes, a reflective journal, and a large corpus of grey literature – generated
three main themes. The themes relate to appropriate conceptualisations of
linguistic volunteers, project management in the assurance of quality volunteer
work, and feedback as a form of volunteer training. Recommendations are made
to apply these lessons learned to future work on crisis translation and for possible
improvements to linguistic volunteer management and training at Cochrane.
Item Type:
Book Section
Refereed:
Yes
Uncontrolled Keywords:
Cochrane; crisis translation; volunteers; management; training
This item is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. View License
Funders:
European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 734211., Dublin City University’s Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Autumn 2018 Faculty Conference Travel Scheme.
ID Code:
23911
Deposited On:
05 Nov 2019 16:00 by
Thomas Murtagh
. Last Modified 05 Nov 2019 16:00