Dear all,
With the advent of CIDOC CRM 7.1, a new stable community version (aimed for ISO approval) of the CIDOC CRM is established. This is the occasion for the broader community wishing to implement the standard on a stable basis to invest and engage with a mature ontological specification and text. A key aspect of this work at the community implementation level is to render the standard in various languages so that it can be studied, appropriated and applied without linguistic barriers by different linguistic and cultural communities around the world. Towards this end, the task of translation is key and an important intellectual process and product of the CIDOC CRM community in its own right. The formulation of open, transparent and regular protocols and processes for creating a translation would thus be a crucial groundwork to lay out in order to give the appropriate support and weight to the translation efforts of the CIDOC CRM semantic data community. At present, a search of the website (using the website search tools) returns only one article regarding translation. It is an issue from 2002 ( http://www.cidoc-crm.org/Issue/ID-58-how-to-organize-the-translation-of-the-model) on how to organize the translation of the CIDOC CRM. It would seem then that there is a need to pick up this issue again and address its various aspects (especially given the phenomenal growth of the CIDOC CRM uptake and the spread of its use to different linguistic communities around the world). It seems prudent therefore to communallly create a formulation of guidelines for translation best practice and, separately, open and explicit protocols for submission and acceptance of CIDOC CRM translations, to be developed and put into action by the community. The spirit of the guidelines and protocols should be to make a transparent space for engaging in this important work and understanding its relation to the overall CIDOC CRM community effort. It should aim to support existing translation efforts and provide an obvious, open and transparent path for additional translation efforts. Of consideration for inclusion in these guidelines and protocols are the following topics: Protocol for Starting an Official Translation Who can start an official translation, are there any preconditions? Protocol for Accepting an Official Translation What are the criteria for accepting a translation as official? When do the translated classes and properties pass into the serializations? Is there recognition of the translating group in the serialization (for the respective translation element) Recommended Tools for Supporting Translation Are there any tools recommended for supporting translation? Any recommended methods? Networks of Support (Community of Translation Projects) The translation of the CIDOC CRM is the translation of an aimed for neutral ontological description of CH data. The translation of the standard requires a creative effort to understand and elucidate the conceptual objects specified in the ontology. Given the complexity of this effort involving philosophical, computer science and cultural heritage specific knowledge, the process can be quite challenging. Sharing experiences across language translations may help eludicate problems in understanding the standard or finding useful philosophic correlate expressions in different languages. Do/can we facilitate a place of exchange on these topics? Means of Approaching (Ontological Translation Methodology) Are there better or worse methods for approaching the translation task as such? E.g.: should one translate classes and properties from E1 to En, P1 to Pn or should one follow the ontological hierarchy? What are key terms that might best be approached first in order to support the general translation? (E.g.: Space Time Volume?) Change Management - Version Compare What is the best way to manage iteration between version and efficient translation? (don’t want to retranslate all if possible) Place of Publication of Translation and Level of Recognition Where are official translations published? Are they sufficiently visible? What is their relation to serializations? Copyright Issues Under what copyright should translations be made? Infrastructure to Support Publication / Promotion of Translations Is there any? Should there be any? Template for Translators’ Introduction The translation work in itself is another intellectual work which requires many important choices and requires the introduction of an interpretation of meaning and sense. A translator’s introduction then would be important in order to convey important decisions and methodological choices. Should this be standardized? The above represents a first set of ideas. I propose we have a general discussion of this question and see if there is interest and capacity in the membership to create such guidelines and protocols. Sincerely, George
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