Bilingual information systems (English and local language)
Information Systems (IS) are an extremely important aspect of any properly organized institution, academic institutions in particular. As its components collect, store, organize, and distribute data throughout the organization, it could be said that in order to get acquainted with an institution, one has to have access to its information system. However, most academic institutions possess information systems in their country's official language. Due to that fact, international PhD students, academic, and management staff members may find it difficult to understand the data.
Goals
Improved access to information Improved quality of service
Basic information
| Categories | Language Support, Language Policy Institutional Processes |
|---|---|
| Mobility stages | Institutional setup |
| Delivery schedule | Continuous |
| Importance | Essential to have |
| Scale of organizational change |  |
| Target groups | R2 - R4 researchers PhD student/Early career researcher Lecturers (incl. Language Teachers) |
|---|---|
| Types of contracts of researchers | Visiting scholar Employee in training (interns, research fellows, postdocs) Full degree student |
| Career stages of researchers | 3-10 years of experience |
| Lengths of stays of researchers | More than 12 months 6-12 months |
Practice setup
The setting up activities should be the following:
- first of all, the hardware that the international PhD students, academic, and management staff members can use should be available in both the local language and in English, so that they would be able to access any data that they may need,
- softwares usually come in both the local language and English, so it could be easy for international PhD students, academic, and management staff members to be able to find where to switch to their desired language,
- when it comes to data that international PhD students, academic, and management staff members can access within an information system of the welcoming institution, the data which can be shared with them should be translated into English.
Challenges (factors to consider): native speakers of both the local language and English should be engaged in proofreading the information included in the IS.
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@EURAXESS centre can help the welcoming institutions by instructing them on which data can be useful for international PhD students, academic, and management staff members, thus specifying the data which needs to be translated.
Practice delivery
The delivery activities include:
- on an institutional level, hardware with both the local language and English should be obtained.
- next, IT departments in collaboration with the language departments should work on translating the software aspects necessary for data access, as well as translating data which can be useful for international PhD students, academic, and management staff members.
Challenges (factors to consider): the data should be continuously updated.
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@EURAXESS centre is contacted and informed about the translation and availability of the information systems in both the local language and English.
Examples of practice
Bilingual IS
So far, the existing ISs mostly focus on webpages which are available in the local language and English as well. However, in case people want to switch between languages, they are taken to another page, instead of having the information in both languages in one place.