Translating for Canada, eh

Developing Open Educational Resources to support translation into Canadian English and French

The COVID-19 pandemic has introduced numerous challenges to higher education, but it has also presented opportunities, such as encouraging the creation and use of Open Educational Resources (OER). The term OER was first introduced by UNESCO in 2002 to describe teaching, learning and research materials that are released under an open license that allows others to access, use, adapt and redistribute these materials for no cost and with few or no restrictions. However, the health, economic and workload impacts of the pandemic have really highlighted the value of making more OER available. 

Some of the benefits that OER can offer to students, instructors, institutions, and society include:

• cost savings (makes education more affordable for students and makes the most of public investments);
• improved access (fosters more inclusive and equitable education);
• reduced workload (permits instructors to re-use or adapt what is already there instead of reinventing the wheel);
• quick dissemination and ease of updates (enables continuous updates to ensure currency of information);
• promotion of lifelong learning (supports professional development).

In 2020, I was awarded one of the University of Ottawa Library’s OER grants. My goal was to develop a bilingual OER to introduce a range of free online tools that can be used to support translation into Canadian English and Canadian French.

Many language resources exist, but the vast majority of these focus on the more well-known varieties, such as US or British English and European varieties of French. Canadians know that our own varieties of English and French are different, but when it comes to well-known resources, such as the Oxford English Dictionary or Le Petit Robert, Canadian content is often underrepresented.

As a translator trainer, I must equip the next generation of language professionals with the skills they need to translate for Canadians. There are relevant tools and resources out there, but information about them is partial and scattered, and they are often overshadowed by resources for the more dominant varieties of English and French. The OER Translating for Canada, eh? is intended to fill the gap. 

Developed as an ebook on the open book creation platform Pressbooks, Translating for Canada, eh? presents free online tools and resources, including term banks, bilingual concordancers, tools for comparing language varieties, machine translation tools, and language portals. In each case, the tools and resources that are presented have a distinctly Canadian flavour to help translators craft texts in Canadian English and French. For each tool or resource, there is a practical exercise to get you started.

The reaction to Translating for Canada, eh? has been phenomenal! Since its release in the Fall 2021 session, the English version has attracted more than 2000 unique visitors and over 6000 page views, while the French version has received more than 1600 visitors and over 4500 page views. This suggests that there is a real need for and appreciation of OER by students and educators alike. The resource has been indexed in numerous OER catalogues, such as OER Commons, MERLOT, and eCampusOntario’s Open Library, making it easy for others to find. In addition to being used by students at the University of Ottawa, it has also been adopted at Carleton University, University of Alberta, University of Toronto, York University, Concordia University, McGill University, Université de Montréal and Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières. Meanwhile, the team at Pressbooks identified Translating for Canada, eh? as one of their favourite Pressbooks of 2021.

Unexpectedly, the OER has also proved to be popular outside the academic community. While it was initially conceived as a resource for students, the OER has been well received by professional translators, who see it as a useful professional development resource, and by Canadians more broadly, many of whom need to translate between English and French on an informal basis – a situation that undoubtedly applies right here at the University of Ottawa. The Government of Canada’s Translation Bureau has included Translating for Canada, eh? as part of their Collection of Canadian language resources on the Language Portal of Canada, helping to raise awareness about this resource in the non-academic community.

Creating this OER has been a wholly positive experience, and I benefited greatly from the support offered by Open Education Librarian Mélanie Brunet and by training opportunities offered by the Teaching and Learning Support Service. It is my hope that Translating for Canada, eh? will not only provide practical support to bilingual students, faculty and staff at the University of Ottawa and elsewhere but will also inspire the creation of additional OER by and for the uOttawa community.

Lynne Bowker is a Full Professor at the School of Translation and Interpretation, where she is currently directing the SSHRC-funded Machine Translation Literacy Project that seeks to raise awareness about the responsible use of machine translation tools, such as Google Translate or DeepL Translator. A member of the Royal Society of Canada, she has published widely on translation technologies and authored two key textbooks in the field. She participates actively in several communities of practice at the University of Ottawa, including the Educational Games Group (EGG), which investigates ways of integrating game-based learning into courses, the OER CoP, which supports the creation and adoption of OER, and the uOttawa Teaching and Learning Community Slack Channel, which provides a forum where professors and staff can exchange ideas, tips, suggestions or comments about teaching and learning.