Opening the doors to learning (2)

YYeTs is one of a handful of subtitling groups working on online courses. The earliest volunteer group dedicated to translating courses into Chinese was the Opensource Opencourseware Prototype System (OOPS), based in Taiwan.

When Chu Hsueh Heng started OOPS in 2004, however, many academics believed that top-quality courses required professional translators.

"Almost all the academic guys out there said: 'You are ruining the whole idea of open courseware, the whole beautiful idea of higher education,' " he recalls.

Today the attitude of universities is very different, largely because the general public has welcomed volunteer translation for its speed, efficiency and quality of work. The subtitling groups have also developed their own ways of ensuring accuracy, including volunteer editors and proofreaders who have translation experience.

OOPS is now formally partnered with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has received recognition from schools like Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Utah State University.

While Yale has not entered into any official partnerships, Professor Diana E.E. Kleiner, who directs Open Yale Courses, says the university is "very much in favor of partnering with institutions and delighted that volunteers have also emerged to support the translation effort".

Volunteer groups like OOPS are not only helping with translation, but also thinking about how open courseware can benefit educators.


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