Victoria’s Experience Constructing the Architecture of the University of Oregon Digital Translation Project

Pile of books next to white notebook with pen

Digital project translation is working on a project that needs to be versatile with the new platform. It is to translate the metadata from one platform into another platform based on the language that the other platform required. Digital project translation is more than transferring metadata from one platform to another platform. It is about the adaptation to different platforms. Changes can be difficult; however, by learning the language that these platforms require, it will be easy to translate the contents from one platform to another. It is similar to the idea that when one travels to another country, they have to adapt to that country’s culture and tradition despite they are still the same person. Even though the language might not be the same, the same message is still being sent across different languages. This project reminds me of when I first learned English and translated it to my native language. Even though learning a new language and digital project translation might not be the same, I still think that I can relate to it with the learning of a new language. Learning a new language requires a lot of effort. In order to interpret the language correctly from one to another, I need to understand the new language first. This project required me to understand the Spotlight language and the functions that it offers first for me to be able to translate from drupal platforms. With the same metadata that is located in one platform, it has to be translated in the way that it can be easily read by Spotlight. In this project, my work processes included several steps. In order to compile all of the metadata from Drupal in one place, I transferred the metadata into a spreadsheet. In the spreadsheet, it contained detailed metadata that can easily translate into Spotlight. In addition to transferring the metadata, I identified the images from Drupal on Oregon Digital. Oregon Digital is the collection of digital works to support teaching and research. These images have pre-existed information that would be transferred into Spotlight. Since not all of the images from Drupal exist on Oregon Digital, I had to download the images from Drupal and upload them into Spotlight. When I upload the images, I have to input all the metadata that I obtained in the spreadsheet. Since the contents on Drupal varies, different categories need to be implemented into the Spotlight based on different layouts. Since Spotlight offers limited layout designs, the final project does not look similar to the original website; however, in the Spotlight, most of the contents are successfully translated from Drupal. Spotlight is a great platform to have digital works to be displayed in exhibit style. In order to not leave out any metadata, I have to transfer and store the metadata before I interpret it on another platform. These intermediate steps are required to be able to translate the project at the end. The project has to transcribe the contents into one place and then translate the contents to different required language that another platform is set up with. In conclusion, digital translation project is the way to interpret the data from one site to another site.

Image Credit: Pile Of Books by Debby Hudson

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