Preliminary study of online machine translation use of nursing literature: quality evaluation and perceived usability

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Japanese nurses are increasingly required to read published international research in clinical, educational, and research settings. Language barriers are a significant obstacle, and online machine translation (MT) is a tool that can...

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Main Authors: Anazawa Ryoko, Ishikawa Hirono, Park MJ, Kiuchi Takahiro
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: BMC 2012-11-01
Series:BMC Research Notes
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.biomedcentral.com/1756-0500/5/635
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author Anazawa Ryoko
Ishikawa Hirono
Park MJ
Kiuchi Takahiro
author_facet Anazawa Ryoko
Ishikawa Hirono
Park MJ
Kiuchi Takahiro
author_sort Anazawa Ryoko
collection DOAJ
description <p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Japanese nurses are increasingly required to read published international research in clinical, educational, and research settings. Language barriers are a significant obstacle, and online machine translation (MT) is a tool that can be used to address this issue. We examined the quality of Google Translate® (English to Japanese and Korean to Japanese), which is a representative online MT, using a previously verified evaluation method. We also examined the perceived usability and current use of online MT among Japanese nurses.</p> <p>Findings</p> <p>Randomly selected nursing abstracts were translated and then evaluated for intelligibility and usability by 28 participants, including assistants and research associates from nursing universities throughout Japan. They answered a questionnaire about their online MT use. From simple comparison of mean scores between two language pairs, translation quality was significantly better, with respect to both intelligibility and usability, for Korean-Japanese than for English-Japanese. Most respondents perceived a language barrier. Online MT had been used by 61% of the respondents and was perceived as not useful enough.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Nursing articles translated from Korean into Japanese by an online MT system could be read at an acceptable level of comprehension, but the same could not be said for English-Japanese translations. Respondents with experience using online MT used it largely to grasp the overall meanings of the original text. Enrichment in technical terms appeared to be the key to better usability. Users will be better able to use MT outputs if they improve their foreign language proficiency as much as possible. Further research is being conducted with a larger sample size and detailed analysis.</p>
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spelling doaj.art-08db88d5b41a4800829824cf62e78fb92022-12-21T22:11:21ZengBMCBMC Research Notes1756-05002012-11-015163510.1186/1756-0500-5-635Preliminary study of online machine translation use of nursing literature: quality evaluation and perceived usabilityAnazawa RyokoIshikawa HironoPark MJKiuchi Takahiro<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Japanese nurses are increasingly required to read published international research in clinical, educational, and research settings. Language barriers are a significant obstacle, and online machine translation (MT) is a tool that can be used to address this issue. We examined the quality of Google Translate® (English to Japanese and Korean to Japanese), which is a representative online MT, using a previously verified evaluation method. We also examined the perceived usability and current use of online MT among Japanese nurses.</p> <p>Findings</p> <p>Randomly selected nursing abstracts were translated and then evaluated for intelligibility and usability by 28 participants, including assistants and research associates from nursing universities throughout Japan. They answered a questionnaire about their online MT use. From simple comparison of mean scores between two language pairs, translation quality was significantly better, with respect to both intelligibility and usability, for Korean-Japanese than for English-Japanese. Most respondents perceived a language barrier. Online MT had been used by 61% of the respondents and was perceived as not useful enough.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Nursing articles translated from Korean into Japanese by an online MT system could be read at an acceptable level of comprehension, but the same could not be said for English-Japanese translations. Respondents with experience using online MT used it largely to grasp the overall meanings of the original text. Enrichment in technical terms appeared to be the key to better usability. Users will be better able to use MT outputs if they improve their foreign language proficiency as much as possible. Further research is being conducted with a larger sample size and detailed analysis.</p>http://www.biomedcentral.com/1756-0500/5/635Online machine translationEvaluationUsabilityNursing literatureJapanese nurses
spellingShingle Anazawa Ryoko
Ishikawa Hirono
Park MJ
Kiuchi Takahiro
Preliminary study of online machine translation use of nursing literature: quality evaluation and perceived usability
BMC Research Notes
Online machine translation
Evaluation
Usability
Nursing literature
Japanese nurses
title Preliminary study of online machine translation use of nursing literature: quality evaluation and perceived usability
title_full Preliminary study of online machine translation use of nursing literature: quality evaluation and perceived usability
title_fullStr Preliminary study of online machine translation use of nursing literature: quality evaluation and perceived usability
title_full_unstemmed Preliminary study of online machine translation use of nursing literature: quality evaluation and perceived usability
title_short Preliminary study of online machine translation use of nursing literature: quality evaluation and perceived usability
title_sort preliminary study of online machine translation use of nursing literature quality evaluation and perceived usability
topic Online machine translation
Evaluation
Usability
Nursing literature
Japanese nurses
url http://www.biomedcentral.com/1756-0500/5/635
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