Service-Oriented Localisation Architecture Solution

The Service-Oriented Localisation Architecture Solution, or SOLAS /ˈsɒləs/, enables the global conversation in communities and is an open source project of The Rosetta Foundation.

This article is about the Service-Oriented Localisation Architecture Solution. For other uses of the abbreviation SOLAS, see SOLAS.

History

SOLAS was conceived at The Rosetta Foundation Design Fest in San Francisco, 5–6 February 2011. The original design was further developed as an open translation and localisation space at the Localisation Research Centre (LRC) at the University of Limerick (UL) in Ireland, part-financed by the Centre for Next Generation Localisation (CNGL), a Centre for Science, Engineering and Technology (CSET), supported by Science Foundation Ireland (SFI),[1] the Irish Governments research funding agency, and industry partners. A YouTube video was published on 18 February 2011.[2] SOLAS was demonstrated at the AGIS (Action for Global Information Sharing) event in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in December 2011.

ORM design principles

The SOLAS Design is based on the ORM Design Principles: O-pen (easy to join and to participate), R-ight (serve the right task to the right volunteer), and M-inimalistic (crisp, clear, uncluttered). SOLAS consists of SOLAS Match (matching projects and volunteers) and SOLAS Productivity (as suite of translation productivity tools and language resources). The ORM Design Principles guiding the design of SOLAS were introduced by Reinhard Schäler, Director LRC at the University of Limerick, Ireland, at the LRC XVII – Social Localisation event and at TM-Europe (Warsaw, 4–5 October 2012).[3]

Open source and open standards

SOLAS Match has been released under an open source GPL license and can be downloaded from the SOLAS web page. SOLAS has implemented open standards developed by the localisation community in OASIS (XLIFF)[4] and the W3C (ITS).[5]

SOLAS architecture

SOLAS is made up of SOLAS Match and SOLAS Productivity.

SOLAS Match

SOLAS Match is an open translation and localisation space that allow individuals with translation skills to find and download translation tasks in an intuitive and extremely user-friendly way; it also allows communities with translation requirements to upload translation tasks. SOLAS Match has been used by The Rosetta Foundation very successfully in a number of pilot projects.

SOLAS Productivity

SOLAS Productivity supports the work of individuals working on translation tasks by offering them an easy to use translation environment and access to language and linguistic resources. SOLAS Productivity currently consists of six components, all sharing an XLIFF-based[6] common data layer:

  • Workflow Recommender (workflow optimisation)
  • Localisation Knowledge Repository (source language checking)
  • XLIFF Phoenix (re-use of metadata)
  • MT-Mapper (identification of suitable MT engine)
  • LocConnect (orchestration of components)

People

Contributors

At the University of Limerick:

  • Asanka Wasala
  • Aram Morera Mesa
  • Chris Exton
  • Jim Buckley
  • J.J. Collins
  • Lucia Morado
  • Naoto Nishio
  • Reinhard Schäler
  • Solomon Gizaw

References
  1. Science Foundation Ireland (SFI)
  2. YouTube video
  3. Schäler, R. (2012). Trends in Localisation. TM-Europe. Warsaw, Poland, 4–5 October 2012.
  4. OASIS (2008). XLIFF 1.2 Specification (XML-based Localisation Interchange File Format). http://docs.oasis-open.org/xliff/xliff-core/xliff-core.html (last visited 30 November 2012).
  5. World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) (2012). Internationalization Tag Set (ITS) Version 2.0. W3C Working Draft 23 October 2012. http://www.w3.org/TR/2012/WD-its20-20121023/ (last visited 20 November 2012).
  6. Morado Vázquez, L. and Lieske, C. (2010) First XLIFF Symposium. In MultiLingual, December Issue, p. 8.
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