Crowdsourcing Used in Higher Education: An Empirical Study on a Sustainable Translation Teaching Mode Based on Crowdsourced Translation

Min Zhang,Zhiyun Huang

doi:10.3390/su14063140

Abstract

The language service industry needs more qualified translators. The training of qualified translators needs innovation of translation teaching mode. The combination of crowdsourcing and translation teaching can realize the innovation of translation teaching mode. This study developed an empirical study in which such quantitative and qualitative methods are conducted as classroom observation, case analysis, translation quality analysis, questionnaire survey, and email interviews. Participants in the study included university students registered in the English and Translation degrees in Chinese universities. Statistical analyses were carried out with IBM Statistical Package for Social Sciences (IBM SPSS 26). Validation of the survey instruments, descriptive statistics, and group comparisons were all accomplished. The results demonstrate that the integration of crowdsourcing with translation teaching worked well. The mode has positive significance for exploring learner autonomy, stimulating students’ motivation, improving students’ translation ability, and training qualified translators. The mode is of sustainable value, with the development of AI-driven machine translation technology, and the innovation of translation teaching mode is significant for professional translator training. This mode of translation teaching based on crowdsourcing has a certain reference value for the cultivation of high-quality language service talents and the construction of a new mode of personnel training in the language service industry.

Highlights

Alongside the rapid technological changes due to Web 2.0, a need for a sustainable mechanism to train qualified language service talents is crucial to support the sustainable development of societies, cultural exchanges, and educational innovation
The purpose of this research is to discover whether the proposed mode of crowdsourced translation teaching works well for Master of Translation and Interpreting (MTI) students in Chinese universities, and how effective and sustainable this new teaching mode could be
Through online questionnaires and email interviews, the participants all found it meaningful to participate in this type of translation research and had a deeper understanding of the comparison between the traditional translation teaching mode and the crowdsourced translation teaching mode

Summary

Introduction

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2016–2031, defined by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), identify technical and vocational education and training as a strategy for the development of sustainable societies. Alongside the rapid technological changes due to Web 2.0, a need for a sustainable mechanism to train qualified language service talents is crucial to support the sustainable development of societies, cultural exchanges, and educational innovation. The concept of crowdsourcing was first used by Jeff Howe [1], a journalist for the American computer magazine Wired, in an article entitled “The Rise of Crowdsourcing”. It mainly refers to “the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee) and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call [2].”.

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