Same shit, new wrapping – or? On the termwiki of The Language Council of Norway Jan Hoel. Språkrådet VII EAFT Terminology Summit. Barcelona, 27-28 november 2014

1. Same shit, new wrapping – or?
On the termwiki of The Language Council of
Norway – http://www.termwiki.sprakradet.no/
VII Terminology Summit – Barcelona, November 27th–28th 2014
Jan Hoel
November 28th

2. VII Terminology Summit in Barcelona – Jan Hoel, November 28th
Same shit, new wrapping – or? On the termwiki of The Language Council of Norway
2
 In 2010 the Terminology Service of the Language Council
decided to find out whether a term base could successfully be
developed on a MediaWiki platform
 The work was done externally, and the first version was rather
primitive
 In a revamp operation two years later, new and better
functionality was added using Semantic Forms
 Semantic Forms are an extension to MediaWiki that allows
users to add, edit and query data using forms instead of HTML
encoding
 So far there is not a lot of content in our termwiki, but then
again, we were never all that preoccupied with getting as much
content as possible
 Our primary concern was to find out if traditional and sound
terminology methods could be safeguarded in a MediaWiki
solution

3. VII Terminology Summit in Barcelona – Jan Hoel, November 28th
Same shit, new wrapping – or? On the termwiki of The Language Council of Norway
3
The main topic of this Summit: How does social networking affect
terminology work? What exactly is ”social networking”?
Three essential characteristics:
 web-based
 allows users to interact over the Internet
 allows users to share information, knowledge, ideas,
pictures, posts, activities, events, interests with
others in a network

4. VII Terminology Summit in Barcelona – Jan Hoel, November 28th
Same shit, new wrapping – or? On the termwiki of The Language Council of Norway
4
Our main concern and challenge has been: How open and ”social” do
we want the termwiki to be?
QUESTION:
Does our termwiki satisfy the characteristics of social networking?
ANSWER:
Only to a certain extent: Everybody can conduct searches in the
content, but in order to enter or edit terms one must ”apply” for a user
account (user name and password).

5. VII Terminology Summit in Barcelona – Jan Hoel, November 28th
Same shit, new wrapping – or? On the termwiki of The Language Council of Norway
5
So – is it ”Same shit, new wrapping?”
Not quite:
 Freely accessible for searches on the Internet,
(but entering and editing terms still requires a user account)
 Web crawlers index the term entries (i.e. concepts) as ”pages”, which
facilitates search hits on the Internet, also using Google
 ”Talk (discussion)” tab accessible – also for users without a user account
 ”View history” log for every term entry, showing all revisions
 Three types of user with user account: editor, project manager, administrator
(= the Language Council)
 Allows work in projects supervised over the Internet (editors and project
manager)
 Our own feature: from every term entry it is possible to send a pre-addressed
e-mail directly to an individual or a project manager
 In every term entry it is possible to explain editing carried out

6. VII Terminology Summit in Barcelona – Jan Hoel, November 28th
Same shit, new wrapping – or? On the termwiki of The Language Council of Norway
6
STATUS:
• Almost 1,300 authoritative term entries (i.e. concepts)
• Divided between four projects:
 ICT terms (standing ICT working group of the Language Council)
 Road terminology (The Norwegian Public Roads Administration)
 Chemical terminology in the higher education sector (the Language
Council and university academic staff)
 Protection of privacy terms (The Norwegian Data Protection Authority)
• There will be more projects and concepts added next year

7. VII Terminology Summit in Barcelona – Jan Hoel, November 28th
Same shit, new wrapping – or? On the termwiki of The Language Council of Norway
1
2
3
4
7

8. VII Terminology Summit in Barcelona – Jan Hoel, November 28th
Same shit, new wrapping – or? On the termwiki of The Language Council of Norway
8

9. VII Terminology Summit in Barcelona – Jan Hoel, November 28th
Same shit, new wrapping – or? On the termwiki of The Language Council of Norway
9

10. VII Terminology Summit in Barcelona – Jan Hoel, November 28th
Same shit, new wrapping – or? On the termwiki of The Language Council of Norway
10

11. VII Terminology Summit in Barcelona – Jan Hoel, November 28th
Same shit, new wrapping – or? On the termwiki of The Language Council of Norway
11

12. VII Terminology Summit in Barcelona – Jan Hoel, November 28th
Same shit, new wrapping – or? On the termwiki of The Language Council of Norway
12

13. VII Terminology Summit in Barcelona – Jan Hoel, November 28th
Same shit, new wrapping – or? On the termwiki of The Language Council of Norway
13

14. VII Terminology Summit in Barcelona – Jan Hoel, November 28th
Same shit, new wrapping – or? On the termwiki of The Language Council of Norway
14
1
3
4
2

15. VII Terminology Summit in Barcelona – Jan Hoel, November 28th
Same shit, new wrapping – or? On the termwiki of The Language Council of Norway
15

16. VII Terminology Summit in Barcelona – Jan Hoel, November 28th
Same shit, new wrapping – or? On the termwiki of The Language Council of Norway
16

17. VII Terminology Summit in Barcelona – Jan Hoel, November 28th
Same shit, new wrapping – or? On the termwiki of The Language Council of Norway
17
Takk for oppmerksomheten!
Gràcies per la seva atenció
¡Gracias por su atención!
Merci pour votre attention!
Thank you for your attention!
http://www.termwiki.sprakradet.no/