The breakout of the COVID-19 pandemic almost completely changed the face of education. Online courses and e-learning content have now become an established method to pursue one’s studies and are gaining even more popularity around the world. When having to stay indoors for months during the pandemic, students and employees turned to online education. In no time, they could better recognize the key benefits of reaching knowledge anytime and anywhere.
Online learning removes spatial-temporal limitations. Accessibility and reachability within the edtech space are broader issues. It has important implications for content creation in multiple languages. While the boom in the number of learning content creators and e-learning platforms continues, it’s becoming harder to differentiate among competitors. Applying the best practices to offer engaging and easy-to-grasp content can only be the first step.
Nuri Murat Avcı, the founder of House of Human and a VUCA leader, knew well what’d be the next step: dubbing his insightful content into other languages to reach global learners. Nuri Murat Avcı told us:
I was quite surprised by the quality of the English voice-over narration used in my videos on VUCA. A perfect harmony between Artificial Intelligence and Human’s Effort. Creating engaging dubbing and voice-over in multiple languages is a serious challenge that keeps you from branching out globally. Ollang’s strategic planning and well-rounded roadmap for overcoming difficulties around dubbing get you one step closer to the world…
The market seems to have reached a saturation point, so you may think that the learning material you create with long hours of research and effort has a short lifespan while the trends are on a non-stop evolution. What if we suggested that you could maximize the value you get from your “existing” content? By localizing your course and e-learning materials into multiple languages, you can grow your global outreach and offer learners a more personalized learning experience in their own language.
Avcı was reading our newsletter when an article about AI-automated and human-powered dubbing solutions that we offer for Olabs users caught his attention. So he decided to pivot his localization strategy by trusting Ollang.
The partnership between Ollang and Murat Avcı went beyond three years even before the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, mostly in the form of document translation. When pandemic-related restrictions kept him and his learners from being physically present in a traditional classroom setting, he switched to the well-known e-learning platform Udemy. To create engaging courses that were universally inclusive and embracing, Avcı wanted to localize its content. However, the medium he was using now was video, and two effective ways to bring his spoken content to the world was through subtitles and dubbing.
He began experimenting with a subscription-based AI-dubbing tool that was ineffective at streamlining various cycles of localization.The tool did not cover the translation process, thus leading to a need for Avcı to undertake translation himself or find different vendors to assign the translation project. Moreover, the dubbed version was not bereft of problems such as overlapping voices and dischronies and needed a further editing process in most cases.
Avcı has been lecturing about VUCA and its implications for the globalized world for years. He has a deep understanding of and experience in getting his insights across to his students in Turkish. We had to ensure that the valuable materials he entrusted us with would be translated into English with the same level of accuracy and clarity. Choosing the best English equivalents for specific terms and finding creative solutions to compensate for the differences between subject-related concepts in two different languages were demanding.
Our project managers worked with Ollang’s seasoned translators, who were especially experienced in the subject matter, to get machine-translated content checked and edited.
The material was terminologically tricky; however, machine translation fastened the process and provided our human translators with raw material, which they refined and edited to the highest standard.
Our AI-dubbing tool, which merges technology and human touch, picked up the right voice for the project. We used a voice-over style for the project because this worked much better for learning materials by keeping the instructor’s voice in the background. This increased the learner’s engagement and made information easily accessible.
We localized 70 individual audio files totaling 70 minutes thanks to Ollang’s AI-powered dubbing solution. The project, which had been in the pipeline for months, was localized, including the translation, quality check, and dubbing processes, within only one week.
The result was considerably satisfactory. See it for yourself in this short video.
Ollang is an end-to-end localization solution provider. We interconnect mechanisms between workflows for video closed-captioning, subtitling, and dubbing. Olabs comes with three essential cloud-based dashboards:
We believe in the power of technology to democratize the media. A close collaboration between Artificial Intelligence and human mind promises scalable and high-quality localization processes. The automated versions are always checked and shaped by human translators and language professionals. The final outcome is delivered through an AI-automated, cloud-based platform.
We launched an online, free-of-charge course for translators and linguists so that they can assess their skills and train themselves on becoming an AI Dubber at Ollang. As the number of talented AI Dubbers increases, so will the level of accuracy and quality of our dubbing services. Technology can be used to optimize every aspect of our lives, and it is essential to overcoming the language barrier and creating “borderless” media.
To speak realistically, AI technologies have limitations too, just as every technology does. That’s why we will always involve human translators in the loop and trust their talents, creative solutions, and experience. When powered by humans, the use of AI in localization will feel more reliable, and we’ll see video streaming platforms such as Netflix and e-learning services such as LinkedIn Learning and Udemy increasingly investing more in AI subtitling and dubbing. This will enable them to handle the high content demands without compromising quality.
Today’s content owners, including e-learning providers, TV broadcasters, video streaming platforms, and content creators, need to reach global audiences in a seamless way. Localizing content personalizes viewing experiences by allowing people to engage with the content in their native language.
As Ollang, we’re on your side to take on your next challenge and offer smarter and more scalable ways of working. Get started at Olabs or book a consultation with us.
