What is ISO 17316:2018?

ISO 17316:2018 is a technical standard that provides guidelines for the specifications and use of computerized translation tools, focusing on machine translation (MT) systems. This standard aims to ensure consistent and high-quality translations by establishing minimum requirements for MT systems.

Understanding the Purpose

The primary purpose of ISO 17316:2018 is to promote effective communication and facilitate linguistic diversity in various fields including commerce, administration, and education. By defining quality criteria and testing methods for MT systems, this standard helps users evaluate their performance and make informed decisions about their implementation.

Key Components of the Standard

ISO 17316:2018 covers several aspects related to MT systems:

System requirements: The standard outlines the necessary software and hardware specifications for MT systems, ensuring compatibility and efficient performance.

Translation process: It defines the steps involved in the translation process, including data preparation, pre-processing, translation itself, post-processing, and evaluation.

Data resources: The standard emphasizes the importance of high-quality training and reference data, which feed the MT systems to improve translation accuracy.

Training and customization: ISO 17316:2018 provides guidelines for training MT systems and customizing them based on specific language pairs and domains.

Evaluation and measurement: The standard introduces methodologies for evaluating the quality of translations produced by MT systems, taking into account factors like fluency, adequacy, and error rates.

Benefits and Impact

ISO 17316:2018 plays a significant role in promoting the use of machine translation systems and improving their quality. Compliance with this standard can result in several benefits:

Consistency: Using ISO-compliant MT systems ensures consistent translation outputs, contributing to the overall coherence of multilingual content.

Efficiency: By automating the translation process, machine translation saves time and reduces costs compared to manual translation.

Productivity: With enhanced translation accuracy, professionals can work more efficiently, focusing on post-editing and fine-tuning instead of starting from scratch.

Linguistic diversity: ISO 17316:2018 encourages language inclusivity by facilitating access to information across different languages, cultures, and regions.

In conclusion, ISO 17316:2018 sets guidelines for the use of machine translation systems, ensuring quality and consistency in translations. Embracing this standard can have a positive impact on communication, efficiency, and linguistic diversity in various sectors.