Working with Subject Matter Experts When Localizing Courses

Subject matter experts (SMEs) play a crucial role in e-learning localization, especially when your content contains specialized knowledge, technical terminology, or industry-specific practices that vary across regions. When localizing Articulate 360 courses, effective collaboration with SMEs ensures that your content remains technically accurate while being culturally appropriate for each target audience. By establishing clear communication channels and expectations with your SMEs, you'll create a partnership that improves the quality of your localized training without causing unnecessary delays.

Key Strategies for Working with Subject Matter Experts

• Define clear roles and responsibilities: Establish exactly what you need from your SMEs during the localization process. Are they reviewing for technical accuracy, cultural appropriateness, or both? Define what aspects of the Articulate courses they should focus on and what's outside their scope. This clarity helps SMEs understand their specific contribution and prevents them from spending time on areas that others will handle.
• Provide context about cultural adaptation: Brief your SMEs on localization principles, explaining that the goal is to create equivalent learning experiences, not identical courses. Help them understand that some content might need to be adapted rather than directly translated to achieve the same learning objectives in different cultural contexts. This context helps SMEs make better recommendations for their region.
• Create efficient review workflows: Develop streamlined processes for SMEs to provide input on your Articulate courses. Use language validation in Review 360 to allow them to comment directly on specific slides or blocks. The easier you make it for SMEs to contribute, the more likely they'll meet deadlines.
• Manage terminology effectively: Ask SMEs to help develop and validate glossaries of technical terms for each target language. Create a shared terminology database that captures the approved translations of key technical terms, ensuring consistency across all materials. This prevents confusion and reduces back-and-forth about terminology during the localization process.
• Schedule collaborative working sessions: For complex content or challenging cultural adaptations, schedule live working sessions where translators, instructional designers, and SMEs can work through issues together. These sessions are particularly valuable for technical Storyline interactions or specialized content where nuance matters. Real-time collaboration often solves problems that might take days to resolve through asynchronous communication.

Next Steps

1. Identify your SME needs: Determine what types of subject matter expertise you'll need for each language version of your courses.
2. Create SME guidelines: Develop a brief document explaining the localization process and what you need from your SMEs.
3. Build a diverse SME network: Start recruiting SMEs who have both technical knowledge and cultural understanding of your target regions.
4. Plan your communication strategy: Determine how and when you'll engage SMEs throughout your localization workflow.
5. Develop feedback templates: Create structured formats for SMEs to provide input, helping them give you exactly what you need without extraneous information.

Summary

Effective collaboration with subject matter experts is essential for creating localized e-learning that is both technically accurate and culturally relevant. By defining clear roles, providing context about cultural adaptation, creating efficient review workflows, managing terminology, and scheduling collaborative working sessions, you'll maximize the value SMEs bring to your localization projects. This thoughtful approach to SME partnerships ensures that your localized Articulate 360 courses maintain their educational integrity across all language versions while respecting regional differences in practices and terminology. Remember that your SMEs are valuable allies in the localization process—their expertise helps bridge the gap between languages and ensures your training achieves its objectives in every target market.