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A Framework to Describe Localisation Services for Automatic Selection of
Optimum Service(s) Facilitating the Dynamic Execution of Workflow
Naoto Nishio, Dr. Ian O’Keeffe, J.J. Collins, Reinhard Schäler
Centre for Next Generation Localisation,
Localisation Research Centre,
Department of Computer Sciences and Information Systems,
University of Limerick, Ireland
{Naoto.Nishio, Ian.Okeeffe, J.J.Collins, Reinhard.Schaler}@ul.ie
Abstract
This research is about localisation service
description facilitating automatic service selection. This
work is motivated by research in localisation supporting
Software as a Service (SaaS) concept that integrates
Natural Language Processing (NLP) across specialised
services to enhance productivity of localisation process
[3][5]. Machine translation (MT) services, for example,
are evidence of localisation web services.
Localisation is a process that supports a product to
be recognised globally. It is a business process that
adds value to the products by transforming products
with specific requirements of the target market. The
Localization Industry Standard Association (LISA)
defines localisation as follows: “Localization is the
process of modifying products or services to account
for differences in distinct markets”. The classical
definition of a typical localisation workflow is found in
[1] and Esselink defines the seventeen steps in the
process starting from Pre-sales and ending with Project
Closure.
The recent evolution and the penetration of digital
technologies consequently have led to a growing
demand for localisation. Localisation faces increasing
volume of digital content, widening markets and
various modes of representation of content.
Localisation business processes needs to move
towards full automation as currently it requires frequent
human intervention. This influences cost, performance
and quality of services [2][4].
The description of services for service selection
becomes the immediate and essential step. The selection
of available services is currently dependant on manual
search by skilled professionals to deal with
‘peculiarities’ pertaining for each service [4]. This
arises shifting from the development of bespoke
services to selecting services in the cloud.
The authors’ experience of integrating MT services
on the Web for the translation process in a localisation
workflow demonstrates the manually intensive nature
of selection and integration of MT services. Moreover
available MT services currently do not provide
descriptions in a standard manner allowing users to
select in order to meet the demand. Process
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optimisation and automation requires a unified service
description which specifies what a service does and
how it is provided. Therefore, the specification of
service descriptors becomes important as well as
methods for filling in the description.
Functional and non-functional requirements capture
what the software must do to meet the user needs. The
taxonomies in this field provide a theoretical foundation
for the categorisation of functional and non-functional
attributes of services.
Attributes of current software-based localisation
services will be analysed and categorized based on the
taxonomy of requirements to form a basis for
localisation service description. The service attributes
of localisation then forms the descriptors which can be
used to select the optimum services.
The question is: is it possible to facilitate automated
selection of localisation services through the provision
of a descriptor that supports functional and nonfunctional
service attributes?
2. References
[1] Esselink, B. (2000) A Practical Guide To Software
Localization vol. 4 ed., Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John
Benjamins B.V.
[2] Flinter, J. (2003) A J2EE based Localization Services
Architecture, June, available:
ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/software/globalization/documents/j
2ee_lsa.pdf [accessed 11/Feb/2011].
[3] Lewis, D., Curran, S., Feeney, K., Etzioni, Z., Keeney, J.,
Way, A. and Schäler, R. (2009) Web service integration for
next generation localisation. Proceedings of the Workshop on
Software Engineering Testing, and Quality Assurance For
Natural Language Processing, Boulder, Colorado, June 05-05
2009, ACL Workshops. Association for Computational
Linguistics, Morristown, NJ, 47-55.
[4] van der Meer, J. (2002) Impact of Translation Web
Services, Localisation Focus 1(2) 9-11.
[5] van Genabith, J. (2009) Next Generation Localisation,
Localisation Focus, 8(1), 4-10.
Acknowledgments:
This research is supported by the Science
Foundation Ireland (Grant 07/CE/I1142) as part of the
Centre for Next Generation Localisation (www.cngl.ie)
at University of Limerick.