Title: Multilingual group support system comprehension sufficiency

Authors: Milam Aiken; Mina Park; Tobin Lindblom; John Wee

Addresses: Management Information Systems, School of Business Administration, University of Mississippi, P.O. Box 1848, University, MS 38677, USA ' Management Information Systems, School of Business, Northern State University, 1200 S. Jay Street, Aberdeen, SD 57401, USA ' Management Information Systems, School of Business, Northern State University, 1200 S. Jay Street, Aberdeen, SD 57401, USA ' Management Information Systems, School of Business Administration, University of Mississippi, P.O. Box 1848, University, MS 38677, USA

Abstract: This paper describes a new agent-based group support system for the effective facilitation of multilingual meetings. Designated Polyglot, the system allows group members to exchange typed comments in any of 57 languages with translations supplied automatically via Google Translate within a few seconds. An example of its use by undergraduate students in the USA exchanging comments in English that were automatically translated to German and Korean demonstrates the software’s potential. Two objective evaluators rated the relevant comment comprehension as 93.2% in German and 71.2% in Korean. Based upon an analysis of a back-translated Test of English as a Foreign Language examination, the former accuracy is considered adequate for a college-level group discussion, while the latter is not.

Keywords: comprehension; electronic meeting systems; GSSs; group support systems; machine translation; multilingual meetings; language translations; undergraduate students; higher education; USA; United States; English; German; Korean.

DOI: 10.1504/IJIOME.2011.042666

International Journal of Information and Operations Management Education, 2011 Vol.4 No.2, pp.146 - 162

Received: 19 Oct 2010
Accepted: 12 Feb 2011
Published online: 07 Feb 2015 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article