Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Nigatu, Hellina Hailu, Canny, John, Chasins, Sarah E.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.16669
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866916261424791552
author Nigatu, Hellina Hailu
Canny, John
Chasins, Sarah E.
author_facet Nigatu, Hellina Hailu
Canny, John
Chasins, Sarah E.
contents Online Knowledge Repositories (OKRs) like Wikipedia offer communities a way to share and preserve information about themselves and their ways of living. However, for communities with low-resourced languages -- including most African communities -- the quality and volume of content available are often inadequate. One reason for this lack of adequate content could be that many OKRs embody Western ways of knowledge preservation and sharing, requiring many low-resourced language communities to adapt to new interactions. To understand the challenges faced by low-resourced language contributors on the popular OKR Wikipedia, we conducted (1) a thematic analysis of Wikipedia forum discussions and (2) a contextual inquiry study with 14 novice contributors. We focused on three Ethiopian languages: Afan Oromo, Amharic, and Tigrinya. Our analysis revealed several recurring themes; for example, contributors struggle to find resources to corroborate their articles in low-resourced languages, and language technology support, like translation systems and spellcheck, result in several errors that waste contributors' time. We hope our study will support designers in making online knowledge repositories accessible to low-resourced language speakers.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2405_16669
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Low-resourced Languages and Online Knowledge Repositories: A Need-Finding Study
Nigatu, Hellina Hailu
Canny, John
Chasins, Sarah E.
Human-Computer Interaction
Computation and Language
Online Knowledge Repositories (OKRs) like Wikipedia offer communities a way to share and preserve information about themselves and their ways of living. However, for communities with low-resourced languages -- including most African communities -- the quality and volume of content available are often inadequate. One reason for this lack of adequate content could be that many OKRs embody Western ways of knowledge preservation and sharing, requiring many low-resourced language communities to adapt to new interactions. To understand the challenges faced by low-resourced language contributors on the popular OKR Wikipedia, we conducted (1) a thematic analysis of Wikipedia forum discussions and (2) a contextual inquiry study with 14 novice contributors. We focused on three Ethiopian languages: Afan Oromo, Amharic, and Tigrinya. Our analysis revealed several recurring themes; for example, contributors struggle to find resources to corroborate their articles in low-resourced languages, and language technology support, like translation systems and spellcheck, result in several errors that waste contributors' time. We hope our study will support designers in making online knowledge repositories accessible to low-resourced language speakers.
title Low-resourced Languages and Online Knowledge Repositories: A Need-Finding Study
topic Human-Computer Interaction
Computation and Language
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.16669