Networking, personal learning, and crowdsourcing of terminology work,
are among the most effective usages of social media for terminology.
1) Networking: "Do what you love, love what
you do... And then SHARE"
Apart from expanding contacts and networking, terminologists can use
social networks to get established as professionals who solve terminology
problems. They can, for example, research and ask questions to followers and
establishing their expertise by answering questions. Social networks make it
also easier to improve collaboration with experts to validate terminology and
getting feedback and contribution to the terminology work.
Social media and blogs enable us to easily focus on the latest
news and trends on terminology, providing us with regular updates.
- Social
networks, if properly used, can be effectively used to find terminological
resources.
- Blogs
are useful to provide own opinions, reflections and for being an optimal
environment for discussing different point of view.
- Twitter and Google Plus help us disseminate information, get visibility, link to useful information, follow interesting conferences we cannot attend through live-tweeting updates and live streaming (Periscope, Snapchat, Facebook live streaming).
2) Personal Learning Environment: "I am the owner of my learning"
Conscious strategies are involved by using social networks as
technological tools to gain access to knowledge. 'Heutagogy' is the
neologism hat fully embodies this new approach to technology mediated self
education. It means, "I am the owner of my learning at the knowledge
society".
3) Crowdsourcing terminology work: "Trust the network - it probably knows more
than you do".
Since terminology work is expensive, why not involve the crowd to create
and validate terminology? The crowd can help with coining new terms or names,
vote for term name suggestions, comment on terminological entries. The crowd
cannot do it alone but the terminologist has to be part of the process:
terminologists, in this scenario, have to adapt themselves into a profile more
similar to a mediator.
"Crowd" is by the way a generic term. “Nichesourcing”
is a more suitable neologism, it stands for “complex tasks distributed
amongst a small crowd of amateur experts...rather than the ‘faceless’ crowd” (B.I.Karsch).
The solitary terminologist vs the crowd
powered terminologist
Old-fashioned terminology is an “in vitro work”: there is
no research into term usage, it draws on a limited panel of experts, and takes
a long time for validation.
Crowdsourcing instead, has proven to be a valuable model in terminology work in particular for:
- Term collection;
- Concept based structuring (concept+ "#" on Twitter);
- Creation of new terms;
- Control of terminology usage.
In brief:
- Let's
share knowledge! Disconnected experts are invisible to
the network and irrelevant to the system.
- Let’s leverage the power of blogging and Social Media! Blogs are sometimes earlier than newspapers in discussing new topics and concepts and crucial to raise awareness on the importance of terminology
