The World’s Top Five Universities Failing to Translate Globally

According to the QS World University Ranking System, the list of the top five Universities of 2012 is as follows;

1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
2. Cambridge University
3. Harvard University
4. UCL (University College London)
5. University of Oxford

We wanted to see exactly how much focus each of these exceptional further learning institutes was placing on linguistics, and thus the importance exacted towards their global accessibility.  We decided that by researching their online presence, we could determine who from the list was performing the best when it came to International coverage.

Multi-lingual Website Accessibility

1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) – http://web.mit.edu

For the number one ranked University in the world, I was quite surprised to find absolutely no language translation service on their website whatsoever.  After deciding to research the use of foreign languages at the institute, I came across their extensive ‘Foreign Languages and Literatures’ section, where they state;

“The study of foreign languages and literatures provides valuable experience and a potential edge for future career development. Scientists and engineers function in a global market: they rely on primary sources published in other languages, attend international consortia, and often find themselves interacting across national, cultural, and linguistic borders.”

Strange how they don’t see the need to make their website accessible in a diversity of languages if this is the case.  They do, however, offer their ‘MIT OpenCourseWare’ publications in Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Thai, Turkish, Spanish, Portuguese, and Persian.

2. Cambridge University – http://www.cam.ac.uk/

Cambridge University is one of the most famous further learning institute in the world, with 14 British Prime Ministers having attended.  Once again, however, despite strong claims to be globally focussed, there is no option to translate any section of the website.  There is an ‘International Cambridge’ section, available of course only in English, where they state;

“The University of Cambridge is one of the world’s leading universities. It supports an international community of students and scholars, and is represented around the world by a global community of alumni.”

Again the lack of any kind of website translation seems slightly bizarre, especially when you consider that more than 25% of Undergraduate student in 2010/11 were from overseas.

3. Harvard University

Harvard again has no translation option on its website.  It does, however, obviously take linguistics seriously with an impressive ‘Language Resource Center’, which boasts “powerful computers… specially configured for accessing high-bandwidth online video course materials at near-DVD quality and are set up to support multilingual Web browsing.”  Like the other Universities in the list so far, they seem to understand the significance of linguistics within internet communications, yet not apply it to their own page.

4. University College London

For a University ranked fourth on this list, the presence of International support on the UCL website is pretty limited, and again no translations are available.  Their ‘School of Intercultural Studies’ does actually have a Masters course in ‘Translation Theory and Practice’, including French, German, Italian, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, Dutch, Hebrew, and Russian, so it is a little baffling as to why they don’t utilise this expertise for their own website.  The University also boasts a ‘Centre for Languages and International Education’ where they offer a number of English and Foreign Language courses.

5. University of Oxford

The Oxford University Website does include a particularly impressive ‘International Section’, but again no form of website translation.  It claims that over a third of all students and teaching staff are from overseas, and makes the bold statement that “Oxford University has been at the forefront of understanding the world and shaping it for centuries. Since the Enlightenment, Oxford has been one of the world’s most influential and international universities.”  The University does have an exceptional Language Learning Centre, where they assist students to study with the assistance of foreign language texts.  Still, however, the website is rather lagging behind.

Final Thoughts

For none of the top 5 universities in the world to have their websites translated seems like a complete oversight.  With each of them boasting a high proportion of international students and claiming to have a global focus, you would think it was essential for their global accessibility.