What are our goals and milestones?
Our focus at Khan Academy is on driving learning outcomes, and we’re striving for leadership in AI-enabled education as a critical way to help drive reach in classrooms, address unfinished learning, and drive engagement. International is a core part of our strategic ambition, and localization is an important lever to globally succeed in that goal.
What does this mean for our Language Advocates?
- We will add a Milestone for Middle School and/or High School Math (MS/HS) localization and alignment to encourage teams to prioritize and complete this goal within three years.
- This is intended to focus Advocate activity on STEM, which is where our content areas are most built out, and to create a clear expectation around activity levels.
- We will institute an eligibility threshold + process for gap-filling math content only.
- This is an enabler for greater teacher usage in schools, as incomplete curations are a known blocker for teacher adoption.
Milestones
We want to encourage teams to prioritize and complete MS/HS math localization & alignment within 3 years. For existing teams who are unable to commit to this, having this explicit goal helps us have a common starting point for a conversation to understand the why.
We have adjusted our milestones to match this new goal. Below is a summary of each stage of our milestones, with more detailed information following.
- Stage 1: Beginning
- Manage the Youtube channel that we provide, and translate/approve strings on our Translation Portal/Crowdin. Goal is to achieve 100% localization of 3 MS/HS Math courses plus the required platform strings in order to be eligible for a Demo Site.
- Stage 2: Demo Site
- Continue to work on translation of strings and recreation of videos. If applicable, start curriculum alignment. Goal is to achieve 100% localization of either Middle School or High School Math courses in order to be eligible for a Full Site.
- Stage 3: Full Site
- Continue to work on translation of strings and recreation of videos. Start or continue curriculum alignment process. Goal is to achieve 100% localization of curriculum-aligned Middle School and High School Math courses in order to be eligible for Gap-filling Content Creation.
- Stage 4: Fully Aligned Site
- Work on creating gap-fill content items to ensure alignment for Math MS/HS is complete. Goal is to reach 100% coverage (within platform constraints) in 3 years.
- All stages: Maintenance
- Teams are also expected to do the maintenance work described in the “Appendix: Ongoing Commitments” section of this document.
A note on pace of translations:
We expect that new teams will finish translating Middle School and High School Math within 3 years. In order to do that, new teams would be expected to translate 750K words/year and 500 videos/year which would allow the team to complete a set of MS/HS courses in 3 years.
Please see below for a detailed description of each stage, including how to reach each milestone, what your site will look like, permissions/control, and quality assurance requirements.
Stage 1: Beginning
What you do to get there:
Work with us to manage the Youtube channel that we provide, and to translate/approve strings on our Translation Portal/Crowdin.
What your site will look like:
You don't have one yet. You have a Youtube channel that we provide you, and you will manage and save your translated written text on our Translation Portal.
What your team will control:
You manage the YouTube channel, incoming Crowdin translation requests, map your localized videos to the English versions, translate text, and build your translator community.
Quality Assessment:
At this stage, we will audit a few videos to make sure your audio-visual setup is correct. We might give you some helpful hints on your team structure and translation style. We'll provide you with some quality assurance guidelines that we use at Khan Academy, and you are responsible for assuring the quality of your own videos. To reach the next phase (Demo Site), we will ask about your practices, so please prepare by reading and implementing the guidelines early on.
Stage 2: Demo Site
What you do to get there:
Achieve 100% localization of 3 MS/HS Math courses plus the required platform strings.
What your site will look like:
At the demo stage, you will have a Khan Academy interface that looks like the English site but much more limited. This site can be used to demo to potential sponsors and used with students in pilot projects (and beyond, depending on how much content you have.) When you have a Demo Site, it will be available to all users on the internet, and your language will be displayed in the language dropdown at the bottom of the Khan Academy site (and in the account preferences drop-down menu for users who are logged in).
What your team will control (all of these privileges and responsibilities are cumulative):
You can directly manage which subjects you would like to appear on your language's site via access to our Content Library.
Quality Assurance:
In order to reach the demo stage, Khan Academy and your team will work together to make sure that a quality control process is in place.
Stage 3: Full Site
What you do to get there:
Achieve 100% localization of either Middle School or High School Math courses.
What your site will look like:
Exactly like the English Khan Academy site, just likely with less content depending on how much you have translated. As with Demo sites, your language will appear in the language dropdown at the bottom of the Khan Academy site and in the account preferences drop-down menu for users who are logged in.
What you are working on:
When you reach Full Site stage, you will continue translating the content of our core domain (MS/HS Math).
Once you have a full site, you can also make sure your mobile strings are 100% translated for consideration to be integrated into Khan Academy's mobile apps, and you can translate the Zendesk Help Center if desired.
What your team will control (all of these privileges and responsibilities are cumulative):
As with a Demo site, you can directly manage which subjects you would like to appear on your language's site via access to our Content Library.
Quality Assurance:
We will not ask you to dismantle your current quality control process if it works well (although we may make some suggestions based on our guidelines). Khan Academy hopes to work together with your team and support you in your efforts. To do so, Khan Academy may ask you to fill out/discuss a questionnaire/ report describing your quality assurance process. Khan Academy may also run a quality assurance review, sampling different types of content. In addition, at this stage, teams may have some of the same site maintenance responsibilities as the English Khan Academy team, for example, YouTube moderation, Khan Academy comment moderation, and reported mistake review.
Stage 4: Fully Aligned Site
What you do to get there:
Achieve 100% localization of curriculum-aligned Middle School and High School Math courses in order to be eligible for Gap-filling Content Creation
What your site will look like:
Your MS/HS math courses will be complete and mastery-enabled.
What you are working on:
Creating gap-fill content items to ensure alignment for Math MS/HS is complete. Goal is to reach 100% coverage (within platform constraints) in 3 years.
What your team will control (all of these privileges and responsibilities are cumulative):
You will be able to create content using our Exercise, Article, and Video editor tools.
Quality Assurance:
All content creation will be done in English so that 1. We can spot-check items and review quality without having to rely on external sources and 2. Other teams are able to translate and use the content you create.
Appendix: Ongoing commitments
While teams are working through all four stages, we expect that they will maintain the following ongoing commitments:
- Course Updates: Teams are expected to keep their translated courses up to date.
- Platform String Translations: Teams should translate platform strings within 2 weeks.
- Youtube Channel: Teams are responsible for managing their respective channels.
- Mobile: If you're added, translations must be completed within 2 weeks.
The KA International team will have regular 1-1 check-ins with advocate teams. If teams find it challenging to meet these ongoing commitments, we discuss the best course of action together.