Exploring multilingual requirements of the community of a learning portal: the case of Organic.Edunet

Abstract

This paper presents an analytical framework for introducing multilingualism into web portals, aiming to facilitate bringing down the language barriers, bridging the current language divide between potentially interested users and the multimedia resources from around the world that are made available through such portals. The general problem addressed is the design affordances that shall allow multilingual web portals to meet different linguistic profiles, needs and user expectations. The paper describes the methodology used for the analysis of user requirements of the existing user community of Organic.Edunet, by focusing to the registered members (totalling around 2,500 at the time of the study, doubled already by today). Organic.Edunet, being a thematic web portal aiming to promote the discovery and best use of the wealth of educational resources on Organic and Sustainable Agriculture in a European and international scale, forms a typical example for understanding the language barriers between people of diverse linguistic profiles, and the affordances needed in such a “Learning portal” that will help bringing down those barriers. The paper concludes with some initial results and discussion of the findings and suggestions for future work.