INSTITUTE MATTERS
November
NETWORKING
LINC
LUNCH
Saturday 16
November
Wig & Mitre, Lincoln,
midday-4pm
For details call Candia
Hillier on 01522 526695.
Wig and Mitre, Steep Hill,
Lincoln LN2 1LU.
CONTACT DETAILS
BPG Judith Ridgway,
ridgway@talktalk.net
ID IoL.Interpreting.
Division@googlemail.com
TD Michael
Cunningham, michael@
michaelcunningham.net
CAM Leslie Ray,
leslie.ray@btinternet.com
GER Stephanie Tarling,
setarling@t-online.de;
Gabriele Matthey,
translations@gmatthey.de
HK Francis Lee,
francisleekc@iolhks.hk
LINC Candia Hillier,
candia@chezhillier.
freeserve.co.uk
LON Rannheid Sharma,
RSharma105@aol.com
NW Katrin Hiietam,
katrin.hiietam@eetranslations.com
SCOT Anne Withers,
amwithers@msn.com
SP Martin Caine,
martincaine2008@
gmail.com
MEMBERS' DAY
This year's event will
be held on Saturday
5 October at the
Royal College of
General Practitioners,
30 Euston Square,
London. For details,
see www.iol.org.uk.
Vol/52 No/4 2013
Ensuring quality
JOINT EXAMINATIONS MANAGER ROSARIO LAWRENCE OUTLINES THE DETAILED
PLANNING THAT GOES INTO ENSURING THE HIGH QUALITY OF IoLET EXAMS
Our team of four manages the academic part of the
Diploma in Translation (DipTrans). We have just started
with the production of seven examination papers in 14
languages for the 2014 session. For this purpose, we
have commissioned setters who, according to their
own specialism, have to set two versions for each of
the seven options offered. All the set texts will go to
a series of moderators, who will choose the better of
the two versions. At times, papers have to be re-set.
Candidates have already received the results of the
2013 examination. Those who failed have started to
ask for re-marks. Thus, along with the setting process,
we have to commission re-markers for more than 100
requests in a variety of language combinations.
Reports on general candidate performance, written
by examiners at the end of the marking stage, need
to be available to the public at the beginning of the
academic year, so we must ensure they are ready for
the printers on time.
Before the end of the year, and at the final stages
of the setting and moderation processes, we start
commissioning examiners to mark examination
scripts in the language combinations candidates
have registered for. There are usually around 45
combinations. We count on an existing pool of
experienced examiners but, inevitably, there are
always changes and new language combinations
crop up, so new examiners have to be recruited.
Distributing examiners for seven options can be
challenging. One language combination most often
needs three examiners, and they are chosen based
on their area of expertise. Marking training sessions
take place at the end of the year. Examiners who
cannot attend are trained by us electronically.
Our duty is to monitor every single activity. Every
piece of material that comes to us has to be
scrutinised, making sure the content is free from
mistakes and at the required standard. All submissions
have to be properly logged in, and all forwarded
material has to be tracked and accounted for.
Within our team we know English, Spanish and
Polish, can cover German and French relatively well
and, to a lesser extent, Italian, Portuguese and
Russian. For the rest, we rely on our experience and
expertise. Indeed, we have found that being
monolingual is no barrier to effective proofreading.
We pride ourselves on being hawk-eyed and we can
normally spot flaws in source texts, mark sheets,
reports and any material that will eventually be in the
public domain. However, we put our faith in our
examiners to ensure that all tasks are top quality.
Managing the DipTrans requires vision,
organisation and minute planning. We feel lucky to
be able to stay in touch with examiners with such
linguistic and cultural diversity, and who work in so
many different fields. Some of them do not live in the
UK, just as candidates can sit the examination in any
part of the world. Making the DipTrans qualification
available to so many people around the world brings
real pride and satisfaction to our jobs.
Rosario Lawrence and Mar Peláez-Muñoz are Joint
Examination Managers for IoLET's Diploma in
Translation and IDBC examinations.
AUGUST/SEPTEMBER
The Linguist
33
