Multilingualism Interest Group

I. Purpose

The Multilingual Interest Group (MIG) is a special interest group intended to unite PKP staff and community members whose work centers around multilingualism, translation, and/or working with communities and institutions with non-English language needs. 

As PKP advances tenets of information democratization and equitable global participation, this work includes providing support to non-English-speaking and multilingual communities and users. While related activities are already embedded in different divisions and portfolios across PKP, there are opportunities for increased communication between parties who are involved in these activities. Furthermore, while community feedback is being received through relevant Mattermost channels, Github issues, and forum posts, there needs to be a centralized place for relevant parties to engage in in-depth conversations or for organization staff to share the results of these discussions across all teams efficiently.

The MIG would serve to fill this communication gap and coordinate the independently moving limbs working towards the decentralization of English in scholarly publishing and the establishment of software and recommended practices that serve users across multiple cultural contexts, as well as demonstrate a greater commitment to hearing and addressing the language needs of our community.

II. Objectives

The MIG will advance PKP’s values of information democratization and equitable global participation by:

1. Reporting on members’ activities related to translation and multilingualism as they are conducted throughout PKP, PKP’s community, and the greater scholarly publishing world, deepening our understanding of each other’s work and creating a venue for sharing feedback;
2. Identifying areas and making recommendations for improvement in PKP’s software, documentation, and translation activities through community feedback, setting priorities, and creating clear plans of action for implementing improvements;
3. Developing and implementing best practices in multilingualism in collaboration with scholarly publishing organizations;
4. Identifying potential partnerships or other venues of communication with international community members to solicit feedback and further PKP’s multilingual offerings.

III. Deliverables

1. The MIG will report to either the Members Committee, Technical Committee or both committees. The committees will determine reporting structure: a) frequency and items to include in each report.
2. The MIG will report to the Monthly PKP Staff Meeting.
3. In addition to reporting out to PKP Committees, the MIG will bring relevant information back to MIG meetings from venues such as the Publishing Services Team Meetings (language-related inquiries) and other meetings as determined relevant.  

IV.  Membership

Membership is open to all PKP staff and community members keen to contribute to PKP’s multilingualism initiatives. Roles on the group include:

• Chair
• Translation Coordinator
• PKP MIG Liaison
• Language Group Chair(s) 
• Community Contributors

Current Membership

• Vacant (Chair / Community Contributor)
• Emma Uhl, Public Knowledge Project (PKP MIG Liaison & Documentation & Multilingualism Specialist)
• Ramli Baharuddin, Universitas Lakidende Unaaha
• Marc Bria, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
• Leigh-Ann Butler, University of Ottawa
• Alejandra Casas Niño de Rivera, Public Knowledge Project (Language Group Chair) 
• Devika Goel, Public Knowledge Project
• Muhammad Sajid Mirza, International Islamic University
• Mike Nason, University of New Brunswick
• Antti-Jussi Nygård, Federation of Finnish Learned Societies
• Mathieu Pigeon, Érudit
• Alec Smecher, Public Knowledge Project
• Carolina Tanigushi, SciELO

V. Terms

Staff members have specific areas of responsibility that are ongoing. Roles filled by community members are two-year appointments with the option to renew.

VI. Meeting Practices

1. Regular virtual meetings will be held as outlined below. 
2. A call for collaboratively created monthly meeting agendas will be put out by the Chair one week prior to the next scheduled meeting. Meeting invitations, associated links, and documentation will be managed by the PKP MIG Liaison.
3. Meeting minutes will be taken by members on a rotating schedule with an emphasis on recording action items.
4. Meetings will be facilitated by members on a rotating schedule.
5. Ongoing communication will take place on the Documentation Interest Group’s Mattermost Channel.
6. The Terms of Reference, current membership, and all relevant documentation will be maintained on a dedicated Notion Page. 

The group will meet once monthly for one hour. Time commitments needed for individual projects or plans would be scoped and assessed for feasibility given the day-to-day workloads of participating members. Subgroups of volunteers may agree to meet outside of the scheduled one-hour meeting to further projects or specified project work at their own pace.