Eligibility

General guidelines

The mandate of Language Services is to provide editing and translation services for the central administration and the faculties’ administrative units. Requests that are critical to the proper administration or corporate image of the University have priority over other jobs. However, we offer the entire University community online language resources as well as advice on management of translation projects.

Our mandate does not extend to professors’ teaching material and research documents, nor to requests from University or affiliated research centres and institutes. Professors who wish to have course material edited should contact the Official Languages and Bilingualism Institute (profbil@uOttawa.ca).

Examples of eligible and non-eligible requests are below. Whether or not Language Services accepts a request may depend on the resources available, as well as the length of the document submitted and the requested deadline. Please note that payment may be required from the client for particularly long projects (approximately 3,000 words) or rush projects.

Unless otherwise indicated, services for eligible texts are free of charge.

If you aren’t sure whether your project is eligible, or to discuss your particular needs or upcoming projects, feel free to contact us at trarev@uOttawa.ca or at extension 5634.

Eligible requests

- Material for the media, the general public or the entire University community (press releases, ads, emergency advisories, etc.).

- University academic or administrative regulations

- Course and program descriptions, including calendars for current or potential students

- Home pages and high-traffic pages on unit and faculty websites

- Form letters and mass mailings for donors and alumni

- Critically important health and safety instructions or messages

- Standard contracts and official agreements involving the University

- Reports or summaries required by law or regulation to be bilingual

- Official campus signage (directional, identification, regulatory)

- Short biographical profiles of professors and administrative staff

Please note: The following types of requests may be eligible under certain conditions negotiated in advance with Language Services:

-Ads, newsletters or articles (online or in print) published for promotional or recruitment purposes

-Brochures or flyers dealing with a unit or faculty’s activities or programs

-Annual reports and strategic plans

-Guides and other documents for new employees or students

-Training material for University staff

Non-eligible requests

- Material for courses, internships, programs of study and research in general (syllabi, course notes, textbooks, manuals, exams, lab instructions, internship supervisors’ guides, research documents etc.)

- Communications between a unit or faculty and its professors or support staff

- Surveys and questionnaires (except those aimed at all students or staff)

- Documents from conferences, colloquia and seminars, on or off campus

- Internal reports and newsletters, discussion papers, working documents, agendas and minutes

- Online news and events listings

- Job descriptions (except position summaries) and performance evaluations

- Personal documents (professors’ websites and research documents, resumés, correspondence, transcripts, academic certificates, etc.)

- Software packages and their user manuals, other than those specifically produced by or for the University

Options for non-eligible requests

If your request doesn’t qualify for free internal services, we can recommend an external firm or a freelancer. Your unit is then billed directly (see the Market rates section).

Turnaround times

Clients are responsible for notifying us well in advance about large projects (reports and publications, lengthy documents, new websites, etc.), especially if the deadline is short. Last-minute requests force us to resort more often to external suppliers, and this proves very costly for the University.

In general, you need to set aside at least two working days’ turnaround time for each 1,000-word block of translation (or 3,000-word block of editing or 6,000-word block of proofreading); more time may be needed when you also ask that your source text be edited before being translated.

Word count	Turnaround times, based on the type of work needed (approximate number of working days)
	Translation	Editing	Proofreading
Up to 499	1	1	0,5
500 – 1,500	2-3	2	1
1,500 – 3,000	4-5	2-3	1-2
6,000	12	6	2-3

Market rates

Below is a breakdown of current market rates, which can vary according to the requested deadline and the nature of the text itself:

-Translation: 22 to 26 cents a word

-Editing: $54 to $68 an hour

-Proofreading: $48 to $58 an hour

-Writing: $60 to $75 an hour