UGRTerm is a bilingual (Spanish-English) database of academic and institutional terms used in the University of Granada. Its design was proposed by the Directorate for Language Policy, part of the Vice-Rectorate for Internationalization as a response to the need to systematically manage university terminology.
The objective of UGRTerm
The main objective of UGRTerm is to facilitate communication in the UGR and make it more effective and consistent, both internally and externally. This means eliminating possible ambiguities, controlling the proliferation of new terms, identifying obsolete terms, and generally improving the national and international image of the UGR. Consequently, UGRTerm aims at standardization and harmonization since its objective is to create the foundations for the official nomenclature of the UGR and homogenize term uses that may arise from different organisms in the university.
When relevant, denominations in Spanish include both the masculine and female gender. For the specification of English correspondences, European English was chosen, given the need to regulate this international academic lingua franca. However, whenever possible and necessary, priority was given to English equivalences that reflect and identify the reality of the Spanish university system and of the UGR, as opposed to other culturally marked denominations used in the United Kingdom or the USA.
UGRTerm is an ongoing project that will incorporate terminology generally related to higher education and, more particularly, to the European Higher Education Area in order to facilitate the exchange of information at the institutional level between different user groups.
Users
This tool has been designed for internal users (academic and research staff, administrative and support staff, and students of the UGR) as well as for external users interested in the academic and institutional terminology used in the UGR and the context of higher education. For this reason, the term base was designed to enable users to understand terms as well as use them in texts.
Features of UGRTerm
UGRTerm has a search engine with simple and advanced searches where terms can be searched alphabetically or by subject area. This flexibility permits users to access each term entry from different access points, depending on user profile, needs and knowledge level. Users who are already familiar with the UGR can make searches that correspond to a single thematic area within the management hierarchy of the university (e.g. General Governance and Representative Posts) or they can perform searches that correspond to the activity and function of a certain university organism, e.g. Vice-Rectorate for Internationalization (Responsible/associate body). At the very least, each entry provides the official/standardized Spanish term used in the UGR (usage status) and its English correspondence. Furthermore, it may also provide additional information regarding the type, meaning, and use of terms, including abbreviations, variants, definitions, contexts, etc.
Users can also make suggestions regarding a specific term as well as the term base in general. The academic and research staff and the administrative and support staff can also consult the terminological problems that UGRTerm has not as yet solved. Finally, internal users can also download a list of entries in Excel format.
Credits and technical information
UGRTerm was designed under the coordination of Dr. Silvia Montero Martínez, with the collaboration of Pamela Faber, Mercedes García de Quesada, Pilar León and Arianne Reimerink. All of them are members of the LexiCon Research Group of the Department of Translation and Interpreting of the UGR, and have wide experience in terminology management and research. The database not only contains the current nomenclature of the UGR, but also higher education terms compiled over the years by Guadalupe Soriano Barabino at the former Vice-Rectorate of International Relations, now known as the Vice-Rectorate for Internationalization. In addition, new entries will progressively be created, which will define UGRTerm as a dynamic resource that facilitates the comprehension, writing, and translation of documents in the UGR.
UGRTerm uses the TBX-Basic standard to facilitate the exchange of term data between UGRTerm and other tools related to the management and translation of texts both within and outside of the UGR.
Terms and conditions of use
The use of terminological resources by any end user should respect the conditions established by copyright and intellectual property laws. Similarly, since terminological work often involves data exchange, more specifically, the use of already existing term entries or the fusion of entries from different sources, all such activities should respect the original copyright.
Creative Commons Plus License
UGRTerm is licensed under Creative Commons Plus, “Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC+ by-nc-SA 4.0)”. Users are free to Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format, and Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material under the following terms:
Users may not use the material for commercial purposes. They must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. They may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses them or their use. If users remix, transform, or build upon the material, they must distribute these contributions under the same license as the original.
Furthermore UGRTerm adheres to the rules of conduct in the Code of Good Practice for Copyright in Terminology (Infoterm) concerning the exchange, collection, and use of terminological data.
Code of Good Practice for Copyright in Terminology
Where no bilateral agreements have been concluded to the contrary, the following general provisions shall apply as a code of good practice when importing, entering, or exchanging terminological data:
1. Originators’ intellectual property
1.1. Reference to the origin of terminological data shall be explicitly made whenever (all or subsets of) the data are reproduced (output) or passed on to third parties. This applies equally to individual items and to subsets of data from terminological entries or records.
1.2. Where the origin of large volumes of data is to be documented, a single reference to the source may be all that is required when the data are reproduced or transferred. In this case, however, the provider must ensure that the recipient of the data agrees to give due acknowledgement to the originator of the data in all cases.
1.3. Where terminological data have been obtained from an originator who also markets the data himself or herself, the originator’s consent shall be obtained where the data exchanged or taken over are made available to a third party in the form of complete entries or as parts of entries.
1.4. Data under copyright must not be passed on without the agreement of the originator. This does not refer to individual entries or a limited set of individual entries which are to be used for research or teaching purposes under the conditions of exemptions from copyright stipulations as they exist in the Berne Convention and its implementations at national level.
1.5. Financial agreements on licenses and royalties must be observed.
1.6. Institutions and organizations, in which large numbers of users have access to terminological data from an external source (i.e. the author{s} themselves or the economic rights holder{s}, such as a publishing house), are responsible for taking all necessary measures against uncontrolled downloading/copying which violates any rights claimed by the originator{s} or rights holders.
2. Data integrity
2.1. Measures to protect data integrity must be strictly observed and must not be deliberately violated (e. g. by introducing minor changes or by taking data out of context). However, the correction of typographic errors and other obvious mistakes is permissible where justified.