Breaking Language Barriers with Machine Translation at Empire State University
(SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY — April 17, 2025) With the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, Empire State University is uniquely positioned to apply new tools towards a more efficient and inclusive online learning and work environment. One of the leading applications of AI technology in such settings lies in facilitating multilingual communication to foster inclusion and collaboration. As the only online, public university of New York, Empire State University is taking strides towards opening doors to higher education through the application of innovative technology.
“Machine translation” is the use of AI technology to streamline translation processes, which have historically been the domain of human translators. Since its first appearance in the 1940s, machine translation has been refined and can undertake large translation tasks in a matter of seconds, accommodate most world languages with sufficient accuracy, and learn to work within the parameters of human-provided prompts. With the upcoming arrival of Empire State University’s first Spanish BBA cohort this Fall, university departments have been preparing their materials in Spanish with some assistance from machine translation.
Translation becomes an instrumental tool for inclusion and multilingual collaboration at Empire State University, which is driven by its commitment to broadening access to higher education. Pamela Doran, digital accessibility coordinator, two-time alum, and current Ed.D. student, is committed to ensuring that machine translation runs seamlessly, as well as raising awareness surrounding accessibility in digital environments for staff, faculty, and students. Doran has been instrumental in facilitating the use of machine translation at the university, aiding its informally named bilingual team in preparing each department’s website page, necessary documents, student supports, and more. With support from Dan Kittay, assistant director of web services, in finetuning early stages of her custom Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT) prompt, she has brought the university “Linguo.”
What sets Linguo—Doran’s translation tool—apart from Google Translate or standard ChatGPT? Linguo is a custom GPT translation prompt, tailored specifically to the needs of Empire State University’s translation team as they undertake university-wide translation projects. It has instructions to adopt an approachable tone, accessible language, and even follows the university’s Spanish language glossary created by linguists Perla Zamitiz and Claire Ziamandanis, with contributions from the bilingual team at large.
“When the human informs the machine,” explains Doran, “it takes the cognitive lift off the [bilingual] team.” With machine translation, the bulk of the human translation work—which spans the entire university website, documents for application, enrollment, financial aid, and beyond—is less strenuous and yields more consistent content in shorter spans of time.”
Machine translation through Linguo provides a reliable first pass at translating from English to Spanish, while preserving the meaning and clarity of content. Linguo’s responses are assessed by bilingual staff at Empire State University who are native or near native Spanish speakers, ensuring translations are always in line with Empire State University’s organizational identity and messaging. With this close monitoring from bilingual team staff who provide Linguo feedback on how well it meets the specified requirements, preparations for the first class of the Spanish BBA have been timely and thorough, ensuring digital accessibility needs are met.
The impacts of machine translation on digital accessibility overlap with conversations about universal design for learning (UDL), a process through which barriers to learning are decreased. In the case of Empire State University, machine translation is being used to support SUNY’s UDL project through adapting university materials to account for variety in language and disabilities. Machine translation tools offered to staff, faculty, and students have a range of uses, from transmitting the same information to speakers of diverse world languages simultaneously, to ensuring a student with a hearing disability has equal access to presentation content as their peers by means of subtitles.
To raise awareness on the tools available to Empire State University’s community and support UDL on its online campus, in classrooms, and in offices, Doran is currently designing a Brightspace course that will cover translation tools built into Microsoft products as well as Brightspace.