Translating the LEANS resources

We have a small team and so we’ve tried to answer most questions on this page and in our comprehensive Translation Guidance document. Please refer to these sources in the first instance to answer your queries.

Please also remember that at the point of submitting a Translation Proposal we will provide feedback which may be helpful for your specific circumstances.

If you are really unable to make a decision about whether to submit a Proposal, using the information we’re provided, then you can contact us on translate-leans@ed.ac.uk.

Different types of organisations or groups could propose a new LEANS translation. For example, you might be from a third-sector organisation, a university research lab, a government education department—or might be a team of teachers, an advocacy group, or any of these working in partnership!

The most important criteria are that the team as a whole brings knowledge of the subjects addressed in LEANS, knowledge of the language/context where you with to translate, and sufficient resources to complete the entire translation process and publicly distribute the finished product. What might that mean, more specifically? We would hope to see at least some of the following experience across your team:

• Knowledge of LEANS-related topics such as neurodiversity and neurodivergence, education, developmental psychology, or disability studies.
• Experience with children, teachers, and/or primary schools, especially in the country or region where you wish to produce and use the translation.
• Prior experience with translating educational/academic materials, or having your own work translated by others.
• Prior experience with distributing and promoting some type of content, such as research outputs, books, services, policies, funding campaigns etc.

Please take it from us, the creators of LEANS, that we expect translating to be a big and complex job! It’s not only the language, but also the graphic design and video content, hosting and advertising the resource, and so many more tasks. These are a huge part of the whole process.

Yes! At present there are no limitations on who can make up a team, and it will often make sense to join forces (and resources) for a translation. However, the team still must designate one person as the translation team lead who is the main point of contact and has overall responsibility.

If your team includes organisations from multiple countries or types of organisations, the highest fee band applies. For example, if your team is made up of a parent group working with a university, then Band 1 fees would apply.

No matter how many organisations are part of the team, the LEANS team are only able to legally license the content to one lead partner organisation as a part of any given translation. This means that representatives of that organisation will be the ones to sign the Translation and Licensing Agreement.

While one person could do a substantial part of the process if they had all the necessary skills, there are two steps that require additional people to be involved: back-translating selected items, and an independent evaluation of the translation. Please see the Translation Guidance (downloadable above) for more information about this.

You could propose a translation as an individual and recruit paid or voluntary assistance with specific tasks (e.g. employ a professional translator as your evaluator), but due to the many different skills and types of media involved in LEANS, we strongly encourage team applications.

We will provide some information specific to your proposal when we respond. In general, reasons for declining might be one or more of the following:

• There is already a translation in the proposed language, or one in progress.
• Proposal has too many blank sections
• Proposal was insufficiently detailed, or confusing. It may not be clear to us if your team has a viable proposal or fully understand the translation process.
• The proposal is promising but not yet viable. For example, you may have a strong team but still be looking for multiple important components such as funding, a translator, etc. We may ask you to do more preparation and then come back to us on those points.
• Your team indicated you were not willing to agree to required conditions. We would not be able to sign a translation agreement with you.
• We’re not able to support a translation on the timeline you proposed.

We reserve the right to decline any proposal on any grounds that we acting solely believe are in the best interests of the LEANs project, and at any stage during the process.

The big difference here is distribution. You can translate LEANS to use in your own classroom.  You could even translate it together with a colleague, and use it in multiple classrooms in your school.

However if you want to share your translated copy more widely – within another school, or via a website for example – you would need to contact us and go through the process of obtaining a license.

No. You could not, for example, license only the LEANS videos but not the rest. The content is only available as a complete package, and the agreement specifies that it the purchaser must translate and release all of it, in full.

There is a potential route to do this, IF there is not another licensed translation already released or in-progress in the same language and area of distribution.

If you have already completed a translation for personal use and are interested in converting it to one licensed for public distribution, you still need to start with Step 1 (translation proposal) though you can specify your translation is already completed. If accepted, the relevant fees would be due and you would need to follow the same steps with respect to back-translation of selected items, independent evaluation of your translation, and so forth. We will not automatically approve proposals because a personal translation is already complete, but will consider them on the same criteria for other proposed translations.

Depending on your personal skills and resources, you might wish to join up with others and apply as a team (for example, to make sure you can successfully design, host, and distribute the final product).

Agreeing to the conditions of this Translation and Licensing Agreement is a requirement to license the LEANS content and produce any publicly distributable translation. At present, our policy is that the agreement is “as-is” and we will not renegotiate custom terms with each purchaser. If these terms are unacceptable to your team, then we will not be able to work together to produce a translation.

Please keep in mind that there is still substantial flexibility in the process about who is part of your translation team, how and when you carry out the work, whether or not to use the existing art and graphic design, and so on. Please review our guidance document and the agreement itself for more details.

Please see details of the licensing fees, including illustration licensing, in our Translation Guidance document. As costs such as translation services or graphic design will vary widely around the world, it is up to individual teams to project and budget for these costs.

Yes, there are. Please see details of the licensing fees in our Translation Guidance document.

We think translating LEANS into any other language will always include some element of cultural adaptation, and that this must be discussed on a case-by-case basis, likely at the stage where we are reviewing your proposal and may be agreeing to go forward to a licensing agreement. The translation proposal form asks about how much adaptation you think may be necessary for LEANS to be relevant and appropriate.

The current translation process and fees assume a modest degree of cultural adaptation. If you think that significant adaptations will be required for your context, this may require us to agree changes to the translation process.

If you think the degree of adaptation required would be very large, do consider if starting with LEANS is truly the best option, rather than developing a completely local resource for schools in your context. 

Obviously, there are many cultural differences between the locations where English is spoken or used as a language of school instruction. Not all aspects of the current content or illustrations may be relevant. While not a linguistic translation in the traditional sense, our policies would still apply if you wish to distribute a culturally adapted English-language copy. Then yes, you would need to license LEANS for the adaptation, even if it is still in English.

If the adaptation is for personal use (e.g. in your own school), you are fully within the original terms of use to adapt and use it without liaising with us at all. Our terms of use page may clarify this for you: https://www.ed.ac.uk/salvesen-research/leans/download/terms

No, you don’t have to use it. You can license the LEANS content only, without the copyrighted artwork, and then commission new artwork of your choice for use in the handbook, stories, videos etc. For purchasers who do not license the art, we will provide a package of files that removes all the copyrighted images.