ACER realizes a 125% operational efficiency for translation overhead
Streamlined integration empowers educational assessment teams to manage complex translation workflows without IT intervention
Client Overview
The Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) is a leading independent educational research organization with a global presence, operating offices across multiple continents including Australia, Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. As a respected authority in educational assessment and research, ACER develops and administers a wide range of testing instruments that require accurate translation into multiple languages to serve their diverse international audience.
Their complex assessment development process involves collaboration between content specialists, psychometricians, and translation experts, with effective workflows being essential to maintaining quality standards across linguistic variations while meeting tight project timelines.
The Challenge
ACER's item bank and translation workflows were fragmented across two disconnected systems, forcing users to navigate between platforms to complete translation tasks for a single project and creating significant inefficiencies in their assessment development process. This disjointed approach was further complicated by the requirement for IT to establish dedicated translation system instances for each project, a time-consuming process that involved extensive infrastructure configuration, monitoring, and multiple data handoffs.
The technical complexity created a bottleneck where IT intervention was required for both setting up translation environments and re-importing translated content
Project teams lacked the autonomy to manage translation workflows, leading to delays and decreased productivity
To avoid these delays, staff developed unofficial workarounds that bypassed established processes, creating potential consistency and quality issues
The Solution
Allion Technologies developed a comprehensive integration solution that seamlessly connected ACER's existing translation system with their assessment management platform, effectively bridging the gap between previously siloed environments. The integration harness empowered project staff to manage translation needs directly, eliminating IT department intervention while maintaining system integrity.
The solution enabled the creation of project-specific "translation pockets" for target languages, with an intuitive dashboard to track progress, easy identification of usable assessments, export functionality for translated items in industry-standard XLIFF format, and robust security features that ensured compliance with ACER's strict data protection requirements.
Our Approach
Allion collaborated closely with ACER's information technology team to understand their existing systems architecture, workflow requirements, and organizational security policies before developing a tailored integration solution. The development process was guided by the goal of creating a seamless user experience that would empower staff while maintaining system integrity and data security across the integrated platforms.
01
Conducted thorough analysis of existing workflows to identify bottlenecks and potential integration points
02
Employed TypeScript and NodeJs frameworks to develop an integration harness that provided a consistent user experience
03
Implemented robust security measures to comply with ACER's Secure Information Management Policies (ISO 27001/2 compliance)
04
Delivered a solution that maintained the specialized functionality of both systems while enabling them to work as a unified platform
Business Impact and Results
The successful integration between ACER's translation workflow system and assessment management platform delivered dramatic operational improvements, with the organization reporting a 125% increase in IT operational efficiency for translation work support as confirmed by their CIO.
By eliminating technical barriers and empowering project staff to independently manage translation processes, the solution greatly reduced project setup times and eliminated dependency on IT resources for routine translation tasks. This autonomy allowed content specialists to focus on their core expertise while streamlining the assessment development lifecycle, ultimately enabling ACER to serve their global audience more effectively with timely, high-quality translated assessments that maintain consistent educational standards across language variants.
