More than 7 million words delivered on time: the Aulaplaneta case

The client

Aulaplaneta is the digital educational offering of Grupo Planeta that provides content and solutions for Primary Education and Secondary Education (ESO) centres, materialising the group's commitment to pedagogical and technological innovation. It makes available to schools and teachers a universe of quality content that contributes to improving student learning.

In 2019, with the growing demand for digital educational content, Aulaplaneta decided to expand its offering to new languages in order to reach a larger number of users, schools, and autonomous communities.

The challenge

The project involved translating and adapting a large amount of educational content from the platform into English and Valencian, ensuring that the teaching units were ready in time for the start of the 2020-2021 school year.

The project was carried out in a particularly complex context: the 2020 pandemic forced the reorganisation of teams and the shortening of deadlines, right at the moment when learning through digital content became an urgent necessity. In addition to the time pressure, the requirement to export and import each teaching unit along with its programming code increased the complexity of the process.

The content consisted of materials from different subjects and in multiple formats —JSON, XLIFF, DOC, PDF files, images, and videos— that required specific treatments and different teams to maintain the original layout and format after translation.

In numbers:

• English: 5.5 million words, 149 teaching units, nearly 2,500 images, and 5 hours of video.
• Valencian: more than 2 million words, 48 teaching units, more than 900 images, and 2 hours of video.

In total, the sum amounts to more than 7.5 million words and 200 digital teaching units of educational content completed in less than one year.

The solution

At imaxin, a work strategy was designed to meet deadlines and ensure quality in each of the project tasks. The key lay in detailed planning, coordination between teams, and constant communication with Aulaplaneta:

1. Project organisation and management
   Teams of native translation professionals, specialised by language and subject, were created, coordinated remotely and connected through a common tracking system.
   Each format —text, image, or video— followed its own workflow, from preparation and translation through to review, layout, and final technical validation.
2. Tools and quality control
   CAT tools were used to leverage translation memories and ensure terminological consistency.
   Subject-specific glossaries and a cross-cutting glossary were created, as well as style guides per language.
   The process was supported by our automatic translation engine Opentrad, with post-editing by the translators. Specific filters were also developed to protect the code and avoid errors when reimporting the translated units.
3. Image and video processing
   In 2020, generative AI tools for image editing did not yet exist, so the visual adaptations were carried out manually, as the images were closed in their published version and the original editable files were not available.
   Our design team worked image by image, using Photoshop, to replace text without altering the original background. The work on maps, which included dozens of names on irregular backgrounds, was particularly laborious.
   With the videos, the embedded texts had to be manually transcribed and translated in order to replace them on screen. In addition, synchronised subtitles had to be incorporated after reviewing each audio fragment.
4. Continuous improvement
   Each phase of the project served to optimise procedures, simplify steps, and gain efficiency. The experience from the first major project allowed us to refine workflows and improve coordination in subsequent ones.
   For example, in later projects we incorporated plain X technology, developed by our partners at Priberam and distributed by imaxin, which made it possible to streamline the subtitling and video translation process in new projects.

Results

Thanks to precise management and joint work with the Aulaplaneta team, all localised content was delivered within the set deadlines, ready for integration into the platform.

Key results:

• Localisation of more than 7 million words in two languages in less than one year.
• Meeting key deadlines despite the restrictions imposed by the pandemic situation.
• Guaranteed technical processes: packaged units ready to import without code errors.
• Terminological consistency across multiple subjects and languages.
• Agile and collaborative workflow between translators, designers, technicians, and project managers.
• Client satisfaction in terms of responsiveness, organisation, and the final quality of the materials.

Conclusion

The Aulaplaneta project was a true exercise in coordination and joint management. In less than one year, we managed to translate and adapt more than 7 million words, 200 teaching units, 3,400 images, and 7 hours of video, all within a complex technical environment and very tight deadlines.

The sound planning and organisation of the work by imaxin made it possible to meet the planned schedules and deliver the content ready for integration. For their part, the Aulaplaneta team carried out a meticulous review and import of the translated units, ensuring that everything was available in time for the start of the school year and thus validating the excellent work carried out.

The harmony and constant communication between both teams were key to overcoming the project's challenges: managing large volumes of material, the complexity of the formats, and the need to maintain consistency and quality across three languages. The result was an effective and organised collaboration, which made it possible to deliver multilingual educational content on time for classrooms, even in the challenging context of 2020.

"We faced the challenge of adapting a large volume of content within very tight deadlines. Thanks to imaxin, we were able to deliver all the units ready for integration, maintaining the quality and original format. We highlight their organisation, daily coordination, and responsiveness, always with a positive attitude in the most demanding moments."

Eulàlia Rius