The research team OncoTerm made up of researchers from the Universities of Granada, Málaga and Valladolid, and the University Hospital Virgen de las Nieves of Granada, have created an Internet-based information system in the medical field of Oncology. The result is a hierarchical data base with 1896 concepts related to cancer and 4033 terms in Spanish, English and German. According to the director of the project, the researcher Pamela-Blanchard Faber Benítez from the Department of Translation and Interpreting at the UGR, “these terminological items are full of information, since they contain general information and other data such as web links, articles, etc.”
Although there are servers with a similar function, most of them are in English. Pamela Faber says, “the fact that Spanish is the basic language of our system, which also includes terminological correspondences both in English and German, makes the access to information easier for the general public and helps us to understand better how servers work in these languages”.
The results of the project are very useful for health experts, researchers, patients and relatives, and also for translators and writers of specialized texts. In addition, it is a useful tool aimed aimed at achieving more efficient work, since “thanks to the search system and the conceptual organisation, it facilitates rapid access to the required information and guarantees quality results”.
As Professor Faber explains, OncoTerm is an innovative project in the field of terminology due to its mechanisms of analysis, search and representation of information, which have allowed researchers to improve certain aspects of other terminological resources available on the Internet.
OncoTerm fulfils its basic aim, “transforming information on cancer into a tool which allows cancer patients and their relatives to be informed during all stages of the illness”. In Spain, the incidence of cancer is increasingly greatly; this is the reason for the interest in the transfer of knowledge. “Understanding an illness is an important way to overcome fear”, as the researcher explains.
PuertoTerm
All the methods adopted for the implementation of OncoTerm have allowed this research team to apply this new terminology resource to other areas. With this aim, they are working on the creation of a computer application in the fields of environment and engineering, in collaboration with the Group of Ports and Coasts of the Universidad de Granada, located in the Andalusian Environmental Centre (CEAMA). This new data base includes images, which will allow “visualizing and relating terms, since there is a systematic link between an image and a concept.” According to Pamela Faber, this function “has never been used before with specialized terms.”
The team of researchers has applied for an Excellence Project to the Regional Government Project in Innovation, Science and Regional Enterprise in order to incorporate the French language into the PuertoTerm information system. Until now, the terminology is available in Spanish, English and German.
Reference
Prof Pamela-Blanchard Faber Benítez
Department of Translation and Interpreting
Phone numbers: 958 246 261 / 958 244 106
E-mail address: pfaber@ugr.es / Web: http://www.ugr.es/~oncoterm/
