Accreditation Process for Technical Translators

One of the most important parts of RIC International's quality control system is the process of translator accreditation. Translation accreditation process is open for all translators who satisfy our minimum requirements and who want to join our team. In fact, RIC International is the only body in the United States that administers translator accreditation procedures for technical and medical translators.

The accreditation process serves three goals:

• Providing our clients with an additional measure of quality assurance of our translation services;
• Enabling technical translators who have not worked for RIC International before to qualify to work on translation projects for our clients; and
• Giving an opportunity for translators to enhance their credentials as professional technical translators.

Prerequisites for Technical Translation Accreditation

To be considered for accreditation with RIC International, a translator has to meet the following requirements:

• Technical/Scientific Educational Background: The candidate for accreditation must hold a science, medical, or engineering degree, such as B.S., M.D., Ph.D., or equivalent.
• Technical/Scientific/Medical Work Experience: The candidate for accreditation must, in addition to having the proper academic training in the sciences or engineering, have professional work experience – not just translation experience – in the subject area in which the translator seeks accreditation. Only translators educated and trained in a relevant field of medicine, science, or engineering are eligible for accreditation with RIC International.
• Native Speaker: To be accredited in a particular language pair, the translator must be a native speaker of the target language - the language into which he translates the documents.
• Translation Experience: Have demonstrated experience of at least 7 years in technical translation in the language pair and subject field in which the candidate seeks accreditation.

Obtaining and Maintaining Technical Translation Accreditation

Candidates meeting all these requirements are invited to take a translation test in the subject field(s) and language pair(s) they wish to be accredited. Those scoring 8 or above (out of 10) for technical accuracy and 7.5 for clarity of presentation are given provisional accreditation with RIC and may be assigned translation (but not editing) assignments in their accredited language pair and subject field.

After completing 3 assignments for RIC International as translators and receiving a grade of 8.5 or above for each assignment, provisional accreditation is automatically changed to full accreditation.

After becoming accredited with RIC International, a translator is eligible to be assigned as a translator or an editor for any project that matches his accreditation language pair and knowledge field. After the completion of each project, the translator's accreditation record is updated by the project managers with a project rating.

If a linguist's trailing weighted score for either Quality or for Professionalism falls below 8, accreditation is suspended or revoked.

Contact Us

To learn more about our translators, our translation Quality Management System, or to discuss your translation requirements, please call us at 800.240.0246. Or you can send us an e-mail at info@ricintl.com.