Background:

Cochrane Reviews provide health information in an era of information overload. With its 'Strategy to 2020', Cochrane has approved a translation strategy and established an infrastructure to support translation projects. The German-language translation project Cochrane Kompakt (www.cochrane.org/de/kompakt) is a collaboration between Cochrane entities in Switzerland, Austria and Germany and actively reaches out to the health professions and their organisations to maximise benefit from the limited resources available.

Methods:

We work with health professionals, who are interested in disseminating Cochrane Reviews, to translate Cochrane Plain language summaries into German on an ongoing basis. Through their networks, they have access to domain-specific audiences and dissemination channels. The cooperation we target consists of them lending us their expertise for translation; in return translated summaries are co-published in German-language discipline-specific journals. This increases the dissemination and impact of translated Cochrane summaries. Via workshops and seminars, opportunities to get involved in Cochrane Kompakt are promoted.
A standard approach to instruct translators was developed to ensure quality and consistency. The coordinators introduced new translators to the web-based translation platform, Smartling, by using tailored instructions, and provided them with ongoing assistance. All texts are redacted by at least two project collaborators.

Results:

As of March 2015, we published 174 Cochrane Review summaries in German on Cochrane Kompakt. Of those, 25 were co-published in scientific journals (e.g. pt_Zeitschrift für Physiotherapeuten), and another 12 are scheduled for publication in 2015. Mutual benefit for both Cochrane and the involved health professions increases the number of translation resources and translations, keeps up motivation and has a snowball effect with current translators promoting their own work and recruiting additional volunteers. It is worthwhile for other translation teams to consider this strategy. Active involvement of health professions will ensure that translated content is disseminated to target readerships.