The Finnish Terminology Centre and the Institute for the Estonian Language (EKI) launched a joint TERM-COL development project (Building a Comprehensive and Sustainable Terminology Collection Model for Rapidly Evolving Fields, with a Focus on Artificial Intelligence Terminology) in September 2025. The project, funded by the EU’s Erasmus+ programme, focuses on developing and testing a sustainable model and an AI-assisted tool for collecting terminological information. The purpose of the project is to create a more efficient workflow that enhances the two organizations’ ability to meet the demand for high-quality terminology in both Finnish and Estonian, particularly in rapidly evolving fields.
As a test case for tool development, we will compile a set of AI concepts. AI was chosen as the subject field because of its rapidly evolving nature and because, to date, little systematic terminological work has been carried out in either Finnish or Estonian in this field. The resulting terminological information will then be made available as a publicly accessible terminology resource through both EKI’s Sõnaveeb portal and the Terminology Centre website. By providing reliable, high-quality terminological information to the public, we aim to support the continued use and development of Finnish and Estonian in the field of AI, facilitate knowledge sharing in these languages, and thereby make AI technologies more accessible to the public.
Early progress: survey and development
We started the TERM-COL project by conducting a survey to collect data supporting the development work. The terminologists in EKI and the Terminology Centre collaborated to create an online questionnaire aimed at people whose work is related to terminology, such as terminologists, other language specialists, researchers, domain experts, and students. The questionnaire was administered by the Terminology Centre in November and December 2025, and the results were shared with EKI’s terminologists at our first face-to-face meeting in Helsinki at the end of January 2026. The compilation of the results can be found on EKI website. We will also be examining them in more detail in our next project update here on the Terminology Centre website.
During the last winter, the terminologists also worked on collecting suitable material for training the AI-assisted terminology tool developed within TERM-COL. For this purpose, we compiled over 300 digital resources containing AI terminology in Estonian, Finnish, and English. This material will also serve as the basis for the terminological information on AI concepts to be published later. The development of the tool is currently underway, and the first results were shared by the language specialists at EKI in June. The next step in the project will be testing the tool, which will be carried out by terminologists from both organizations and take place in autumn 2026.
Sharing the results
After the completion of TERM-COL, we will present the project outcomes at a final seminar organised by EKI in Tallinn. They will also be shared on both EKI and the Terminology Centre’s websites. Stay up to date with TERM-COL on the project page of EKI website.
