Accessibility and Captioning at UNM Dean Bernardone, IT Academic Technologies Joan Green, Accessibility Resource Center Heather Jaramillo, Extended Learning

Accessibility Resource Center Website: arc.unm.edu Office phone: (505) 277-3506 Campus Location: 2021 Mesa Vista Hall

Accessibility Resource Center Oversight Verifying disabilities and need for accommodations Recommending reasonable accommodations Informing students of their rights and responsibilities Advocating program access Problem-solving with student and, if necessary, the instructor, in response to student concerns regarding the implementation or consistency of reasonable accommodations

Types of Disabilities Cognitive Disabilities Orthopedic Disabilities Psychological Disabilities Deaf and Hard of Hearing Visual Impairments

Who do we assist? Students previously receiving accommodations in high school or other post-secondary Institutions under IDEA or Section 504.

How To Establish Eligibility Submit documentation of a disability to verify eligibility under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Amendment Act of 2008 and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Request for services must be initiated by the student The student must schedule an intake appointment with Accessibility Resource Center

Academic Accommodations Extended time on exams Alternative furniture Conversion of textbooks Sign Language Interpreters Note taking

Assistive Technology Dyslexie: a special font developed and designed for people with dyslexia to make reading, learning, and working easier Read & Write Gold: provides reading, writing, studying, and research support tools within familiar applications (e.g., Word, Google Docs, IE, Chrome, Firefox, Adobe Reader) JAWS: speech to text synthesizer Dragon Natural Speaking: eliminates the need to use keyboard or mouse ZoomText: enlarges and enhances text

Accessibility is NOT Optional Public spaces must make reasonable accommodations for disabled and handicapped persons. Increasingly, this includes virtual spaces for students, which would include websites, learning management systems, and publisher materials. Approximately 35 universities and college systems have been sued or investigated for violations of accessibility laws in the past decade, including Harvard, Berkeley, and MIT.

Common Campus Accessibility Oversights Use of inaccessible devices in classrooms (clickers, electronic readers) Use of inaccessible websites and apps for course instruction Failure to caption educational videos both limited to students and openly available to the public Use of technologies and materials that are not accessible to screen readers

Common Accessibility Misconceptions “Accommodations really only benefit physically handicapped students.” “Providing an accommodation for learning disabilities gives those students an unfair advantage.” “AI is making the need for captioning and transcription services obsolete.”

YouTube Caption Fail

What is UNM Doing? ARC is the frontline of accessibility compliance at UNM Extended Learning and IT Academic Technologies are working on making virtual and technological tools accessible to students Extended Learning websites are fully accessible for students and the public Captioning RFP and captioning implementation for Managed Online Programs and select online courses

UNM Captioning Solution RFP process to meet online learning needs and accessibility requirements Cielo24 was chosen to provide the service Service is available to all departments on campus at a discounted rate under volume pricing contract (expires June 30, 2019)

Captioning Request Process For specific student accommodation, work directly with ARC, and ARC will coordinate with my team For other captioning requests, send an email to media@unm.edu detailing the request At some point, this service will appear in the help.unm.edu service catalog.  Some may still prefer to communicate via email.

Possible Next Steps In Fall 2018, an RFP process to select the next generation media solutions  for UNM will be made public with a go-live with the new service offerings in Fall 2019 Since the Cielo24 contract runs through June 2019, a new captioning vendor may be selected to better align with any changes that result from this RFP

Possible Next Steps (cont'd) Blackboard Ally is an application that integrates with the Learning Management System and systematically and proactively assesses accessibility compliance for all content, including video.  Unfortunately, it is not free. 

Possible Next Steps (cont'd) Please consider the model at UCLA – Accessibility Everywhere https://www.cae.ucla.edu/ Blackboard Ally for pro-active prioritization Tool that contextually allows users to flag content that is not accessible An army of students and a few statisticians