Getting Captioning Started on Campus: Lessons Learned Dean Brusnighan Assistive Technology Specialist Purdue University

Background A one-year, campus-wide, proof-of-concept project Provide captioning in broad categories: Administrative video Academic video Intercollegiate Athletics

Agenda YouTube Commencement Ceremonies Echo 360 Intercollegiate Athletics What I learned

Administrative Video

YouTube Set up a test to compare costs: fixing machine transcription vs. paying a captioning vendor (Automatic Sync Technologies)

Compare processes Machine Transcription Download MT file from YouTube Fix word recognition and timing errors Upload to YouTube AST captioning vendor Quickly review video to identify problematic words or names Submit video to AST Review returned caption file to fix errors, if any Upload to YouTube

Compare costs Machine Transcription Editing time per video (avg): 114 minutes Employee cost: $8.50/hour Avg Cost per video: $16.20 AST captioning vendor Editing time per video (avg): 31 minutes Employee cost: $8.50/hour Employee Cost per video: $4.47 Avg AST Cost per video: $8.01 Avg Cost per video: $12.48

What I Learned #1 A captioning vendor can be a better solution than alternatives in some cases.

What I Learned #2 Providing captions in one area can lead to unexpected benefits in another area Undergraduate Admissions now has captions on almost all of their online video content

Administrative Video

Commencement Ceremonies At Purdue, available on: Local access cable TV Simultaneous webcast What did I start with? Fear of the unknown My fears were unfounded

What I Learned #3 New collaborations to provide captions can come from unexpected places.

Academic video

Echo 360 Lecture capture system Business relationship with AST allows automated submission of each lecture recording Waited for an opportunity where captioning was needed

Echo 360 (cont.) A distance education student needed captions in 2 classes Collaboration with the IT unit in charge of Echo 360 was critical Effort required to set up the “automatic” submission In 2 or 3 business days, the caption file was returned & integrated into the recorded lecture Student found the captions very helpful

Echo 360 Captions

What I Learned #4 Ask questions of vendors and look for built-in collaborations to provide captioning.

Intercollegiate Athletics

Ohio State case Athletics explored potential for captions on scoreboards Not possible at this time Could captions be provided directly to mobile devices in sports venues? Desire to caption the words of the announcer, during the game and during breaks

Captions Using Twitter Challenging to keep posts below 140 character limit Student testing showed that posts took about a minute to show up Too long for game captioning

Captions Using CoveritLive CoveritLive is a web based live blogging tool ( No limit on number of characters in post Posts show up in a few seconds on most web- enabled mobile devices Blackberry issues Season ended before student testing could be conducted in Spring 2010

Captions & CoveritLive (cont.) Athletic Dept very supportive of this project Purchased 3 iPod Touches to loan to students Testing with students will begin soon Blackberry issues continue

What I Learned #5 When the obvious solution won’t work, it can lead to a more creative solution. It may be better than the obvious solution.

What I Learned Recap 1.A captioning vendor can be a better solution than alternatives in some cases. 2.Providing captions in one area can lead to unexpected benefits in another area 3.New collaborations to provide captions can come from unexpected places. 4.Ask questions of vendors and look for built-in collaborations to provide captioning. 5.When the obvious solution won’t work, it can lead to a more creative solution. It may be better than the obvious solution.

Questions