A Practical Guide to Campus IT Accessibility

Presenters Joseph Collins Educational Technical Services Manager North Hennepin Community College Art Morgan Executive Management Team Automatic Sync Technologies Sean Brown, Moderator Senior Vice President Sonic Foundry

North Hennepin Community College At-a-Glance 10,655 unduplicated headcount 4,610 FYE students 26.7 avg student age ~114 teaching spaces 2 immersive high-definition video conferencing classrooms 12 capture classrooms 1 portable recorder

Starting Point & Guiding Principles 2009 Budget Planning Session Remove a barriers to students falling behind or having life interfere Easy to use Ability to make content accessible Ability to stream live Content stored for on-demand use Automated No single purpose classroom

Current Practices Annually budget for captioning Training: Reuse on-demand content, online Partner with Access Services Don t actively police course content Self-identified need after a course starts

Why Pay For Captioning? 1 hour of video: 5 hours transcribe & caption Lack technology to automate and scale Labor time Accuracy Easy button

Accessibility Review External Consultant Accessibility Roadmap 33% growth 2013-2015 Students with Disabilities No formal accessability policy Form an accessiblity committee

System Review of Captioning Academic & Student Affairs Campus Academic Technology Teams 1. Investigate options, processes, and products for captioning services 2. Recommend further action or activies (RFP, product trialing, pilots) 3. Understand and interpret federal and state level legal requirements to provide funding to campus Share success stories and effective practices broadly Serve as focus group to setup a MnSCU Accessible Technologies Conference

The Changing Landscape for Video Accessibility

Video Accessibility Background Estimated percentage of adults* who are Deaf: 2%+ Hard of hearing: 13%+ Sections 504, 508 of Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (amended 1998) Titles II, III of Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) (amended 2008) Key: Virtually all higher education organizations covered * Source: http://libguides.gallaudet.edu/content.php?pid=119476&sid=1029190

Shifts in Enforcement Increased Office of Civil Rights (OCR) enforcement Dear Colleague Letters Emerging technologies must be accessible Individuals with disabilities must receive an equal opportunity to participate in and benefit from the goods and services of a college or university (public or private) Advocacy group suits and settlements: NAD v. Netflix NAD and Apple itunes NAD and VUDU

NAD v. Harvard/MIT: Initial Complaint Filed by NAD, et al on Feb. 12, 2015: online content is either not captioned, or is inaccurately or unintelligibly captioned, making it inaccessible for individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing. Seek to enforce Section 504 of Rehabilitation Act of 1973 Seek to enforce Title III of ADA

NAD v. Harvard/MIT: Motion to Dismiss Harvard/MIT moved to dismiss or stay until DOJ issues regulations, under ADA, on website accessibility Neither ADA nor Section 504 require captions for online programming Under Section 504, only required to provide access to students with disabilities, not the general public

NAD v. Harvard/MIT: U.S. Government Statement of Interest On June 23, 2015, Statements of Interest issued: Both ADA and Section 504 currently obligate effective communication and equal access Does not require courts to unravel intricate, technical facts Harvard/MIT must prove undue burden to claim exemption

Implications: What needs to be captioned? Policy should cover at a minimum: Academic content shown to a known student population when there is an accommodation request Academic content shown to an unknown population (e.g. distance education), regardless of whether there is an accommodation request Publicly presented content (e.g. video on public website) Outcome of recent cases may broaden scope Automatic Sync whitepaper provides more detail

Implications: Captioning Quality Requirements Government has relied on voluntary compliance, but there are signs of movement towards legislated standards of quality Be careful about using speech recognition or untrained personnel Consider equal treatment, effective communication There is a cost/quality trade-off

Implications: Benefits of Captioning Consistent with Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles Improved learning outcomes (increased comprehension and retention for all learners) Improved accessibility for ESL viewers Viewer flexibility Enable indexing, searching and SEO

Useful Links Details on Accessibility Regulations from AST: http://bit.ly/1zflbyp Whitepaper: A Captioning Guide for Higher Education http://bit.ly/1etbpnm AST s Research on Accuracy and Comprehension: http://bit.ly/1dc7ihj AST s Blog: http://www.automaticsync.com/captionsync/category/blogall/ AST video gallery: http://www.automaticsync.com/captionsync/aboutautomatic-sync/video-captioning-gallery/

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