Captions: Improving Access to Postsecondary Education

(Matt McGarrity) As teachers...

we're really now entering a time
where our content is available

in so many different ways on
so many different platforms.

And we are not servicing
so many of our students

if we're not increasing
accessibility

and captioning is one of
the most important ways

that we can be doing that.

And the fact that we now
have the technological tools

to do it, is ...

if ... if we don't we're missing
out on a huge opportunity.

And we're actually missing out
on what I would see is one

of the missions of the
University, to increase access.

(Christine Liao) Captions
are a benefit for people

who miss information ...

It's an ability to
go back and catch

up with the information
that's being presented.

If there's a new word that a
person's never seen before,

they can see it on
the captioning.

(Sirfame Lin) I do use
captions on my own sometimes

in like louder environments
where it's hard to hear,

or when I'm not used to like
some sort of like dialect

or lingo people are using.

(Jessie Zhang) I think
things have to be captioned

so that it is more
accessible to anyone,

so not just geared towards the
deaf or hard of hearing people

but it can be helpful for
international students.

(Patrick Conway) For professors

who are considering
captioning their courses,

I highly encourage it because
it provides accessibility

to more students
than you may imagine.

(Terrill Thompson) Well
captioning makes video accessible

for people who can't hear the audio,

so somebody who's deaf
or hard of hearing,

or somebody who's
situationally hearing impaired

and for whatever reason,
they're in a loud environment,

or they're in an environment
where they can't

turn up the audio and don't
have access to speakers,

then they benefit from captions.

(Phil Reid) If they're at
a coffee shop or it's late

at night in their dorm and they
need to keep basically the sound

down because their
roommate's sleeping,

if you have captioning makes
still the lecture materials very

available and easy for
students to access them

in those types of environments.

(Jason Smith) As a certified
sign language interpreter,

I've had a unique experience
in that I've seen

some of the frustrations
that deaf people may have

when unable to access,
you know,

basic communication.

(Christine Liao) Captions are
important because when you get

into a classroom and the teacher
is presenting, say a video tape,

I'll have an interpreter in
the classroom, I have to look

at the interpreter and look
at the screen at the same time

to get the information.

It's important for my
education to be able

to access information.

(Phil Reid) There's a wide
variety of students that benefit

from captioning, issues of
accessibility obviously but also

for students for whom English
isn't their primary language,

It really makes the material
more accessible to them.

And frankly for students who,
because I teach chemistry

and science instruction, who
use a lot of technical language,

so it gives students the
ability to kind of look at words

where they've heard them they
can actually see them as well,

and start to make connections
between what they're hearing

and what the word actually
is, and so it's beneficial

in that regard as well.

(Christine Liao)
Seeing technical words

in captioning is very beneficial

because if I have an ASL
interpreter signing a really big

chemistry word, they're going
to finger spell it really fast

and I'm not going to
know how to spell it.

(Jason Smith) Lecture
capture allows instructors

and even students and full
time staff the ability

to download software
onto their computer

and record their screen while
also recording with a camera

and their audio, to
deliver educational content

that shows the screen and
also shows you in a picture

in picture to deliver
content in ...

in a more interactive way.

(Patrick Conway)
Where the caption is,

I get the material back
and I am able to search

through the material for
key words

(Jason Smith) Within the
lecture capture system

that the University of Washington offers

there is the ability to ...

to do a keyword search of the
video that you're watching.

In fact you can do a keyword
search of all the videos

within your account, which
we think is a pretty powerful

feature because the
search will actually search

against the transcript that is
created by the caption vendor,

so essentially what
that means is every word

that is recorded is now
able to be searched upon.

(Matt McGarrity)
The search function

with captioning is
just something we ...

we haven't even really started
to incorporate as lecturers,

but it's what we've
always wanted, right?

So let's say you've got a
student preparing for the test,

they're looking at their
notes, they see this concept

and they remember faintly
something from the lecture

when they were sitting
in the lecture hall.

With the search function, what
you've done is created the class

as a searchable database and so,
in that case, what they're using

that lecture for is, you know,
as a searchable way of engaging

and making connections
between concepts,

connections that as a lecturer
you would want them to make

or maybe even as a teacher
you wouldn't even guess

that they would make.

(Terrill Thompson) Every video
that's uploaded to YouTube

gets captioned automatically,

and that's machine generated
captions, so they're not...

the science isn't great at this
point, it's getting better.

Sometimes it produces an
accurate enough transcript,

or accurate enough
captions, that you can go in

and edit those captions and it
doesn't take very long to do

that if it just has a few
mistakes here and there.

To caption video on YouTube,

you have to be the
owner of the video

and then you can edit
the automatic captions

that YouTube creates or
you can upload captions

that you create but you ...

you do have to be the owner of
the video in order to do that.

If people want to create
their own captions,

do their own captioning,

then there are a variety of
tools that support that.

They can do that for
free using various tools

that are available, either
software that they can download

or free tools that are
available on the web.

Captions open up
so many possibilities

because if you think about how much
video is being cranked out now,

a lot of the world's information
is now in video form

and with captions we have
access to all that's being said

within those videos,
so there's data galore

and it's time synced data
so that opens all sorts

of possibilities for new
research or just different ways

of interacting with information.

(Phil Reid) The feedback
I've gotten about captioning

has just been remarkable

in particular for students for whom
English is not their primary language.

They just absolutely love it.

And my student evaluation forms
that I get, that comes out

loud and clear that they really
appreciate captioning

because it just makes the
material more accessible.