Getting Captioning Started on Campus:Lessons Learned

Dean BrusnighanAssistive Technology SpecialistPurdue 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 transcriptionvs.

• 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

Intercollegiate Athletics

• Ohio State case• Desire to caption the words of the PA announcer,

during the game and during breaks• Purdue Athletics explored potential for captions

on scoreboards• Not possible at this time

• Could captions be provided directly to mobile devices in sports venues?

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 (www.coveritlive.com)

• 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