accessibility compliance in distance learning: barrier-free multimedia robert wyatt, director of...

Accessibility Compliance in Distance Learning: Barrier-Free Multimedia

Robert Wyatt, Director of Distance Education & Leyla Zhuhadar, Instructional Designer, Western Kentucky University

Copyright [Robert Wyatt & Leyla Zhuhadar] [2007]. This work is the intellectual property of the author. Permission is granted for this material to be shared for non-commercial, educational purposes, provided that this copyright statement appears on the reproduced materials and notice is given that the copying is by permission of the author. To disseminate otherwise or to republish requires written permission from the author.



Western Kentucky University – Bowling Green Kentucky, enrollment about 18,000

The Office of Distance Education (ODL) – provides support for:

• ~ 200 faculty

• ~ 400 online course offerings

• ~ 10,000 enrollments per year


The Story: How ODL efforts to assist faculty with ADA 508 compliance in their online courses led to development of multimedia and a captioning system for online materials. Moral: Good things happen to good people (Karma).

Accessibility/ Universal design

• Accommodates a wide range of individual preferences and abilities


The Story: How ODL efforts to assist faculty with ADA 508 compliance in their online courses led to development of multimedia manymedia and a captioning system for online materials.

Multimedia: Not just audio and video

• Audio and video with annotations

• Audio and video

• Podcasts

• Vodcasts

• Powerpoint slides

• Transcripts

Better than multimedia? Manymedia; all generated from a single presentation by faculty member.


Manymedia solution for students

• “Full presentation”

• Vodcast

• Podcast (not shown)

•Transcript

• Power point slides


“Full presentation”

• Software called Tegrity

• Easy to use

•“Natural Teaching method”

• Creates Audio/Video/.ppt/annotations



• Software called Tegrity. Features:

• Slide and timing menu




• Slide Index




• Search (any word on the .ppt)

“ADA compliance” - Captioning

Software called Tegrity. Features:

• Search (any word on the .ppt)

• Allows Search for certain words

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UCS-2" ?> - <ROOT>- <SLIDES> Week 1 Familiarize yourself with Blackboard READ the Syllabus and course policies Week 1 Virtual labs (Intro & Pill bug) Study for Quiz 1 (M-W) Repeat next week Week 1 Familiarize yourself with Blackboard READ the Syllabus and course policies Week 1 Virtual labs (Intro & Pill bug) Study for Quiz 1 (M-W) Repeat next week Week 1 Post questions to Forum Repeat next week Good Luck, Study Hard </SLIDES>




• Printable .ppt slides

• Much more (XML based)



• Many, many recorded lectures using Tegrity.

• Need for captioning



• Many, many recorded lectures

• Tegrity Captioningtool




• Tegrity Speech Transcription Engine

• Expands search for certain words.

• Transcriptions not meant for reading.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UCS-2" ?> - <ROOT>- <SPEECH> The data on inspector ever wider like to welcome you to buy a 130 in the market until a little about the class in general and what you need to do for the first week I hope to make one of the store Koreans every single week and I knew what she needed to put these recordings are really necessary or

The instructions and all the information will be red onion blackboard web site at first thing I could say it's a little sore need of this class is not work it's a lot of work I do this on my classes agree critique new students into what worked for you





• Allows search for certain words

• Transcriptions not meant for reading.

• Other means

• Tried other speech recognition software (direct from Tegrity recording to Software)• Requires training of software by user• Too many users and not enough time• Wanted to ease burden on faculty

Wreck a nice beach



• Along comes Pocasting

• Audio only recording WAS a podcast



• Along comes Pocasting

• Audio only recordings REALLY require captioning

• Audio is a good accessibility tool for some


Summary Part 1– At the end of the journey, accessible manymedia solution for students from one presentation.

• “Full presentation”

• Where audio accompanies .ppt with screen annotations



• Vodcast/Podcast

• Podcast From Audio only version of full presentation

• Vodcast from video portion of presentation

• Enhanced Vodcast (entire video + .ppt)



• Printable Power point slides

• Could be used with podcast.



• Transcript

• Can be used with power point slides



• “Captioned Full presentation”


The Story: How ODL efforts to assist faculty with ADA 508 compliance in their online courses led to development of “manymedia” and a captioning system for online materials. Moral #2: Always an Opportunity to Learn

By deconstructing and captioning the Tegrity presentations we created a large and diverse set of learning media for the student that can be used in a variety of ways. The Faculty only create one presentation.

Leyla Zhuhadar – Doctoral student in Computer Science at The University of Louisville and an Instructional Designer for the Office of Distance learning at WKU. She will talk about the captioning system we built and how students use the “manymedia”.



Building A Captioning System

Tegrity Presentation Components

Video files (different format)

Power point presentation files

(thumbnails images, slides images,…)

Browser files

Audio files

search files

Closed-captions file

Downloadable files

(PC, Mac)

help files GUI files (Interface)

W3C: Web Content Accessibility

<ROOT><SYNC START="1000" END="15000">welcome to management 333 managing non profit organizations my name is Linda Johnson and I will be your instructor this semester for this course in the year 2000 I left my very comfortable surroundings on the hill at Western Kentucky University</SYNC><SYNC START="16000" END="30000">to create a not for profit organization called CITE the center for technology enterprise located here Bowling Green, Kentucky after three years this fall I of scaling creating and scaling a multi million dollar</SYNC> ..................<SYNC START="226000" END="240000">can be found in the staff section of this course.</SYNC></ROOT>

Closed-captions file (An XML file)

•Using tagging format

•Splitting each session into 15 sec (Trial & Error method)

•Synchronicity between the Video/Audio and the transcripts

<ROOT><SYNC START="1000" END="15000">Welcome to management 333 managing non profit organizations my name is Linda Johnson and I will be your instructor this semester for this course in the year 2000 I left my very comfortable surroundings on the hill at Western Kentucky University</SYNC> ..................<SYNC START="226000" END="240000"> can be found in the staff section of this course.</SYNC></ROOT>

XML-file (closed-captions)Tegrity lecture with closed-captions

Mapping XML-file (closed-captions with Tegrity Lecture



Writing a Java program An automatic parser which generates the XML-file (closed-captions):

As input: 1)Transcript file

2)Duration of the lecture (hh:mm:ss)

3)Increment steps (15 second) As output: XML-file

Accessibility Compliance in Distance Learning: Barrier-Free MultimediaBuilding A Captioning System

ODL Teamwork Diagram

Accessibility Compliance in Distance Learning: Barrier-Free MultimediaHow students use the “manymedia”

Web-based Educational Platform:Tracking online students’ behaviors and their learning style “Text/Audio/Video/Subscribe (pod/vod)”

http://blog.wku.edu/podcasts/


How students use the “manymedia”

Web-based Educational Platform answers to four A’s:

• Automatic Synchronization

• Accessibility

• Availibility

• Adaptivity



• 931 individual log sessions

•115 different students

•6 different colleges

•12 different courses.



Calculatingthe percentages of each learning style for each College over all the courses



Distribution of each selected media style in relation to each student, and each College.

•Distribution of Media style vs. time

•Distribution of Media style vs. day of the week



Conclusion

• The reading learning style is not an option but it’s a core resource since:

1) the majority of students were using it

2) It makes our educational platform ADA compliant


User feedback… "does this approach meet students’ needs?"

1) I lost 40% of my hearing in the Army.

2) Part of the hearing loss I have is that a lot of words sound the same to me. Without the transcript I am sating there trying to make sense out of what the instructor said. With the transcript when I am reading it I don't have to worry about the word sounding like something else. I can see in black and white.

3) YES, plus with me if I read something I remember it better. I made three 100's in my tests.

4) Without the transcript I'm sure I wouldn't have made the B I made.It is better then a note taker. I believe the transcripts save me in this class.

Kenneth W. Chyle is an online student, who took E-Commerce & Operation Management course last semester

1) Why did you need the transcript?

2) What benefits did you get after adding the transcript to the lecture?

3) Does adding the transcript improve/speed up your learning level?

4) Can you provide us with feedback about this experience?


Last Words…

• Accessibility requirements are frequently disregarded as new technologies appear on the horizon and are quickly (too quickly?) integrated into the teaching process. • Especially for online courses, accessibility needs to be carefully considered to support diverse student learning needs. • Meeting accessibility requirements leads to greater learning possibilities to for all students.• Karma

A shared code with Manual are available on:http://ada-wku.pbwiki.com/


Questions?

Comments and questions can be discussed too on:http://ada-wku.pbwiki.com/

accessibility compliance in distance learning: barrier-free multimedia robert wyatt, director of...

Documents

accessibility compliance

distance learning

captioning slide

slide index slide

year slide

presentation software

study hard slide

week week