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TIPS on Accessibility: Closed Captioning
The De Anza College Television Center recently faced a challenge that many other community colleges with TV production facilities may also be facing: how to provide closed captioning services for hearing impaired students who are enrolled in distance learning classes. This article is intended to help other colleges to understand the technology and issues about closed captioning. Closed caption services have the potential to benefit an estimated 24 million Americans with hearing disabilities, and approximately 27 million others in the United States who are learning English as a second language. Colleges face many challenges to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which mandates an "equal opportunity for the deaf and hard of hearing to participate." Closed captioning systems add hidden text to a live video program or a videotape recording. A built-in decoder is used to view the hidden text on a television. The text is displayed as pop-up text or continuous roll-up lines of text that are superimposed over the television picture. The hidden text information displays who is speaking, what their spoken words are, as well as other descriptive items, including sounds. Decoders have become a standard feature in most televisions and videotape recorders built after 1993. Separate external decoder boxes are available for devices that do not have built-in decoders. The two main types of closed captioning services are on-line and off-line. On-line captioning adds the hidden text to live or real-time video events, including live classroom closed captioning for students or live distance learning programming. Off-line services add captioning to a prerecorded videotape program. Off-line captioning services are available from off-campus service providers. Be prepared to pay in the range of $10-20 per video minute in addition to the cost of the videotape, and allow a week or two turnaround time to complete the job. Both captioning services can be offered by a college with the purchase of a few pieces of electronic equipment, a software package, some basic technical support, and funding for a real-time reporter. A basic electronic equipment package includes a personal computer (around $3000) with special captioning software (around $4000) and a video encoder box (around $3000) for adding text to the video programming. The certified real-time reporter or captioner supplies a stenographic writing machine that connects to the computer to translate his/her short hand key strokes to English text. A real-time reporter must possess many specialized talents to record a live event. Real-time reporter skills include the ability to accurately translate stenographic short hand into English text (minimum of 220 words per minute), a mature dictionary to provide an accurate translation over a variety of different topics and subject matters, the ability to synopsize what is being said if writing the text verbatim risks an inaccurate English translation, and an understanding of the cultural needs of the deaf or hard of hearing viewers. These skills set a real-time reporter apart from other similar service providers, such as a court reporter. The cost of this service ranges around $100-125 per hour, usually with a minimum of three hours. Additional time may be required to allow the reporter time to enter the event, participants’ names, titles, and/or other special terminology that will be used during the event. To learn more about closed captioning services and equipment vendors, visit one of the following web sites: |
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