Improving Deaf Accessibility to Web-based Multimedia

Internet technologies have expanded rapidly over the past two decades, making information of all sorts more readily available. Not only are they more cost-effective than traditional media, these new media have contributed to quality and convenience. However, proliferation of video and audio media on the internet creates an inadvertent disadvantage for deaf Internet users. Despite technological and legislative milestones in recent decades in making television and movies more accessible, there has been little progress with online access. A major obstacle to providing captions for internet media is the high cost of captioning and transcribing services. To respond to this problem, a possible solution lies in automatic speech recognition (ASR). This research investigates possible solutions to Web accessibility through utilization of ASR technologies. It surveys previous studies that employ visualization and ASR to determine their effectiveness in the context of deaf accessibility. Since there was no existing literature indicating the area of greatest need, a preliminary study identified an application that would serve as a case study for applying and evaluating speech visualization technology. A total of 20 deaf and hard-of-hearing participants were interviewed via video phone and their responses in American Sign Language were transcribed to English. The most common theme was concern over a lack of accessibility for online news. The second study evaluated different presentation strategies for making online news videos more accessible. A total of 95 participants viewed four different caption styles. Each style was presented on different news stories with control for content level and delivery. In addition to pre-test and post-test questionnaires, both performance and preference measures were conducted. Results from the study offer emphatic support for the hypothesis that captioning the online videos makes the Internet more accessible to the deaf users. Furthermore, the findings lend strong evidence to the idea of utilizing automatic captions to make videos comprehensible to the deaf viewers at a fraction of the cost. The color-coded captions that used highlighting to reflect the accuracy ratings were found neither to be beneficial nor detrimental; however, when asked directly about the benefit of color-coding there was support for the concept. Further development and research will be necessary to find the appropriate solution

Annual Report, 2003-2004

Submitted by Charles E. Stegman, Dean, Aug. 1998-Aug. 1999; Interim Dean Sharon Hunt, Aug. 15, 2000 ; Dean Reed Greenwood, Aug. 2001-200

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This book is the second of two volumes on deaf multiliteracies based on research with deaf children and adults in India, Uganda and Ghana. Multiliteracies include not only reading and writing but also skills in sign language, drawing, acting, digitally mediated communication, and other modes. The book covers a variety of themes including learner engagement, classroom practice, capacity building, and education systems. Authors discuss aspects of learning such as the sequencing of different multiliteracies skills in the classroom, a gamified approach to English grammar, a sign-bilingual online environment, and the influence of visual materials on learners' participation. Capacity building with young deaf professionals and a comparative discussion of deaf education systems in three countries also feature in the volume. The book is of interest to both researchers and practitioners. In addition to four research chapters, it features four 'innovation sketches'. These are reports of innovative practices that have arisen in the context of the research, and they are particularly relevant for practitioners with an interest in methodologies

READ WRITE EASY

This book is the second of two volumes on deaf multiliteracies based on research with deaf children and adults in India, Uganda and Ghana. Multiliteracies include not only reading and writing but also skills in sign language, drawing, acting, digitally mediated communication, and other modes. The book covers a variety of themes including learner engagement, classroom practice, capacity building, and education systems. Authors discuss aspects of learning such as the sequencing of different multiliteracies skills in the classroom, a gamified approach to English grammar, a sign-bilingual online environment, and the influence of visual materials on learners' participation. Capacity building with young deaf professionals and a comparative discussion of deaf education systems in three countries also feature in the volume. The book is of interest to both researchers and practitioners. In addition to four research chapters, it features four 'innovation sketches'. These are reports of innovative practices that have arisen in the context of the research, and they are particularly relevant for practitioners with an interest in methodologies

Accessibility Denied

This book explores the societal resistance to accessibility for persons with disabilities, and tries to set an example of how to study exclusion in a time when numerous policies promise inclusion. With 12 chapters organised in three parts, the book takes a comprehensive approach to accessibility, covering transport and communication, knowledge and education, law and organisation. Topics within a wide cross-disciplinary field are covered, including disability studies, social work, sociology, ethnology, social anthropology, and history. The main example is Sweden, with its implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities within the context of the Nordic welfare state. By identifying and discussing persistent social and cultural conditions as well as recurring situations and interactions that nurture resistance to advancing accessibility, despite various strong laws promoting it, the book’s conclusions are widely transferable. It argues for the value of alternating between methods, theoretical perspectives, and datasets to explore how new arenas, resources and technologies cause new accessibility concerns — and possibilities — for persons living with impairments. We need to be able to follow actors closely to uncover how they feel, act, and argue, but also to connect to wider discursive and institutional patterns and systems. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of disability studies, social work, sociology, ethnology, social anthropology, political science, and organisation studies

Teaching Chemistry to Students with Disabilities: A Manual For High Schools, Colleges, and Graduate Programs - Edition 4.1

Ever since it was first published, Teaching Chemistry to Students with Disabilities: A Manual for High Schools, Colleges, and Graduate Programs has served as a vital resource in the chemistry classroom and laboratory to students with disabilities as well as their parents, teachers, guidance counselors, and administrators. The comprehensive 4th edition was last updated in 2001, so the American Chemical Society’s (ACS) Committee on Chemists with Disabilities (CWD) thought it prudent to update such a valuable text at this time. In a changing time of technology, rapid access to information, accessibility tools for individuals with disabilities, and publishing, Edition 4.1 is being published digitally/online as an Open Access text. Having Teaching Chemistry to Students with Disabilities: A Manual for High Schools, Colleges, and Graduate Programs in this format will allow for widespread dissemination and access by maximum numbers of readers at no cost- and will allow the text to remain economically sustainable.https://scholarworks.rit.edu/ritbooks/1001/thumbnail.jp

Improving Accessibility of e-Learning Templates for Students with Disabilities

Because of the effective development of contemporary technologies, also during the recent COVID-19 pandemic, students with disabilities have been increasingly integrated into the society, work, and academic environment. Accordingly, the question of how to provide accessible graphical design of e-learning materials for various categories of students with disabilities and how to comply with international accessibility standards is becoming more and more prominent. The purpose of the study was to propose recommendations for the design of e-learning materials to achieve the preparation of effective study materials for students with hearing and visual loss, as well as autism spectrum disorders. According to their needs and requirements, recommendations for the graphic design of accessible e-learning materials have been designed, developed, implemented, and evaluated. The findings revealed a higher level of acceptance of adapted material for all experimental groups and can be helpful for teachers and other professionals educating students with disabilities

New Updates in E-Learning

This book presents state-of-the-art educational technologies and teaching methodologies and discusses future educational philosophies in support of the global academic society. New Updates in E-Learning is a collection of chapters addressing important issues related to effective utilization of the Internet and Cloud Computing, virtual robotics, and real-life application of hybrid educational environments to enhance student learning regardless of geographical location or other constraints. Over ten chapters, the book discusses the current and future evolution of educational technologies and methodologies and the best academic practices in support of providing high-quality education at all academic levels

Attitudes, behaviors, and learning outcomes from using classtranscribe, a UDL-featured video-based online learning platform with learnersourced text-searchable captions

This thesis consisted of a series of three studies on students' attitudes, behaviors, and learning outcomes from using ClassTranscribe, a Universal Design for Learning (UDL) featured video-based online learning platform. ClassTranscribe provided accurate accessible transcriptions and captioning plus a custom text-searchable interface to rapidly find relevant video moments from the entire course. Users could edit the machine-generated captions in a crowdsourcing way. The system logged student viewing, searching, and editing behaviors as fine-grained web browser interaction events including full-screen-switching, loss-of-focus, caption searching and editing events, and continued-video-watching events with the latter at 15-second granularity. In Study I, lecture material of a sophomore large-enrollment (N=271) system programming 15-week class in Spring 2019 was delivered solely online using a new video-based web platform - ClassTranscribe. Student learning behaviors and findings from four research questions were presented using individual-level performance and interaction data. Firstly, we reported on learning outcomes from alternative learning paths that arose from the course's application of Universal Design for Learning principles. Secondly, final exam performance was equal or better to prior semesters that utilized traditional in-person live lectures. Thirdly, learning outcomes of low and high performing students were analyzed independently by grouping students into four quartiles based on their non-final-exam course performance of programming assignments and quizzes. We introduced and justified an empirically-defined qualification threshold for sufficient video minutes viewed for each group. In all quartiles, students who watched an above-threshold of video minutes improved their in-group final exam performance (ranging from +6% to +14%) with the largest gain for the lowest-performing quartile. The improvement was similar in magnitude for all groups when expressed as a fraction of unrewarded final exam points. Finally, we found that using ClassTranscribe caption-based video search significantly predicted improvement in final exam scores. Overall, the study presented and evaluated how learner use of online video using ClassTranscribe predicted course performance and positive learning outcomes. In Study II, we further explored learner's searching behavior, which was shown to be correlated with improved final exam scores in the first study. From Fall 2019 to Summer 2020, engineering students used ClassTranscribe in engineering courses to view course videos and search for video content. The tool collected detailed timestamped student behavioral data from 1,894 students across 25 engineering courses that included what individual students searched for and when. As the first study showed that using ClassTranscribe caption search significantly predicted improvement in final exam scores in a computer science course, in this study, we presented how students used the search functionality based on a more detailed analysis of the log data. The search functionality of ClassTranscribe used the timestamped caption data to find specific video moments both within the current video or across the entire course. The number of search activities per person ranged from zero to 186 events. An in-depth analysis of the students (N=167) who performed 1,022 searches was conducted to gain insight into student search needs and behaviors. Based on the total number of searches performed, students were grouped into “Infrequent Searcher” (< 18 searches) and “Frequent Searcher” (18 to 110 searches) using clustering algorithms. The search queries used by each group were found to follow the Zipf’s Law and were categorized into STEM-related terms, course logistics and others. Our study reported on students’ search context, behaviors, strategies, and optimizations. Using Universal Design for Learning as a foundation, we discussed the implications for educators, designers, and developers who are interested in providing new learning pathways to support and enhance video-based learning environments. In Study III, we investigated students' attitudes towards learnersourced captioning for lecture videos. We deployed ClassTranscribe in a large (N=387) text retrieval and mining course where 58 learners participated in editing captions of 89 lecture videos, and each lecture video was edited by two editors sequentially. In the following semester, 18 editors participated in follow-up interviews to discuss their experience of using and editing captions in the class. Our study showed how students use captions to learn, and shed light on students' attitudes, motivations, and strategies in collaborating with other learners to fix captions in a learnersourced way

Preparing to Teach, Committing to Learn: An Introduction to Educating Children Who Are Deaf/Hard of Hearing

Preparing to Teach is an open-source eBook on deaf education for students and faculty in professional preparation programs, practitioners in deaf education, and families of children who are DHH. Although the focus is on deaf-education teachers who are providing services to students who are DHH, the text is useful to students and faculty in related fields including speech-language pathology, audiology, and special education. Because the text is introductory in nature it covers a broad range of topics and does not replace texts that go into more depth on a particular aspect of deaf education. The text includes references and additional recommended readings and resources for further study. The text addresses the range of communication options used by students in deaf education with an emphasis on listening and spoken language approaches and strategies that have often been only minimally addressed in introductory texts. References and resources for further study of approaches that are primarily visual are included.https://griffinshare.fontbonne.edu/oer-books/1000/thumbnail.jp