31–40 of 101 posts
Thanks DOJ for the Kafka-esque move that will most likely deprive everyone of free educational materials. Glad to know justice was served.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
All agreed, except : UC Berk is a public institution, using public funds to create these resources. This is not a free charitable creation from a private person, to which people respond "well, you should give us MORE or we'll SUE!" No, this is a public institution using public funds to create a public resource... which it then only makes accessible to a subset of the public. Public buildings, public libraries, public…
> No, this is a public institution using public funds to create a public resource... which it then only makes accessible to a subset of the public. I thought about this, and I'm actually not sure what to think. As UCB made clear that the alternative would be to take those resources down, making it completely unavailable to the public. Do we just consider this an acceptable collateral damage from the ADA?
UCB has another alternative, use those public funds they take to make the course material accessible. They don't want to do that because that takes money away from them. Taking down the material is not the only alternative, it's just the only alternative they're willing to take because it's cheap.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
All agreed, except : UC Berk is a public institution, using public funds to create these resources. This is not a free charitable creation from a private person, to which people respond "well, you should give us MORE or we'll SUE!" No, this is a public institution using public funds to create a public resource... which it then only makes accessible to a subset of the public. Public buildings, public libraries, public…
> No, this is a public institution using public funds to create a public resource... which it then only makes accessible to a subset of the public. I thought about this, and I'm actually not sure what to think. As UCB made clear that the alternative would be to take those resources down, making it completely unavailable to the public. Do we just consider this an acceptable collateral damage from the ADA?
"...the Department of Justice has recently asserted that the University is in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act because, in its view, not all of the free course and lecture content UC Berkeley makes available on certain online platforms is fully accessible to individuals with hearing, visual or manual disabilities..." Wow. Talk about harming hundreds of people for no reason at all. IANAL, but I believe…
U.C. Berkeley has some fantastic classes online. It would truly be a shame to lose them. Many were clearly produced on shoestring budgets. The Department of Justice seems to have received complaints mainly regarding absence of transcripts for audio or video content. Can't speech-to-text tech help? Other complaints include poor formatting of pdf's. If the courses are indeed taken down, I can only hope that at least th…
Would it be legal to have community created transcripts for all courses? Would not mind to spend some time doing so in lieu of free content.
[0] https://khanacademy.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/categories/20018602...
Unfortunate to see this free content be lost. In the same line of thinking it is also sad that in this day and age there are not easy tools / systems to help transcode and make content ADA approved. (At least cost effective)
In most cases, it is probably simply a lack of awareness on the part of the people making the material available. The difficult part is educating the faculty and staff of the University about the legal requirements they must meet and the resources available to them to make compliance easier, and, perhaps more importantly, an integral part of the process.
U.C. Berkeley has some fantastic classes online. It would truly be a shame to lose them. Many were clearly produced on shoestring budgets. The Department of Justice seems to have received complaints mainly regarding absence of transcripts for audio or video content. Can't speech-to-text tech help? Other complaints include poor formatting of pdf's. If the courses are indeed taken down, I can only hope that at least th…
Follow the money. http://www.wendel.com/knowledge-center/publications/older/no...
Fyi ... a related (not duplicate) HN discussion from Feb 2015: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9039798 In both this case about UC Berkeley and the lawsuit against Harvard & MIT, the legal attacks seem very wrong. What I see is: - Scenario A: spend $X to release free courses that benefits most of humanity - Scenario B: spend $X+$Y to release free courses that also benefits the disabled population (The $Y is extra…
While I understand your sentiment and agree with it to some extent, the other side of the argument is that by releasing a free course, you disadvantage someone who would create this content, for a fee, and use that money to make it accessible to all. In effect, they are giving a free advantage to those without disabilities, making it even harder for those with disabilities to compete. Is that fair? An analogy appropr…
"Faculty developing UC BerkeleyX courses can, but are not required to, develop courses in collaboration with the Berkeley Resource Center for Online Education (BRCOE). BRCOE follows best practices in design for accessibility and also has a quality assurance process that includes deploying various accessibility evaluators; remediating layout, page structure, downloadable or styling accessibility barriers; and obtaining transcripts of all audio and video files associated with a course."
They follow that with a checklist which all faculty which opted out of using those resources since July 2015 was required to sign.
To me, this looks like a system which is trying to comply, but the people within the system have failed to take the requirements seriously.
Fyi ... a related (not duplicate) HN discussion from Feb 2015: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9039798 In both this case about UC Berkeley and the lawsuit against Harvard & MIT, the legal attacks seem very wrong. What I see is: - Scenario A: spend $X to release free courses that benefits most of humanity - Scenario B: spend $X+$Y to release free courses that also benefits the disabled population (The $Y is extra…