A statement on online course content and accessibility • Hacker News Board

Re: A statement on online course content and accessibility

#81

Post by crazy2be » Sat, Sep 17, 2016, 8:50 PM UTC

marbletiles wrote: post #67

shanusmagnus wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I came back to make a comment just like this, but you already did it better than I would have. The metaphor I had in mind was restaurants that make too much food, and (sometimes; some restaurants) they donate it to foodshelves (when appropriate) or sometimes just to some homeless guys who happen to be nearby. The extra food is an externality of their real purpose as a business, which is to take money in exchange for…

No but people would say they food they give away should still comply with health regulations. Just because you're making a gift doesn't mean the law doesn't apply to you.

That's not a good comparison, not complying with health regulations substantially devalues the food given away, because of the significantly increased risk of illness resulting from consumption of said food.

Your second statement is irrelevant, we are not talking about what the law does, but what the law should do. And I absolutely think that gifts (and good samaritan acts in general) should be held to a much lower standard than commercial enterprises.

This is not at all unprecedented in US law (or in many places in the world), every state has some form of good samaritan law[1], which protects (to some extent) individuals who act in good faith to aid strangers in need of immediate medical assistance. There is also a federal law indemnifying donors of properly labeled foods, except in the case of gross negligence or intentional misconduct.

These laws are important, because donations result in no benefit for the bearer, so making them cost money is a significant deterrence to charity.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Samaritan_law#United_Stat...

Re: A statement on online course content and accessibility

#82

Post by josinalvo » Sat, Sep 17, 2016, 8:55 PM UTC

marbletiles wrote: post #67

shanusmagnus wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I came back to make a comment just like this, but you already did it better than I would have. The metaphor I had in mind was restaurants that make too much food, and (sometimes; some restaurants) they donate it to foodshelves (when appropriate) or sometimes just to some homeless guys who happen to be nearby. The extra food is an externality of their real purpose as a business, which is to take money in exchange for…

No but people would say they food they give away should still comply with health regulations. Just because you're making a gift doesn't mean the law doesn't apply to you.

Should it, though?

I mean, if you want to impose costs (check carefully food, possibility of lawsuit) on a donation, what you get, predictably, is less donations.

It seems to be the case that you have an assymetrical view of harm: harm by not giving food is always acceptable, harm by giving food, usually unacceptable. Why would it be the case?

Re: A statement on online course content and accessibility

#83

Post by AndrewD_ » Sat, Sep 17, 2016, 9:03 PM UTC

Rylinks wrote: post #42

mhurron wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So holding something some people would find valuable is an acceptable way to bypass the law? 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.

>They don't want to do that because that takes money away from them. It takes money away from the enrolled students that UCB is currently spending money on.

If anyone wants the numbers, tuition is 28% of the budget and state funds are 14% of the budget.

http://cfo.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/2013-14%20UC%20B...

Re: A statement on online course content and accessibility

#84

Post by josinalvo » Sat, Sep 17, 2016, 9:07 PM UTC

sandworm101 wrote: post #58

mavhc wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't do it because it's the morally correct thing to do? Or even to promote a society where such things happen, just in case we or our relatives become disabled?

A business does it because it is the law. A person may do or not do something based on personal choice, but in this situation there is no room. Businesses must meet the minimum standard of behavior. In this case the government has issued a warning that this particular business seems not to have met the bar. If you are trying to pitch something, something that is going to cost a business money, "the right thing" isn't…

And the candidate did not bother to try to solve the issue with the startup directly first ?!

Re: A statement on online course content and accessibility

#85

Post by crazy2be » Sat, Sep 17, 2016, 9:08 PM UTC

cortesoft wrote: post #46

NhanH wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

For one, they haven't made it clear that they need to take them down; they said they are going to do whatever they can first, but leave open the possibility that they will be unable to meet the regulations and would need to remove the content. I understand your argument, but if you only have to say "I can't afford to support disabled people!" in order to not have to be in compliance with the ADA, then the ADA becomes…

While your comparison to wheelchair ramps seems analogous, it in fact has a significant flaw. Wheelchair ramps cost the business almost nothing to build relative to the cost of operating the business. The tax for these sort of physical accommodations is almost certainly less than 1%, which nearly everyone would consider acceptable.

In the case of captioning the videos, the captioning costs several times more than putting up the videos in the first place. Probably on the order of 100x more. A lot of these lecture videos are just someone with a camera recording the lecture live, someone who would be there, watching the lecture, regardless. They do some trivial editing / splicing, and upload to YouTube. This is essentially free, other than having the professor/school sign off on them doing it.

Once the ADA gets involved, you now have to caption the video while watching, or after the fact, something you likely would not have done otherwise. You probably also have to submit it to some authority in the university now (don't want to get sued!), who will have to rewatch the video and verify the captions.

In the old system, it took you less than 5 minutes of inconvenience per lecture to upload them. In the new system, it takes you 2 x len(lecture) => 120 minutes or so, per lecture. This is a huge tax in relative terms.

Re: A statement on online course content and accessibility

#86

Post by extra88 » Sat, Sep 17, 2016, 9:08 PM UTC

arieskg wrote: post #68

Classic lobbying. The Department of Justice is filing the complaints against the institutions offering free online courses with an illogical argument masked with virtuous intent. The DOJ is okay with the paid online courses because the levying cost on consumers provides immunity to such violations. Depriving everyone's access to the free content because it did not accommodate those with disabilities sets dangerous pr…

You have no idea what you're talking about. Paid online courses are also required to make their courses accessible to students, what's different for them is they can make a course accessible to each specific student which can be easier (e.g. if a student is deaf, they need captions but not written descriptions of visuals). Most cases involved brick 'n mortar businesses and institutions and in many online cases they've been extensions of the physical world (Target, UC Berkeley). More recent cases (Netflix) have made it clear that online-only entities are also considered places of public accommodation.

Why UC Berkeley this time? I don't know, other than the complainants came to the DoJ about them, and not some other school.

The purpose of the letter is not to cost the University or to stop them making the materials available. The DoJ never suggests that, it's Berkeley that raised the idea on their own. The purpose is to explain how the University has been violating the law and what they can to correct it so ultimately what is offered can also be used by people with disabilities.

Re: A statement on online course content and accessibility

#87

Post by wbl » Sat, Sep 17, 2016, 9:16 PM UTC

icantdrive55 wrote: post #44

eqmvii wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you wrote is logical, but applicable to any instance of accommodation to those with impairments. The Americans with Disabilities Act and related actions/legislation/policies explicitly bind society to inefficient resource allocation. The actual letter from the Department of Justice (linked at the bottom of Berkeley's response) goes into more detail. The DoJ is not demanding current materials be removed, nor are…

"Importantly, this is NOT a lawsuit." It will be soon. There's a lawyer, in the Bay Area, that has made his wad off ADA lawsuits. I guarantee, he is setting up shop as we speak. I know this because my best friend (deceased) got caught up the ADA lawsuit game. He took a driving job. He drove around these two handicapped individuals. They drove through out the U.S. He used to call me from the road, and say the stranges…

Replace "not ADA compliant" with "has a 'no blacks' sign" and you understand the impact of inaccessibility. It means you won't be able to be served.

Re: A statement on online course content and accessibility

#88

Post by josinalvo » Sat, Sep 17, 2016, 9:42 PM UTC

Can someone provide an estimate of how much it would cost to make one course accessible.

Or rather:

1. What would be the cost to transcribe a one hour video?

Does the transcriber need any knowledge apart from English? (and presumably a one week course so that when the teacher points at something, it goes into the transcription)

2. What would be the cost to take an unformatted text, and format it in accord to guidelines?

3. What would be the cost to make a one-page website accessible? What kind of change does it entail?

4. In the matter of 'poor contrast', would a color transformation applied to the video be enough to comply (to the letter of the law)? Would it be enough to make it accessible (i.e.: comply to the spirit of the law)? AFAIK, the requirement that "[no] chart or graph [should] differentiate information only by color" seems to make sure that at least some manual video editing is necessary.

5. Is it the case that, in any part of the process, the transcriber/developer/editor/worker involved needs (by law) a certain qualification, or can anyone (in principle) do the work?

6. Are there any other measures necessary?

Re: A statement on online course content and accessibility

#89

Post by josinalvo » Sat, Sep 17, 2016, 9:46 PM UTC

josinalvo wrote: post #88

Can someone provide an estimate of how much it would cost to make one course accessible. Or rather: 1. What would be the cost to transcribe a one hour video? Does the transcriber need any knowledge apart from English? (and presumably a one week course so that when the teacher points at something, it goes into the transcription) 2. What would be the cost to take an unformatted text, and format it in accord to guidelin…

having written that list of questions, I am left quite sure that the cost of making a course accessible is above 1000$ per course, and my best guess is 5000-10000$.

1. Do you disagree?

2. How many courses does UCB make available to the public for free? (on edX, this number seems to be around 50)

Re: A statement on online course content and accessibility

#90

Post by marbletiles » Sat, Sep 17, 2016, 10:08 PM UTC

crazy2be wrote: post #81

marbletiles wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No but people would say they food they give away should still comply with health regulations. Just because you're making a gift doesn't mean the law doesn't apply to you.

That's not a good comparison, not complying with health regulations substantially devalues the food given away, because of the significantly increased risk of illness resulting from consumption of said food. Your second statement is irrelevant, we are not talking about what the law does , but what the law should do . And I absolutely think that gifts (and good samaritan acts in general) should be held to a much lower…

What does it matter in your scheme if the food being given away is substantially devalued? It's a gift, it should be held to a lower standard, right? Or are you saying that the gift must be of an equal value to that sold? Do they have to also serve it on fine china to the homeless? How low should the lowered standard be, then?

My second statement is disagreeing with yours. The law does and should absolutely hold organisational gifts to the same standard as commercial transactions. Not least because otherwise you create a massive loophole ripe for exploitation, at all levels.

"Hey, don't tax my import, it was a gift!".

"Hey, my formula milk shouldn't be subject to marketing laws, it's a gift to new [and ill-educated] mothers!"

"Hey, I shouldn't be subject to your weird license restrictions, my source code was a gift to the community!"

Now, sure, good samaritan laws are important things. But so is equality legislation, and disability rights legislation, and much of the other legislation that defines the standards society expects of its participants.