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Ask HN: Which Berkeley Courses Should I Archive?

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Re: Ask HN: Which Berkeley Courses Should I Archive?

#91

Post by WillyOnWheels »

Zungaron wrote: post #79
SilasX wrote: post #49

I deeply apologize if this is off topic, but this request highlights an issue with the original debate, where posters were tripping over each others to express indignation about Berkeley releasing these videos without disability accommodations, reiterating the same arguments for the ADA, and asserting that those same considerations apply here. If you thought the judgment against Berkeley was justified-- that they cou…

The ADA already reconciles these viewpoints, by allowing for people who would otherwise be in violation to claim exemption because complying would cause an undue burden. So we shouldn't expect a random person on the internet to pay for captioning 20,000 videos, because that would be (presumably) ridiculously outside their means. On the other hand, it's reasonable to assume that a university that could recently afford…

It's fun to assume things!

Anecdotal evidence I hear from UC Berkeley employees is that there just is no money to be had. The real solution is spend the money to make the videos ADA compliant. I don't know how much that would be but UC Berkeley isn't interested in spending the amount it would take, whatever it is.

The multi hundred dollar stadium renovation is now, with laser like 20/20 hindsight, considered a disaster. The football team's management has a new scandal every few months. The team's record is abysmal. The theory was that spending money to develop the football team results in greater alumni donations.

In UC Berkeley's defense, the state of California and the legislature is profoundly uninterested in funding the UC system at the levels it used to. The university has to get money from somewhere. Renovating Memorial Stadium was a part of that.

Re: Ask HN: Which Berkeley Courses Should I Archive?

#92

Post by SilasX »

closeparen wrote: post #78
SilasX wrote: post #49

I deeply apologize if this is off topic, but this request highlights an issue with the original debate, where posters were tripping over each others to express indignation about Berkeley releasing these videos without disability accommodations, reiterating the same arguments for the ADA, and asserting that those same considerations apply here. If you thought the judgment against Berkeley was justified-- that they cou…

I hold both views. The subtitle requirement doesn't apply to members of the general public. It applies to large institutions which know better, and have the resources to comply. If Berkeley is embarrassed, some other university takes the time to subtitle its video content in the future to avoid a similar mess, and the public gets to keep the Berkeley videos, that's the best possible outcome short of Berkeley captioni…

It's "working as intended" that the material is out there, just a little harder to find and just as disability-incompliant?

Re: Ask HN: Which Berkeley Courses Should I Archive?

#94

Post by DanBC »

yourapostasy wrote: post #55

The proximate cause of this removal is Gallaudet University [1] [2]. What possible motivation could have moved those employees to file on behalf of their university? Malicious intent (they didn't want the free material competing with their courses)? Lack of gratitude (the material is free , but that's not enough)? Zealotry (everything, even free content, must meet their ADA compliance standards)? Simple lack of think…

> What possible motivation could have moved those employees to file on behalf of their university? Malicious intent (they didn't want the free material competing with their courses)? Lack of gratitude (the material is free, but that's not enough)? Zealotry (everything, even free content, must meet their ADA compliance standards)? Simple lack of thinking through potential consequences? Lack of Net citizenship/spirit? Anyone have any insight into the real story behind their protest?

It's all in the DoJ letter. https://news.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/2016-08...

It's a bit worrying that you have such strong opinions when you haven't read the DoJ letter yet.

> Stacy Nowak, a member of NAD, is a professor and PhD student at Gallaudet University and she is deaf. Ms. Nowak would like to avail herself of what she believes is the increasingly frequent use of video and audio-based scholarship. Ms. Nowak teaches communication courses at Galludet, including Introduction to Communication and Nonverbal Communication. She would like to use numerous online resources related to communication in her classes, including the UC BerkeleyX course, “Journalism for Social Change,” but cannot because they are inaccessible. If UC Berkeley’s online content were accessible, she would take courses and utilize the online content in her lectures.

Berkeley is a public institution, offering educational services, under the ADA.

Berkeley has a legal duty to make accessible this content, unless it would be unduly financially burdensome, or unless it would change the nature of what they do.

Berkeley has some policies around accessibility. They were not following those policies.

Berkeley were not just discriminating against people with hearing impairment, but also people with visual impairment and people with manual disability.

Berkeley chose to remove all the video rather than i) make it accessible during creation or ii) pay to make it accessible after creation.

Don't forget the law is 27 years old. Most of these videos are 10 - 5 years old.

Re: Ask HN: Which Berkeley Courses Should I Archive?

#95

Post by DanBC »

BenElgar wrote: post #45
beefield wrote: post #41

I would be curious to read the background discussion at HN you refer to?

From a quick search: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13768856 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13815764 TLDR: The videos were removed because of a lawsuit relating to the lack of captions, making them inaccessible to the deaf.

> The videos were removed because of a lawsuit relating to the lack of captions, making them inaccessible to the deaf.

It wasn't a lawsuit. It wasn't just people with hearing impairment (although they were the complainants) - the content was inaccessible to people with visual impairment and manual disability too.

Re: Ask HN: Which Berkeley Courses Should I Archive?

#96

Post by DanBC »

derekp7 wrote: post #67
SilasX wrote: post #49

I deeply apologize if this is off topic, but this request highlights an issue with the original debate, where posters were tripping over each others to express indignation about Berkeley releasing these videos without disability accommodations, reiterating the same arguments for the ADA, and asserting that those same considerations apply here. If you thought the judgment against Berkeley was justified-- that they cou…

You also have c) they had already released the videos, so now they need to follow the law and make them accessible. My personal feeling on this -- if the videos were created as part of their primary mission, then they would be required to add accessibility. But it seems that these videos were a side effect of their primary mission, which is providing education to enrolled people. In that case, appropriate accommodati…

> if the videos were created as part of their primary mission, then they would be required to add accessibility

Even Berkeley said that all videos created must be accessible. They required people to sign off on that accessibility.

https://news.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/2016-08...

> Prior to July 1, 2015, UC Berkeley also allowed faculty and instructors to design, develop and publish courses through a self-service model, which did not include support from BRCOE. Beginning July 1, 2015, UC Berkeley advised the Department that all faculty using the selfservice model will be asked to sign off on a list of accessibility resource reviews prior to publishing the course. The sign-off statements include:

There's a list of statements saying things like "I have reviewed and implemented edX’s “Guidelines for Creating Accessible Content.”2"

Re: Ask HN: Which Berkeley Courses Should I Archive?

#97

Post by AnimalMuppet »

> I'm in the process of archiving some of the most important Computer Science courses, mainly for my own benefit, but I intend to make them publically available. (This is a throwaway account b/c I don't want to run afoul of any legal issues.)

Um, hate to break it to you, but you're not going to run into legal issues for saying that you're going to grab archives and make them publicly available. You're going to run into trouble for actually making them publicly available (if the license doesn't permit that). The only thing you change by using a throwaway account is that the legal trouble isn't associated with your main HN account.

Re: Ask HN: Which Berkeley Courses Should I Archive?

#98

Post by roland-s »

BeetleB wrote: post #60
lordCarbonFiber wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the crux of the matter, and opinion of the majority of people in those threads, was that the decision against Berkeley was decidedly unjustified. To me, so long as the university provides resources to its disable students, which I assume they do given they're not involved in an even bigger lawsuit, what they provide to the public is community service. Denying billions of people across the world access to qual…

>Denying billions of people across the world access to quality information because of the needs of maybe a million deaf in the US is ridiculous and a loss for the world. While I don't take sides on the issue, I will point out that this line of reasoning can be used to justify anything against any minority. The whole point of having this law is to negate this argument. It is (almost by definition) counterproductive to…

Laws are often written with good intentions but enforced rigidly and with little common sense. A balance is needed between individualism and utilitarianism. At what point do my civil rights, when enforced by the state, infringe on yours? Who gets to determine which rights are worth protecting? Who draws the cost/benefit line in the sand? Not all men are created equal, but in a liberal democracy we mold society into one that provides equality in spite of our innate disparities. In my opinion, this equalization should be done by raising up those less fortunate, not by punishing those with advantages.

I think the real issue here is the fact that Berkeley was giving away the videos for free. If they were charging for those videos, they could incorporate the cost of ACA compliance into the price of the video. As it stands though, the state has the right to force work without providing any compensation. ACA compliance then becomes a form of servitude. (being a public university, UC Berkeley does get some state revenue, but it is only 14-25% of the total [1][2] and much of it comes in the form of contracts & grants which can only be used for the specific project they are awarded for). To me that is the real issue here, a simple matter of being compensated for one's work. I think they shouldn't be held to the same standards as someone selling a product, but that doesn't seem to be the lay of the land. I guess this is why we can't have nice things (for free).

[1] http://ucop.edu/operating-budget/_files/rbudget/2016-17budge... (page 47) [2] http://cfo.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/2013-14%20UC%20B... (Page 1)

Re: Ask HN: Which Berkeley Courses Should I Archive?

#100

Post by hackerboos »

WillyOnWheels wrote: post #93

It's super easy to download a video off of Youtube with jdownloader 2.0 . Works in Linux and MacOSX (probably windows too, I have no experience with it) You select the youtube url, copy it, download, done. http://jdownloader.org/jdownloader2

Youtube-dl is another option:

https://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/

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