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Harvard and M.I.T. Sued Over Failing to Caption Online Courses

nytimes.com

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Re: Harvard and M.I.T. Sued Over Failing to Caption Online Courses

#51

Post by sp332 »

harperlee wrote: post #29
sp332 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, of course that is discrimination. But it's only illegal in certain circumstances.

Well, I don't agree [1]. Neither does Wikipedia: "Discrimination is action that denies social participation or human rights to categories of people based on prejudice." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discrimination) Note the prejudice part. [1] Not in this context; of course a visual communication discriminates among those who can and can not receive it, but what prejudice is there in just recording yourself talking?

Well it's wrong. Wikipedia's source for that definition is listed as https://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/discri... but it says: "The unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people, especially on the grounds of race, age, or sex."

Re: Harvard and M.I.T. Sued Over Failing to Caption Online Courses

#52

Post by Symmetry »

skwirl wrote: post #6
nimblegorilla wrote: post #2

I prefer transcripts over videos. It often takes less than 10 minutes to read the transcript of a 60 minute presentation. And it is a lot easier to go back and review sections which were confusing.

Why not just read books then?

Some information hasn't been written down in books.

Re: Harvard and M.I.T. Sued Over Failing to Caption Online Courses

#53

Post by fakename »

cordite wrote: post #7
saosebastiao wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. If I see a link to a video without a transcript or description or even a TLDR, I just won't bother. Maybe to some people I am just another impatient millenial, but I can't help but feel like I have better things to do than to sit through bad jokes, equipment problems, stuttering, and umm-ahhhs. I'm usually pretty critical of a lot of Amazon's culture, but one thing I think is absolutely brilliant is its relia…

Here's an idea, a transcript where you can click on a word in the transcript, and it jumps to the point in the presentation so you also have the context of the slide shown during speaking.

I've seen a few places that do this. edx was doing it for some courses at one point. Here's a demo from 3play: http://www.3playmedia.com/services-features/plugins/interact...

Re: Harvard and M.I.T. Sued Over Failing to Caption Online Courses

#54

Post by dantheman »

kelukelugames wrote: post #13
Chevalier wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. My apologies on behalf of our profession. This is probably just a shakedown -- it'll be cheaper to settle than it will be to defend against this lawsuit, so the game is to find a mistake that could plausibly fall afoul of the ADA and file away. I hope they don't settle, to put it mildly. Few institutions are as well-equipped to combat trolls as Harvard.

I really hope this is not a shakedown because I believe asking MIT and Harvard to caption their courses is good. But I can't believe two leading universities would willfully ignore that request. On a related note, EEOC has been tweeting a lot of disability settlements. https://twitter.com/EEOCNews

This isn't asking. This is forcing them to do something.

Re: Harvard and M.I.T. Sued Over Failing to Caption Online Courses

#55

Post by sp332 »

DocSavage wrote: post #36
sp332 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deaf people aren't a charity case. The content needs to be accessible from the beginning, not as an afterthought.

Actually, all consumers of free online courses are charity cases. Deaf people are suing because MIT's and Harvard's largesse doesn't always include them.

MIT and Harvard's "largess" is funded in part by tax money collected from deaf people. Anyway, donating to a a discriminatory cause is still discrimination even if it is generous or well-intentioned.

Re: Harvard and M.I.T. Sued Over Failing to Caption Online Courses

#56

Post by [deleted] »

jdreaver wrote: post #8

I don't like this type of precedent. If I make a video wherein I teach some concept, but don't provide closed captions, and then distribute the video for free, am I discriminating against the deaf? If I knew I had to create closed captions, and then make a braille transcript, or maybe even make my video colorblind friendly, I just wouldn't make the video in the first place. I sympathize with folks with disabilities,…

[deleted]

Re: Harvard and M.I.T. Sued Over Failing to Caption Online Courses

#57

Post by Someone1234 »

sp332 wrote: post #37
Someone1234 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a confusing sentiment. So deaf people shouldn't be given something for free, but they should get something for free "from the beginning?" Which is it?

The communication needs to be made accessible by the person or group who produces it. Not by some outside organization that goes around cleaning up other people's accessibility messes.

Fair enough. So you're saying that deaf people ARE a charity case, you just want them to be a charity case for the original content producer rather than a third party?

Re: Harvard and M.I.T. Sued Over Failing to Caption Online Courses

#58

Post by haberdasher »

chrisabrams wrote: post #14
cordite wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's an idea, a transcript where you can click on a word in the transcript, and it jumps to the point in the presentation so you also have the context of the slide shown during speaking.

This would be such a great learning tool!

I'm the developer of this, which has: A transcript editor, Full-text search over the transcripts, The ability to use the transcript to seek.

For example: http://presentio.us/view/d8b58e

(edited to fix formatting)

Re: Harvard and M.I.T. Sued Over Failing to Caption Online Courses

#59

Post by sp332 »

Someone1234 wrote: post #57
sp332 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The communication needs to be made accessible by the person or group who produces it. Not by some outside organization that goes around cleaning up other people's accessibility messes.

Fair enough. So you're saying that deaf people ARE a charity case, you just want them to be a charity case for the original content producer rather than a third party?

Yeah, that could have been clearer. Deaf people are 100% as deserving of this content as non-deaf people. They should not be treated as a separate group. Captions are a required part of the distribution, not an optional add-on. There is not "the real message" and then "the message for deaf people".

Re: Harvard and M.I.T. Sued Over Failing to Caption Online Courses

#60

Post by stolio »

MIT's OpenCourseWare is Creative Commons licensed, the only restrictions placed on a third party who wanted to caption the courses are 1) attribution, 2) the derivative work must be non-commercial in nature, 3) that the license remains the same.

A building without a ramp can't be copied and rebuilt with a ramp without rebuilding the entire thing, but a video without a caption can be copied and captioned without having to recreate the original. MIT went out of their way to make sure this sort of thing is legal to do.

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