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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

#61

Post by sueders101 »

Agustus wrote: post #48
sueders101 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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." Unless I'm mistaken, the article says that National Association of the Deaf requested Harvard and MIT provide options accessible to the deaf on multiples occasions. They're seeking comparable materials for the heari…

That's always the request, but then when you admit fault, there are follow up lawsuits.

The National Association for the Deaf settled with Netflix in 2012. I couldn't find any follow up lawsuits since. It seems like an advocacy group just trying to make sure their members are represented.

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

#62

Post by hga »

stolio wrote: post #60

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 havin…

Now would be a really good time to make sure there are copies of those elsewhere. MIT is not wealthy like Harvard sort of is (long story), and in all cases one needs to remember that the vast majority of endowment money is earmarked (somehow donors trust college administrators only so much, and then there's Princeton).

OCW is now in maintenance mode as far as I can tell, with terrible gaps in offerings, like 2nd term bio- and organic chemistry but no 1st term offering, and given the astounding breath of the demand, there's every chance a very large fraction of MIT's video and audio offerings will simply go dark, and future production burdened by red tape (which MIT students do not respond to well...).

Especially since the lawsuit demands quality captioning. Granted, there examples on their web page are awful, then again they're nothingburgers: http://nad.org/news/2015/2/nad-sues-harvard-and-mit-discrimi... at least if my understanding of the lack of real power of the President of Liberia is correct, and it says something that they put Lady Gaga being welcomed by Harvard students right after it. If this is the best they can come up with....

Not that I know any SJW deaf types right now, but if I did, they'd be treated to the one of the very few bits of sign language I know :-(.

Disclaimer, I'm MIT Class of '83, donate to OCW, and am beyond annoyed.

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

#63

Post by hga »

Symmetry wrote: post #52
skwirl wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not just read books then?

Some information hasn't been written down in books.

Indeed. I'm pretty sure there's no book treatment of Lady Gaga being greeted by Harvard students.

(I swear I am not making this up: http://nad.org/news/2015/2/nad-sues-harvard-and-mit-discrimi... and if those are the best examples they can come up with for a national campaign....)

Disclaimer, I'm MIT Class of '83, donate to OCW, and am beyond annoyed.

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

#64

Post by hga »

dougabug wrote: post #16
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,…

No good deed goes unpunished... This just makes it that much more likely that institutions will hesitate before offering free access to materials online.

Based on the breath of the demands per http://nad.org/news/2015/2/nad-sues-harvard-and-mit-discrimi... it sounds like just about anything that's vaguely formal, way beyond instructional video and audio. And since they highlight quality problems, albeit bad ones but of mostly silly/very limited utility content....

Nothing good will come of this.

Disclaimer, I'm MIT Class of '83, donate to OCW, and am beyond annoyed.

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

#65

Post by jamesbrownuhh »

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.

You can do something like that with YouTube right now - any captioned video will have a rolling transcript window available to open, which you can scroll through and click on to jump around the video in a non-linear fashion.

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

#66

Post by jamesbrownuhh »

pekk wrote: post #50

As someone who makes free content, this is scary. I understand the Harvard has a lot more money to take care of accessibility than I do, but why would that exempt me? What is the legal formula determining who is in danger from lawsuits about whether they provided an accessible alternative to a completely free thing? If there isn't a strong protection here then it means you might as well not offer any free content at…

But as someone who makes free content, you'll know how nice it is when you get lots more views/downloads/clicks (etc) of your content. Captioning enables that because not only do you reach visitors who are unable to hear, but you also reach non-English speakers in the Entire Rest Of The World who can with a few clicks automatically translate those captions into the language which they speak.

More viewers is more better. Captions are a really easy way to achieve that.

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

#67

Post by hga »

jamesbrownuhh wrote: post #66
pekk wrote: post #50

As someone who makes free content, this is scary. I understand the Harvard has a lot more money to take care of accessibility than I do, but why would that exempt me? What is the legal formula determining who is in danger from lawsuits about whether they provided an accessible alternative to a completely free thing? If there isn't a strong protection here then it means you might as well not offer any free content at…

But as someone who makes free content, you'll know how nice it is when you get lots more views/downloads/clicks (etc) of your content. Captioning enables that because not only do you reach visitors who are unable to hear, but you also reach non-English speakers in the Entire Rest Of The World who can with a few clicks automatically translate those captions into the language which they speak. More viewers is more bett…

"Captions are a really easy way to achieve that."

Not that easy. Script -> timing -> correctly muxing, right? Not super hard (I'm an old school, from the very early '90s anime fan), yeah, but what about cheap?

Then to move it into the context of this lawsuit, a likely outcome is red tape to put anything with a audio track on the net, even if it's just to determine that close captioning it is not required (and let me invoke the slippery slope here), or doing that a certain sufficient quality, will be allowed.

Disclaimer, I'm MIT Class of '83, donate to OCW, and am beyond annoyed.

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

#68

Post by kelukelugames »

pekk wrote: post #50

As someone who makes free content, this is scary. I understand the Harvard has a lot more money to take care of accessibility than I do, but why would that exempt me? What is the legal formula determining who is in danger from lawsuits about whether they provided an accessible alternative to a completely free thing? If there isn't a strong protection here then it means you might as well not offer any free content at…

I honestly think people who say "what about me" are uninformed. I went to search for facts to prove my opinion but couldn't find anything specific.

I found two pieces of conflicting info 1) ADA doesn't really apply to businesses under 15 persons and 2) ADA requires all business to provide TDD.

If you can dig it out of the ADA guidelines then please help me.

http://www.ada.gov/reg3a.html

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

#69

Post by cordite »

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!

It reminded me of a certain notebook and pen (an expensive set) where each page of the notebook had a unique background pattern and the pen would record the lectures as you wrote.

Later you could put the pen down on a word in your notes and start listening to the lecture just as you were writing those notes.

Can't remember the name though.

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

#70

Post by hga »

cordite wrote: post #69
chrisabrams wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would be such a great learning tool!

It reminded me of a certain notebook and pen (an expensive set) where each page of the notebook had a unique background pattern and the pen would record the lectures as you wrote. Later you could put the pen down on a word in your notes and start listening to the lecture just as you were writing those notes. Can't remember the name though.

I think you're talking about this: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003RAE19Q/ the Livescribe Echo Smartpen

Or at least as of 2010 when I put it in an Amazon.com wishlist (and #%&^%& but Amazon's search function sucks, "pen" didn't find the "smartpen" by which it's named).

Going to http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=bl_sr_pc?ie=UTF8&field-brandtext... I see much cheaper versions, including ones for iOS.

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