Harvard and M.I.T. Sued Over Failing to Caption Online Courses • Hacker News Board

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

#161

Post by hga » Fri, Feb 13, 2015, 1:41 AM UTC

aldordeah wrote: post #158

hga wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if you read the PR release carefully, no where does it specifically say one of those courses isn't properly captioned. The examples it gives of non- or poorly captioned items aren't even courses at all ( http://nad.org/news/2015/2/nad-sues-harvard-and-mit-discrimi... which is a really nasty piece of work). Without looking at the lawsuit (waiting for lawyers like the Instapundit to tear into it, he's big on non-tr…

I am deaf and I specifically remember about MIT OCW from a couple years ago that, whenever I found something that seemed interesting and had video lectures available, the lectures didn't even have a transcript, much less captions. I went to their website again and literally the first course I picked lacked captions,[1] unless you count the YouTube-generated "love with a system age to have an with a system" as caption…

For better or worse, OCW's remit was to publish materials about MIT's courses that would be useful to other teachers. Anything beyond that, like what you tried to do, is gravy.

Now if edX, contrary to everything we've heard in this discussion, doesn't do the right thing, they have a much stronger case. But that's not the case they're making in the PR thuggery, and I thank you for confirming one part of what I suspected.

And just to be crystal clear, OCW is pretty much out of money and mandate, it's mostly in maintenance mode (already past its budgeted life, now begging for cash). The best outcome of this is that such lectures will be picked up by edX and properly captioned. The more likely one is that they'll be pulled altogether, although we hope copies will be captured before that happens.

Is a dog in the manger outcome one you favor?

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

#162

Post by icebraining » Fri, Feb 13, 2015, 1:42 AM UTC

eseehausen wrote: post #156

icebraining wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I consider Rand's political theories misguided, but it's certainly not "the state of nature", nor is that aneeshm's position. Claiming so is just flamebait, not having an honest discussion.

"Flamebait" was certainly not my intention. I may be naive, but what is the difference between a society comprised of people with no obligations toward each other and the state of nature? Edit: For instance, for Hobbes, that pretty much is the definition of the state of nature, in which everyone has the natural right to their own self-preservation and goals. The rise of sovereign power is often conceived of as the en…

Objectivism (Rand's philosophy) didn't defend a society comprised of people with no obligations toward each other. Like most libertarians/classical liberal philosophies, it supports the NAP[1], as well as defending the necessity of an impartial law system.

It just defends negative rights, instead of positives ones, not a lack of rights and obligations. See Isaiah Berlin's Two Concepts of Liberty[2].

EDIT to your EDIT: in Hobbes' state of nature, everyone has the right do to whatever one thinks is necessary for one's own preservation (including, say, killing others). For Rand, one has the right to not be attacked by others, even if that goes reduces the others' chances of self-preservation. The two are very different, and the latter does impose (negative) obligations on individuals towards others.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-aggression_principle

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Concepts_of_Liberty

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

#163

Post by readme » Fri, Feb 13, 2015, 1:43 AM UTC

All these disabled Americans do is collect a fat paycheck every month for doing nothing and now they want free education in suitable formats? Bunch of entitled leeches! How dare they tell HARVARD and MIT to make their free instruction accessible. /s

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

#164

Post by hga » Fri, Feb 13, 2015, 1:46 AM UTC

justcommenting wrote: post #152

ars wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So would you rather they don't distribute it at all, if they can't (or won't) caption it? (Not a rhetorical question, I'm actually asking you.) Keep in mind that these are recordings of a professor talking - there is no script, no captions exist already. The choice is paying for captioning, or not releasing at all. If they are unwilling to pay, which should, in your opinion, they pick: Not release, or release without…

this is a false choice; no one would credibly make that sort of claim about audio-only courses in podcast form or video recordings without audio. you're focusing on the economics, and that's fine, but the court is focusing on whether it complies with the law.

In their vicious PR http://nad.org/news/2015/2/nad-sues-harvard-and-mit-discrimi... they specifically call out a particular Harvard podcast.

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

#165

Post by wyager » Fri, Feb 13, 2015, 1:53 AM UTC

bphogan wrote: post #159

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,…

Once you learn how to do these things, they become second nature. That's the problem though. People don't think twice about learning a new programming language. But learning how to caption videos, choose colorblind friendly colors, or turn transcripts of a video into something that's braile-display or screen-reader friendly are skills that are relatively simple to acquire and will definitely outlast whatever new fram…

It's not a matter of "thinking about it"; captioning is difficult and expensive, and if we force universities to caption educational materials they release * for free *, we're incentivizing them to never release these materials again.

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

#166

Post by barrkel » Fri, Feb 13, 2015, 1:56 AM UTC

cmelbye wrote: post #88

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.

I'm kind of blown away by the down votes you're getting. I would be curious to hear why people are down voting?

If you want to give away something for free, why should you be forced to spend time and effort (and possibly money) to increase the value of your free offering?

Can you see why this would have a stifling effect on giving things away for free?

What would be the net gain to the world - is it better to have only a few free things that are accessible, or have many free things, only a fraction of which are accessible?

Making things accessible isn't free. Somebody has to pay. Forcing the producer to pay will reduce production. It's that simple.

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

#167

Post by wyager » Fri, Feb 13, 2015, 1:56 AM UTC

jamesbrownuhh wrote: post #104

jdreaver wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alright, then who will pay for it, either in time or money? You are free to go caption videos all you want, but why should people be forced to caption videos they make in their spare time?

No-one is saying that anyone should be forced to do anything. Personally, I caption the hobby videos that I put on YouTube, because doing so brings in far more views, both domestically and from around the world.

>No-one is saying that anyone should be forced to do anything.

This lawsuit is literally about forcing the universities to pay to caption the educational materials they release for free.

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

#168

Post by A_COMPUTER » Fri, Feb 13, 2015, 1:58 AM UTC

justcommenting wrote: post #155

stolio wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sidewalks are infrastructure. Free online courses from MIT are not. They're a luxury.

so access to knowledge--most of which, it's worth noting, is massively subsidized by taxpayers in the form of grants and related overhead--is a luxury good? that's not a world i want to live in; access to knowledge is foundational infrastructure.

Considering that the course materials in question used to only be accessible to a very small subset of very smart people who happen to have a very large money to afford tuition at MIT/Harvard, yes, that particular material is a luxury good.

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

#169

Post by wyager » Fri, Feb 13, 2015, 2:02 AM UTC

aldordeah wrote: post #140

morgante wrote: post #78

This is beyond ridiculous and will have a serious chilling effect on the growth of online learning content. That you should be obligated to spend additional money on captioning your free videos is incredibly unfair and also unjustifiable. Unfortunately, in many cases it will make the costs unsustainable so we'll see videos taken down entirely—thus, the deaf are selfishly insisting that if they can't have something no…

Please explain to me how it is fair that, by studying a free online uncaptioned lecture, someone gets even more of an advantage over me just because they weren't born deaf.

Please explain how it's fair that organizations who are releasing educational materials for free should be forced to pay extra money (which they possibly can't afford to spare) so that their content is slightly more accessible to a vanishingly small portion of the population.

Please explain how it's fair that the plaintiffs would rather that everyone lose access to this educational material than deal with the fact that maybe not everyone will be able to use it.

Please explain how it's fair to act like a petulant child, screaming that if they can't have it, nobody can.

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

#170

Post by stolio » Fri, Feb 13, 2015, 2:02 AM UTC

justcommenting wrote: post #155

stolio wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sidewalks are infrastructure. Free online courses from MIT are not. They're a luxury.

so access to knowledge--most of which, it's worth noting, is massively subsidized by taxpayers in the form of grants and related overhead--is a luxury good? that's not a world i want to live in; access to knowledge is foundational infrastructure.

There are different levels of accessibility. The courses are still there, there isn't an audio captcha making sure deaf people can't read the notes, read the book (when available) or do the problem sets. This is nothing like an inaccessible sidewalk keeping somebody in a wheelchair from getting to the grocery store.

And I'm only talking about MIT's OCW here, their edX courses are all captioned. OCW was scheduled to run out of funding last year[0] and they apparently don't even have the funds to update their FAQ. I'm just saying you have to pick your battles.

[0] - http://ocw.mit.edu/donate/why-donate/#q5