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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

#191

Post by derekp7 »

bphogan wrote: post #174
wyager wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

HN is a community where people solve difficult problems for a living. So someone using "difficult" as a reason for something doesn't really fly with me. As for expensive? I'll agree. Going cost is about $1 per minute minimum. And they're not releasing that material "for free." Make no mistake - it's either because they got a grant (that's what we face) or part of some marketing thing. I apologize if it sounds like I'…

I'm curious, is it just as expensive to have someone produce a transcript of a video, vs. captioning it? Because I'm having a hard time coming up with the 60 dollars per hour or more figure. Lets say you slow down the video (using one of the techniques that doesn't alter the audio pitch), so that it matches your typing speed. Then you can transcribe it in "real time" (i.e., without having to stop, back up, and restart the audio). And it would easy to have the software record timing information (if the transcription is done real time).

So slowing down the video to half speed, means a half hour video takes an hour to transcribe. At a labor cost of $15.00 per hour, that is 25 cents/minute of video. Much less if it is off shored.

Edit: Would it be helpful if Google added a captioning interface to YouTube? That is, an adjustable playback speed (which they have now, but I'd like to see more speed levels), and a capture window where users (volunteers) could provide captioning of any video, including educational ones.

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

#192

Post by ylem »

Say, does anyone know if there is any open source software that would do this (or for that matter, any software that isn't ridiculously expensive)? Years back, I ran a workshop (applying group theory to understanding magnetism) and we recorded it. We got releases for the videos and have the bandwidth to put them on the web for free, but I believe that I have to have them subtitled in order to release them online. So, if people have asked for the videos in person, I've given out copies, but they're not generally available...Automation does seem to be the answer here...

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

#193

Post by netheril96 »

DanBC wrote: post #111
Kalium wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bluntly, when I make and release content for free I'm generally not very interested in paying for small boost in user numbers. Especially since for most videos, that 7-15% boost is maybe ten views.

It's weird that some sections of HN obsess over AB testing the colours of buttons and are happy to pay for that, but putting captions on a video and it's fuck those deaf people. And they don't seem to realise that it's not just deaf people that benefit from captions. There are a bunch of situations where I could really do with captions -- coffee shops; planes; late nights; etc etc.

Because AB testing is for business and for earning money, and the caption thing is about free content that you get nothing in return?

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

#194

Post by [deleted] »

A_COMPUTER wrote: post #168
justcommenting wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

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

#195

Post by threatofrain »

A_COMPUTER wrote: post #168
justcommenting wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The legal implications go to many schools, so I don't think we're talking about luxury in the context of two elite schools. I think we're talking about the inclusion of minority populations in publicly funded institutions of education, and just how much we want them in our society. Perhaps we do, perhaps we don't, perhaps it's somewhere midway.

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

#196

Post by mc32 »

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,…

I can see the requirement for actually matriculated students. (I wonder if they have to provide ASL signers in-class for deaf students and braille books for the blind.)

What I don't see is a requirement for free courses. That would be ridiculous. Why would anyone want to make anything available if someone is going to come around and sue?

Instead of suing, why not start a project to automatically CC the videos, something like audio-recaptcha?

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

#197

Post by justcommenting »

hga wrote: post #185
justcommenting wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a longtime OCW donor myself, I definitely hear you but would still say we still have miles to go until we've made OCW accessible to all. I could see how OCW might not feel very open to the blind and deaf. I never said I supported the lawsuit or even its goals; but ignoring accessibility shortcomings for certain groups because of financial or other barriers sort of misses the point of aiming to make knowledge acces…

One problem is that, unless you're a deaf teacher, it was not in OCW's remit to make it's offering accessible to you. Now that OCW has run out of its original block of money and is passing around its hat, that could of course change, then again it shows every sign of being only a step away from maintenance mode right now (all the mojo is presumably with edX, which OCW obviously helped to blaze a path to). So it this…

What I want OCW to be and what OCW set out to accomplish are not necessarily the same things, so in a bunch of ways it's unfair for me to have expectations that don't comport with theirs.

But for me personally, accessibility seems like something worth raising separate streams of funding for if it weren't terribly popular. In sort of the same way, I would've been thrilled if my donations to EFF could've been earmarked for their WIPO Treaty for the Blind work.

I understand the need to make trade-offs and don't begrudge OCW for the ones they've made, but I don't really see having to spend extra money for captioning, etc. as having to give stuff up. To me, it's more that the job isn't really finished until we've done it for everyone.

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

#198

Post by lucaspiller »

mc32 wrote: post #196
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,…

I can see the requirement for actually matriculated students. (I wonder if they have to provide ASL signers in-class for deaf students and braille books for the blind.) What I don't see is a requirement for free courses. That would be ridiculous. Why would anyone want to make anything available if someone is going to come around and sue? Instead of suing, why not start a project to automatically CC the videos, someth…

YouTube will already automatically transcribe and add subtitles to some videos, I can't comment on the quality though:

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/3038280?hl=en-GB

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

#199

Post by lucaspiller »

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…

Just for context my SO is a nom-native English speaker. She speaks and understands English fine in person (her job involves dealing with demanding people from all over the world, who often don't speak very good English), but whenever we watch something on Netflix or such she can't understand what's going on without subtitles. Films are a bit different from an online cause because of background noise, but don't forget how many technical talks you have probably watched that have terrible audio...

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

#200

Post by lucaspiller »

Chronic31 wrote: post #81
dhbradshaw wrote: post #42

This can use a software fix: 1) everyone agrees that having captions and transcripts is a good thing 2) requiring schools to have them is problematic because it increases the cost of producing the videos--we want the cost to be low because the videos are a social good and we want more of them. 3) with software maybe we can make it inexpensive to add transcripts and captions to videos. Suddenly the world is a better p…

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