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AST Captioning for the California Community Colleges 2009-2010
Automatic Sync Technologies (AST) has been suppporting the California Community College system colleges with transcription and captioning services for years as part of the system's commitment to serving students with disabilities. The world's largest college system supports over 50,000 students with disabilities, and captioning and transcribing media provides them with access to critical learning materials. AST provides transcripts for educational and informational podcasts, and captions for various forms of video used for distance learning, supplemental class materials, recorded events, and faculty training. In addition to serving the needs of students with disabilities, and complying with accessibility mandates, adding captions allows content to be searchable and more easily discovered.
AST was selected as one of the approved vendors for post-production transcription and captioning services by the Foundation for California Community Colleges CollegeBuys program (www.foundationccc.org). When you purchase transcription and/or captioning services from AST under the CollegeBuys program, you will receive the pricing established between AST and the Foundation. You can use the CollegeBuys contract pricing for any of your captioning and transcription needs. To access the CollegeBuys pricing, you will need to established to establish an account with us associated with the CollegeBuys program (see below for instructions). AST also offers volume purchase programs, which are available outside the CollegeBuys program for larger quantity purchases. A separate account is required for services under our volume purchase programs.
AST is also an approved vendor under the Distance Education Captioning and Transcription grant program (DECT). Under this grant program, member colleges can use AST's captioning and transcription services for eligible distance learning materials and have the charges billed to the DECT program office, and paid for directly out of the grant funding. Information on the program can be found at: http://www.canyons.edu/captioning.
The CollegeBuys pricing can be found here. If you have questions regrading pricing or process, please contact AST at 877-AST-SYNC ext. 777 or email dect@automaticsync.com.
Student Quote
- San Jose State Student
To Get Started
- Information on how to create an account under the CollegeBuys program for eligible DECT work
- Information on how to create an account using the CollegeBuys contract for non-DECT Services
- Information on how to create an account not affiliated with the CollegeBuys program for volume purchasing programs
- Information if you already have an account with AST
Our Services
CaptionSync is an automated web-based service that allows you to submit audio, video or transcript files through a web-based interface. If you don't already have a transcript, AST will have our trained stenographers generate a transcript which will then be used to generate captions in the desired format you need. We offer 40+ formats to support many broadcast and Web media formats, including popular types like Flash, YouTube, iTunes, and others. You can get as many formats as you need at the same price, and can come back for additional ones for six months with no aditional charges. We return the transcript and caption files to you via email within three working days. If you need a rush 24 hour turnaround, there is an additional fee. If you have a transcript and want captions only, you receive these in minutes. Under the DECT grant program you can purchase transcription services, captioning services, and for an additional charge have an in-depth review of the results. Most users do not already have a transcript and use our transcription services to generate the transcript.
Transcripts and Captions in Action
California Community Colleges offer various forms of podcasts and videos for education and informational purposes. The following are examples of how captions and trancripts are being used to provide accessible materials for students.
DeAnza College iTunesU Lecture with and without captions
Cerritos College YouTube Informational Video With Captions
Edustream Distance Learning Materials
Compliance and Policy
The California Community College System is committed to providing accessible media, and the grant shows the economic support to help colleges create and distribute accessible media. The Chancellor's Office has issued a legal opinion regarding compliance with key federal, state and local accessibility laws. The Chancellor's Office Legal Opinion No. M02-22 can be viewed at the following URL: http://www.cccco.edu/Portals/4/Legal/opinions/attachments/02-22.pdf.
The Chancellor's office requires:
- Any contractor or grantee to comply with the section 508 regulations; and
- Each district is asked to annually certify that it complies with section 508 as a condition of receiving funds under the Technology and Telecommunications Infrastructure Program (TTIP).
Pertaining to Section 504, "effective communications", the Office of Civil Rights review of compliance requirements for the system stated:
"As a result, if a college does not purchase available equipment or software which provides accessibility, OCR and the Chancellor's Office will not accept an argument based on undue financial hardship if a discrimination complaint is subsequently filed. This will typically mean that the college will be found in violation of the ADA and required to replace or modify the product, often at much higher cost." Applying these principles to the purchase or use of video materials, it is clear that the ADA and section 508 will generally require that colleges ensure that video material is captioned for students with hearing impairments."
Captioning satisfies one aspect of compliance. CaptionSync can provide captions to support broadcast video, Web video (many formats including Flash, Windows Media, Silverlight, Real, YouTube); mobile formats such as video for iPods and iPhones (.m4v) and transcripts for Podcasts. While the laws aim to provide the media in a format needed by students and faculty with specific disabilities, the benefits of providing captions and transcripts extend far beyond the deaf and hard of hearing communities.
- 1973 Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act (Section 504) - The section mandates that the colleges must not discriminate in the recruitment, admission, or treatment of any students with disabilities and provide equal opportunity to participate in and benefit from any services or programs that are offered. Providing aural information through real-time or live, captioning of distance education meets the mandate of Section 504.
- 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) - The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) enforcement of the ADA has focused on three areas: timeliness of delivery, accuracy of translation, and provision in a manner and medium appropriate to the significance of the message and the abilities of the individual with the disability. Live captioning of courses meets the ADA's mandate for "timeliness of delivery."
- 1995 Title 5 California Code of Regulations - Requires post secondary institutions that receive funding from the Sate of California to provide accessibility for distance education courses. California Government Code 11135 - Discrimination. California Senate Bill 105 which strengthens compliance regardless of federal funding to "...meet the protections and prohibitions contained in Section 202 of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990" has been incorporated into California Government Code 11135.
- Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (amended 1998) provides distinct standards for web accessibility compliance. Under section 1194.24 (c,d,e) "streaming media such as broadcast and cable signals must correctly receive and display closed captions." And "training and informational media and multimedia productions must contain captions".
Captioning Beyond Compliance
Whether your goal is to make your content more accessible to viewers with disabilities or to enhance the comprehension of difficult material for all viewers providing captions and transcripts helps students study and learn. Many campuses are recording lectures and academic materials --combinations of audio, video and presentation materials. These can be delivered across systems like Blackboard, Moodle, iTunesU and YouTube. For content that will be used for distance learning, offering captions with the video, and transcripts of audio enables content to be searched and launched in the relevant context. CaptionSync allows you to upload files once to our system and generate a variety of transcript and caption output formats.
Studies show that students who are able to watch videos with captions use captions, which reinforces learning and improves outcomes. A study by San Francisco State University found that students who were randomly exposed to video with captions performed one grade point higher than students who were provided with video that was not captioned. In addition, students engaged with the content and each other more. Click link to read about the And Captions For All study.
Students who have English as a second language (ESL) or a learning disability often need to receive verbal and audio information to learn. By allowing transcripts to be used as study aids, students served by disability services can frequently perform better. Often the need to send a note-taker to class is reduced, and tutors can be more effective in helping students when they have the actual information in context.
If you are publishing recorded lectures, supplemental learning materials, informational or recruiting videos or events for which you desire to use the media to reach more people, adding captions or using the transcript to enable keyword searching will make the content more discoverable, navigable, and reusable. You can structure search to occur within the video, within a library of media or for search engine optimization, and your content will gain far more exposure.
Easy And Automated
CaptionSync requires no software to install or purchase. Our automated web-based solution is available around the clock -- whenever you need it! And it's available from any web browser -- at your desk, across campus, or at home. If you need a transcript and caption files, we generally email them to you within three business days, unless you opt for rush service at an additional charge. If you have a transcript, you receive your caption file within minutes. You can log on to our site at any time to see the status of your work or to download the results. If you are generating content with a lecture capture system from Echo360, Mediasite or Panopto, you can take advantage of the automated workflow.
Cost Effective
Our automated captioning service is very cost effective, and our educational pricing even more so. You can buy at the CollegeBuys contracted price for the community colleges. For eligible distance education material, you can apply to the DECT grant program and have your project invoiced directly to the DECT grant. Or you can purchase through our volume purchase program outside of the CollegeBuys program. AST offers two volume purchase options: prepay to obtain a bulk purchase discount and use the services whenever you need them, or we will invoice you monthly for services used and when you exceed 20 hours of a service in a given month, the subsequent hours will be billed at a discounted rate.
Help Getting Started
If you are ready to get started, you can watch these captioned videos which will show you how to get started, help you understand how captioning different formats works, and assist with how to work with different lecture capture companies. If you are ready to create a CaptionSync account you can go to the above section and choose the type of account you need.
