[Athen] Lawsuit on use of Kindle

Saroj Primlani sprimla at unity.ncsu.edu
Wed Jul 1 05:30:14 PDT 2009



NFB filed a suit against University of Arizona's Kindle Project
http://www.readingrights.org/458
Saroj

-----Original Message-----
From: athen-bounces at athenpro.org [mailto:athen-bounces at athenpro.org] On
Behalf Of athen-request at athenpro.org
Sent: Saturday, June 27, 2009 3:00 PM
To: athen at athenpro.org
Subject: Athen Digest, Vol 41, Issue 42


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Today's Topics:

1. Re: <experience with Automatic Sync Technologies> Are any of
these lecture capture system more accessible than others?
(Alice Anderson)
2. Response to questions about accessible lecture capture
solutions (Pat BROGAN)
3. Re: Response to questions about accessible lecture
capturesolutions (Gerry Nies)
4. Re: Response to questions about accessible lecture
capturesolutions (E.A. Draffan)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:34:32 -0500
From: Alice Anderson <alice.anderson at doit.wisc.edu>
Subject: Re: [Athen] <experience with Automatic Sync Technologies> Are
any of these lecture capture system more accessible than
others?
To: ea at emptech.info, Access Technology Higher Education Network
<athen at athenpro.org>
Cc: Kevin Erler <kevin at automaticsync.com>
Message-ID: <DC5485F8-1E68-487B-A78A-F66307440F0C at doit.wisc.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes

E.A. ...

We are doing a campus 'beta/pilot test' with Automatic Sync
Technologies - hoping to find a campus solution
for the many media captioning needs we have. We pre-paid Automatic
Sync to purchase X/hrs
of transcribing &/or captioning. Several departments are involved, and
have sent in files for one
or more of the following - Mov, WMV, FLV, DVD,
Mediasite (lecture capture), eTEACH (presentation tool), podcast, YouTube,
etc. etc.. Files sent to Automatic Sync have ranged from a few minutes to
several hours of lecture ... all with excellent
results (as of this post).

We are about 25% in to the beta project, and are working closely with
Automatic Sync to
create workflows when needed (e.g., eTEACH, Mediasite) ... and have
another beta
project for a lecture capture system on the horizon that will be
included in this captioning beta.

We're building a case for the campus for lower prices from 'quantities-
of-scale' ... to save the
campus $$$'s by working together ... and more so ... in order to
comply with our
campus web policy which requires web based video and audio to have
captions and
transcripts ... we need to have a campus one-stop solution.

Stay tuned - we're finding the Automatic Sync website is rich with
help documents
and information http://www.automaticsync.com/caption/index.htm, and
have been
incredibly patient and helpful with our many players, questions and
comments.


Let me know if you have specific questions that I did not address.

Best,
Alice

Alice Anderson
TECHNOLOGY ACCESSIBILITY PROGRAM
Division of Information Technology (DoIT)
University of Wisconsin-Madison
1210 West Dayton Street (3124)
Madison, WI 53706

Telephone: 608.262.2129



On Jun 26, 2009, at 7:40 AM, E.A. Draffan wrote:


> Educause - Lecture Capture Systems: Are They Worth It?

> http://www.educause.edu/Resources/LectureCaptureSystemsAreTheyWo/

> 163626

>

> They seem to be using Media Site and Tegrity and retention improves

> but

> sadly no data on whether the systems are accessible. We have used

> Impatica

> and Camtasia and even Wink and Camstudio in conjunction with other

> software

> to produce multimedia outputs, but accurate simultaneous transcription

> remains the main issue.

>

> I am wondering if anyone has tried CaptionSync?

> http://www.automaticsync.com/caption/lecturecapture.htm

>

> Best wishes E.A.

>

> Mrs E.A. Draffan

> Learning Societies Lab,

> ECS, University of Southampton,

> Tel +44 (0)23 8059 7246

> http://www.lexdis.ecs.soton.ac.uk

> http://www.emptech.info

>

>

> -----Original Message-----

> From: Gerry Nies [mailto:gerrynies at mail.und.nodak.edu]

> Sent: 24 June 2009 14:32

> To: 'Access Technology Higher Education Network'; ea at emptech.info

> Subject: Are any of these lecture capture system more accessible than

> others?

>

>> From what the salespeople said these systems are being used by may

>> schools.

>

> So to be more specific in my request. We are looking at Panopto,

> Echo 360,

> Media Site, Apple Podcast Producer, Tegrity, Accordent to be used for

> lecture capture at our university. I have been asked to get more

> information on them and how accessible they are.

>

> Are there others that we should look at?

>

> Have you used any of these systems? What are the concerns for their

> use by

> our students?

>

>

> Thanks

> Gerry

>

> Checked by AVG - www.avg.com

> Version: 8.5.375 / Virus Database: 270.12.90/2198 - Release Date:

> 06/23/09

> 17:54:00

>

>

> _______________________________________________

> Athen mailing list

> Athen at athenpro.org

> http://athenpro.org/mailman/listinfo/athen_athenpro.org





------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:29:19 -0700
From: Pat BROGAN <pat at automaticsync.com>
Subject: [Athen] Response to questions about accessible lecture
capture solutions
To: Athen at athenpro.org, Kevin Erler <kevin at automaticsync.com>
Message-ID: <4A452F9F.8010303 at automaticsync.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

EA and Gerry raised some questions about accessible lecture capture
options and captioning solutions. Having just come from Educomm it
seems like the main sponsors were all lecture capture companies. I'll
present some information but expose my bias upfront. I work now for
Automatic Sync, the company referenced in the query, and previously
worked for echo360. In the context of my role, I did manage the
partnership between echo360 and Automatic Sync. Since coming to
Automatic Sync I am working with Mediasite, Panopto, and TechSmith. I
have worked for years with many universities on accessibility in my
former role as VP of education and elearning at Macromedia and written
the standards part of The elearning Handbook. Bias out of the way... I
wrote a whitepaper "Making Lectures Accessible" which is posted at:
http://www.automaticsync.com/caption/echo.htm,
along with a research paper for UW Australia on the benefits of lecture
capture for students with disabilities.
Accessibility really means two different things in the context of
acquiring lecture capture systems. In the US, section 508 has a FAR
(Federal acquisition regulation) which says that government agencies and
organizations receiving funds from the government must buy the most
compliant system. This is exposed in the VPAT (vendor product
accessibility template). This gets registered with the government at:
http://www.section508.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=content&ID=12. The
Automatic Sync VPAT is at:
http://www.automaticsync.com/caption/govtregs.htm . My understanding is
that most of the lecture capture systems are not compliant because of
some of the database issues. but their output is or can be made to be
compliant through captioning.
The consequences of not buying the most compliant system can be economic
penalties. This generally focuses on the use of the tool itself--can a
disabled person use the lecture capture system?

The second and more important aspect is--Is the content the system
generates compliant? For the lecture capture vendors, this means that
one can navigate with tools other than a mouse, users can control
content navigation and flow. But the big challenge is to really make the
content accessible, the audio and video need to have synced captions. In
the workflow AST generated with our partners, the goal is to schedule a
class to be captured and at that time designate that it will be
transcribed and captioned, and then have the workflow happen
automatically (thought a stenographer does the transcription). Under a
department of Ed grant, we looked at how to automate the workflow and
unfortunately, the entire process can't be automated now with quality
good enough through speech recognition tools. I'll be glad to share
information about error rates and comprehension from the research. So
our focus was on reducing costs by automating the process, and we offer
very competitive prices and very high quality.

Once the captions are generated, they are synced with the audio, video
and VGA. Users can turn on captions or turn them off. Transcripts can be
uploaded and searched in most systems which adds real value in the
reusability aspect of content.
I could go on and on about how different approaches can work, does this
help?





------------------------------

Message: 3
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2009 15:36:47 -0500
From: "Gerry Nies" <gerrynies at mail.und.nodak.edu>
Subject: Re: [Athen] Response to questions about accessible lecture
capturesolutions
To: <Athen at athenpro.org>
Message-ID: <4A44EB0F.5B96.00E0.0 at mail.und.nodak.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII

Pat

Thank you very much. At least we are asking the question about accessibility
up front and I will be looking at the info that you sent.

Thanks
Gerry


>>> Pat BROGAN <pat at automaticsync.com> 6/26/2009 3:29 PM >>>

EA and Gerry raised some questions about accessible lecture capture
options and captioning solutions. Having just come from Educomm it
seems like the main sponsors were all lecture capture companies. I'll
present some information but expose my bias upfront. I work now for
Automatic Sync, the company referenced in the query, and previously
worked for echo360. In the context of my role, I did manage the
partnership between echo360 and Automatic Sync. Since coming to
Automatic Sync I am working with Mediasite, Panopto, and TechSmith. I
have worked for years with many universities on accessibility in my
former role as VP of education and elearning at Macromedia and written
the standards part of The elearning Handbook. Bias out of the way... I
wrote a whitepaper "Making Lectures Accessible" which is posted at:
http://www.automaticsync.com/caption/echo.htm,
along with a research paper for UW Australia on the benefits of lecture
capture for students with disabilities.
Accessibility really means two different things in the context of
acquiring lecture capture systems. In the US, section 508 has a FAR
(Federal acquisition regulation) which says that government agencies and
organizations receiving funds from the government must buy the most
compliant system. This is exposed in the VPAT (vendor product
accessibility template). This gets registered with the government at:
http://www.section508.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=content&ID=12. The
Automatic Sync VPAT is at:
http://www.automaticsync.com/caption/govtregs.htm . My understanding is
that most of the lecture capture systems are not compliant because of
some of the database issues. but their output is or can be made to be
compliant through captioning.
The consequences of not buying the most compliant system can be economic
penalties. This generally focuses on the use of the tool itself--can a
disabled person use the lecture capture system?

The second and more important aspect is--Is the content the system
generates compliant? For the lecture capture vendors, this means that
one can navigate with tools other than a mouse, users can control
content navigation and flow. But the big challenge is to really make the
content accessible, the audio and video need to have synced captions. In
the workflow AST generated with our partners, the goal is to schedule a
class to be captured and at that time designate that it will be
transcribed and captioned, and then have the workflow happen
automatically (thought a stenographer does the transcription). Under a
department of Ed grant, we looked at how to automate the workflow and
unfortunately, the entire process can't be automated now with quality
good enough through speech recognition tools. I'll be glad to share
information about error rates and comprehension from the research. So
our focus was on reducing costs by automating the process, and we offer
very competitive prices and very high quality.

Once the captions are generated, they are synced with the audio, video
and VGA. Users can turn on captions or turn them off. Transcripts can be
uploaded and searched in most systems which adds real value in the
reusability aspect of content.
I could go on and on about how different approaches can work, does this
help?



_______________________________________________
Athen mailing list
Athen at athenpro.org
http://athenpro.org/mailman/listinfo/athen_athenpro.org




------------------------------

Message: 4
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2009 23:29:38 +0100
From: "E.A. Draffan" <ea at emptech.info>
Subject: Re: [Athen] Response to questions about accessible lecture
capturesolutions
To: "'Access Technology Higher Education Network'"
<athen at athenpro.org>
Message-ID: <001c01c9f6ad$985d8290$c91887b0$@info>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Thank you so much for all the information - what a wonderful list! It is all
so helpful and Alice I really look forward to hearing how it all goes!

Best wishes E.A.

Mrs E.A. Draffan
Learning Societies Lab,
ECS, University of Southampton,
Tel +44 (0)23 8059 7246
http://www.lexdis.ecs.soton.ac.uk
http://www.emptech.info


-----Original Message-----
From: athen-bounces at athenpro.org [mailto:athen-bounces at athenpro.org] On
Behalf Of Gerry Nies
Sent: 26 June 2009 21:37
To: Athen at athenpro.org
Subject: Re: [Athen] Response to questions about accessible lecture
capturesolutions

Pat

Thank you very much. At least we are asking the question about accessibility
up front and I will be looking at the info that you sent.

Thanks
Gerry


>>> Pat BROGAN <pat at automaticsync.com> 6/26/2009 3:29 PM >>>

EA and Gerry raised some questions about accessible lecture capture
options and captioning solutions. Having just come from Educomm it
seems like the main sponsors were all lecture capture companies. I'll
present some information but expose my bias upfront. I work now for
Automatic Sync, the company referenced in the query, and previously
worked for echo360. In the context of my role, I did manage the
partnership between echo360 and Automatic Sync. Since coming to
Automatic Sync I am working with Mediasite, Panopto, and TechSmith. I
have worked for years with many universities on accessibility in my
former role as VP of education and elearning at Macromedia and written
the standards part of The elearning Handbook. Bias out of the way... I
wrote a whitepaper "Making Lectures Accessible" which is posted at:
http://www.automaticsync.com/caption/echo.htm,
along with a research paper for UW Australia on the benefits of lecture
capture for students with disabilities.
Accessibility really means two different things in the context of
acquiring lecture capture systems. In the US, section 508 has a FAR
(Federal acquisition regulation) which says that government agencies and
organizations receiving funds from the government must buy the most
compliant system. This is exposed in the VPAT (vendor product
accessibility template). This gets registered with the government at:
http://www.section508.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=content&ID=12. The
Automatic Sync VPAT is at:
http://www.automaticsync.com/caption/govtregs.htm . My understanding is
that most of the lecture capture systems are not compliant because of
some of the database issues. but their output is or can be made to be
compliant through captioning.
The consequences of not buying the most compliant system can be economic
penalties. This generally focuses on the use of the tool itself--can a
disabled person use the lecture capture system?

The second and more important aspect is--Is the content the system
generates compliant? For the lecture capture vendors, this means that
one can navigate with tools other than a mouse, users can control
content navigation and flow. But the big challenge is to really make the
content accessible, the audio and video need to have synced captions. In
the workflow AST generated with our partners, the goal is to schedule a
class to be captured and at that time designate that it will be
transcribed and captioned, and then have the workflow happen
automatically (thought a stenographer does the transcription). Under a
department of Ed grant, we looked at how to automate the workflow and
unfortunately, the entire process can't be automated now with quality
good enough through speech recognition tools. I'll be glad to share
information about error rates and comprehension from the research. So
our focus was on reducing costs by automating the process, and we offer
very competitive prices and very high quality.

Once the captions are generated, they are synced with the audio, video
and VGA. Users can turn on captions or turn them off. Transcripts can be
uploaded and searched in most systems which adds real value in the
reusability aspect of content.
I could go on and on about how different approaches can work, does this
help?



_______________________________________________
Athen mailing list
Athen at athenpro.org
http://athenpro.org/mailman/listinfo/athen_athenpro.org


_______________________________________________
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Athen at athenpro.org
http://athenpro.org/mailman/listinfo/athen_athenpro.org
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 8.5.375 / Virus Database: 270.12.92/2203 - Release Date: 06/26/09
05:53:00




------------------------------

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