Purpose

The objective of this request is to have partial employee(s), knowledgeable in the wiki structure, as well in the communications area, that can arrange the actual structure of the ALAC, At-Large, RALOs information on the ICANN wiki site. Actual information is most times not updated, wrongly linked, or incomplete.

Alignment

In order to fulfill our job as the voice of the end users in the different comments we submit to the ICANN Board, it is of paramount importance to have the information of our Working Groups, RALOs, and even the main page up to date, with accurate information, that can be reviewed easily, not only by our members, but for all the community

Category

There is no particular category where this ABR should fit, but also, it might fill in several of them. Outreach and Research the two most important.

Objectives

Audience

As mentioned above, this will help the entire At-Large community

Outcomes

To have the wiki pages with the correct information, updated and linked properly.

Evaluation

Metrics

The purpose should be to arrange at least one working group or RALO information per month.

Sustainability

At the end of the FY, a template to be used by the actual At-Large staff must be produced, that will allow staff to easily update the information, and create the appropriate links.

Communication Support: 

1/2 FTE for one year.

Assumptions: Knowledge of wiki pages, communiciations, posting information on websites. 

JH: Not a key ICANN strategic aim. 

MH: Need to look at other solutions to implement request.  Possibly allocate staff responsibility for ensuring wiki sites are up to date.

SB: Suggest submitting. At a minimum it will raise the issue on ICANN's agenda. 

Real-time Captioning RTT of Zoom Meetings in Spanish and French

Purpose

Captioning/RTT was initially introduced to At-Large as a Pilot programme providing RALO or ALAC monthly meetings, Working Group meetings or webinars over a 6-month period in FY18.  Assuming RTT in English stays in the core, this ABR is only for Spanish and French but if for some reason RTT falls out of the core we would like this ABR to be expanded to Cover English as well.

We hope that the late start of the Spanish and French translations because of problems that Language Services had during the first half of the year will not prevent this ABR from having a second year 

During the current year RTT in English was provided during all policy and operational and finance related calls, AT Large Leadership Calls, as well as during all capacity building webinars that At Large held. but there were calls for it to be expanded to more calls and to be in different languages. Additionally, a selected number of RALO and other working groups used this feature. 

One of the aims of the captioning/RTT program was to introduce a transcription service to enhance understanding by a large percentage of our audio meeting attendees who may have a hearing disability and may not fully comprehend what is being said without being supported by lip-reading or signing, Its other greatest use was to enable those who can hear but the technical language and the complex issues that surround much of the policy work within ICANN, as well as other unfavorable factors have caused many attendees to disengage and not return to our meetings. Over 11% of people responding to our surveys stated that they were a person with disabilities.

RTT has the capacity to create better understanding of what might have been a lot harder to understand without being able to read and reread something in a split second in order to get comprehension. In such a technical environment, there is a strong need for understanding about what At-Large work is all about. While At Large offers Spanish and French interpretation on audio the chat many people are on the zoom for the conference and using their mobile for the language bridge, so it is essential to them to have the captioning on the stream text or on another audio stream to follow along with the call.

Since Participation and engagement is a major objective for At-Large, with our At Large Review Implementation Plan which call for Improvements to effectiveness of member participation and engagement, this RTT pilot in Spanish and French will help At Large meet these coals and help revitalize At-Large and making it more effective and more credible. In particular, there will be a specific effort to outreach to and engage with general members of each ALS moving us more towards encouraging greater participation and leadership as was one of our key goals in the At Large Review implementation plan. It is important that At-Large supports any options that will encourage understanding and engagement. Providing a real-time captioning tool, such as RTT, that will help our participants better engage in our meetings, and better understand the terminology and contexts and thus become better informed about the various policy topics discussed, would greatly help the ALAC to achieve this goal. 

Over 89% of the people from the call calls held in FY’20 stated that they found the RTT to be either very helpful or helpful in increasing their engagement and ability to participate in the topics, increasing their understanding of the topics being discussed.

In this past year, the CPWG experienced a real growth in the number of people participating in policy discussions and in writing and becoming active in writing and commenting on policy documents. While the new format used this year for the Policy discussions and the creation of additional opportunities to get involved with policy and operational discussions played a roll, but it is clear that having RTT in all these sessions also led to this direct increase in engagement and involvement.  As such, it is clear that having RTT in other language could have the same impact and also serve to increase engagement and activity in writing policies and in commenting on ICANN policy statements.

 RTT therefore offers a chance not only for those who may have a hearing disability but also for those whose primary language may not be English but interpretation is not provided for their first language so that captioning enables them to listen and then to read and re-read what has been said, to get a better understanding of what is being said.

Proposed Timeline: 

Recurring activity. Seeking 8 hours of RTT services in Spanish and 8 hours in French each month. The Spanish RTT will be off the Spanish language interpretation that is already provided and the French Translation will be off the French language interpretation in the calls.

Currently, RTT in English has made it to the core budget, but if for some reason it drops out of the core budget of ICANN than we would like this ABR to cover that RTT in English as well.

Request: 

RTT in  ES/FR for 8 hours per month. 

RTT in EN for 12 hours per month if not in core budget.

Note: The new FY23 ABR template should be used. 

JH: Suggest to submit again to accommodate LS and market offerings. 

MH - support

Judith Hellerstein

This ABR is focused on Inclusion and accessibility.  It is focused as much on the ICANN ORG staff as well as the participants and others active within the ICANN ecosystem. The suggestion is that ICANN hire a consultant or a firm to work with the different constituencies and ORG staff on how to develop accessible documents.  Over the years ALAC and others have posted public comments calling on the ORG and others to ensure that documents are made accessible but to no avail.  While staff are interested in doing this they are not trained in how to do this and so when they are writing or developing documents and policies they are not aware that these are not accessible to people with disabilities.   An inclusion and accessibility coordinator would be working with all staff within the ORG and outside within the different constituencies explaining to them how this is done.  This person would also review all the ICANN websites and notate which pages have inaccessible images, which videos are not captioned, etc.  This way when documents are published for public comment they are not filled with images or other items that are not accessible.

ICANN should be known as a welcoming place to all but currently it is not and others who want to comment or interact with ICANN have a difficult task. It should not be the work of volunteer groups to point this out or to recruit others to find the holes in the system it is what the leadership should be doing.

In this pilot we are suggesting that the consultant work with ALAC first and then branch out into other constituencies as the needs and the request arise.  I know other constituencies are also interested in working on these same issues and I am sure the need will be great once they see how this person has helped ALAC become more inclusive and accessible.  Diversity, inclusion, and accessibility have been recommendations from Workstream 2 and from the ATRT3 and this ABR will help ICANN meet these recommendations.

Note: The new FY23 ABR template should be used.  [completed ]

MH - support - ICANN should be moving towards making its website more accessible for all participants. 

Purpose

Since 3 ICANN (only virtual) meetings the interpretation in the various supported languages was embedded in ZOOM.

The proposal is to select 18 At-Large virtual calls using only ZOOM during which the interpretation will be accessible within ZOOM.

The calls and the languages (in the list of ICANNs supported languages) will be selected by the 5 Ralo Chairs with the advice of the ALAC Chair and in coordination with At-Large staff supporting the calls and language services Staff supporting the interpretation.

For speakers and participants, it will allow to use one single tool to access one or multiple languages as easy as English in only ZOOM rooms.

Alignment

Diversity

Accessibility

Outreach and Engagement

Category

• Outreach and Engagement

Objectives

Audience

The target audience is for each selected call all the speakers and participants using other language than English.
At least 1 pilot for each region and 3 global pilots.

Outcomes

Easier access to interpretation by using only a single tool to participate to the selected meetings.

Evaluation

Metrics

Number of:

• participants using non-English languages
  • Listening
  • Speaking
• speakers using non-English languages

Cost

Sustainability

It is a pilot.

If it show an increase participation (and intervention) by non-English speakers, ICANN must evaluate the cost vs benefit and include this solution in the possibility to organize multilingual calls and have the specific cost included in the yearly budget.

Move to ALAC section [ completed ]

MH- support - anything that makes it easier for participants to actively engage in meetings. The technology should be enabling rather than making it so difficult for them to participate