Description

Pilot Project III: FY18 Special Request for RALO real-time captioning of Adobe Connect meetings, in EN, ES and FR.

This is a continuation of our current pilot program of captioning for 5 RALO and/or ALAC monthly meetings, and/or 5 Working Group meetings or webinars over a 6 month period in FY18.

Our goal in this continuation of the pilot is to provide real-time captioning for either 5 RALO meetings a month or 4 RALO and 1 ALAC meeting, and/or 5 working group meetings or webinars a month to enable full participation of all At-Large Users within ICANN. An additional objective of this third phase of the pilot is to test the concept for the implementation of a permanent captioning program to replace the transcription program currently available. The metrics obtained from the second phase of the captioning pilot clearly indicates strong support for captioning. 

• More than 91% described captioning as either extremely helpful or helpful.
• More than 75% indicated the ability to understand the session more effectively
• More than 54% had a greater understanding of the topics

The standard of captioning is now at such a high level that it is effectively a transcript. Captioning has the benefit of people being able to check facts and terminology during a call and thus being able to participate in a more informed manner. This is especially valuable for people whose primary language is not English, French or Spanish. On the WS2 Diversity call #9, 61% of participants stated that English was not their primary language. Most of the AFRALO call participants either did not have English as their primary language and/or had low bandwidth and 75% were able to understand the session more effectively and the topic better with captioning. This was even higher in the WS Diversity call at 84%. There were many comments about the advantage of being able to catch up especially if a speaker spoke quickly or the audio was not so clear.

We also want to raise awareness of the importance of including captioning whenever language support is offered. We are targeting RALO meetings since our goal is to increase engagement in ICANN within each of the respective regions. We are also targeting the working groups and webinars for the same reason as well as to promote more engagement from RALOs in these working groups. We think this will lead to more effective participation and engagement within ICANN. This is especially the case for people who are coming from bandwidth challenged countries where lack of bandwidth has limited their participation within ICANN. Adobe Connect is a large user of bandwidth and as such makes it difficult for those with limited bandwidth to fully participate. Adigo calls are helpful in that regard, but often in many places cell coverage is sparse and calls often drop or use up too much of a person’s quota.

Participants were enthusiastic and wanted captioning on working group and CCWG calls while 50% of WS Diversity participants wanted captioning on all calls.

The goal of the pilot is to continue to gather the necessary metrics to illustrate the need for captioning not only for accessibility reasons but also for those with limited bandwidth and novice without a clear understanding about the terminology used in key ICANN meetings. The data gained from this third phase of the pilot should help us meet these goals and show the need for captioning ICANN wide. This next phase of the project intends therefore to extend the reach of captioning even further so that it meets the intended goals.  This means offering more sessions with captioning including in French and Spanish and reaching out to any persons who have a hearing impairment. It would assist ICANN staff to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of captioning compared to the provision of transcripts after the call.

Approved Request: 5 meetings per month for a semester, 30 for semester for FY18. 

Details

ICANN Org sees the value of this request, and has taken the budget for this pilot effort within the core policy development support team budget in FY18. Members of the Policy Development Support Team will collaborate with ICANN's Language Services Team and community proponents for this activity to continue this pilot effort in FY18.  The goal of this effort will be to identify a framework for managing and implementing the program across more communities and ICANN work activities. Expected deliverable: a comprehensive ICANN Org report outlining how this service can be effectively rolled out and managed in FY19. Report to be delivered to ICANN Language Services Team by 30 November 2017.

See At-Large FY18 Special Request Implementation Workspace

Contact

Staff Support Lead: Silvia Vivanco

Staff Assist: Evin Erdoğdu

Mailing list: Captioning-pilot@atlarge-lists.icann.org

Subscribe to the mailing list (or read the archives / manage your subscription) please visit: https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/captioning-pilot

Members

Meetings

Next Meeting: TBD

Previous Meeting: 22 August 2017

Please see "Real Time Transcription (RTT) Project" below.

Criteria

Criteria for "Real Time Transcription (RTT) Project

Criteria listed in order of priority. Requests for RTT have to meet at least one of these criteria to be put on the list for captioning.

1) Are there persons with disabilities or with limited bandwidth participating?

2) Are there webinars of general interest to the ICANN community that would increase the engagement of non-native English speakers?

3) Are the meetings or discussions about accessible tools or software?

Evaluation Survey

Survey Scope:

Short format in two sections.

Section One  - A set of five questions on the end user experiences of the session using captioning. This is used all the time and is combined with the webinar ones.

Section Two -  Questions to be developed for Webinars . It is a set of  five questions on the quality of the webinar - Do not use these questions when the session is not a webinar.

12 February Survey Form

19 February Survey Form

Questions

**Section one:

1. The RTT feature of the Adobe Connect room is part of a pilot. Please select one:

• Very helpful
• Helpful
• Less relevant
• Not helpful 

2. Please self-identify all categories that describe who you are:

• A participant with disabilities or specific needs
• Participant for whom English is a second language
• Participant who doesn't speak English 
• Participant who has limited or low bandwidth
• All of the above
• None of the above

3. What benefits did you get from accessing the RTT feature? Chose as many answers as necessary:

• Greater understanding of the topics
• Ability to understand the session more effectively
• Provided the correct spelling of technical terminology
• Able to more fully participate and engage with the presenter
• All of the above
• other benefits, please describe   _______________________

4.  How accurate was the live RTT? (including participant names, terminology, etc.) On a scale of 1-5

1 Not accurate

2

3

4

5  Extremely Accurate

5.  How useful was the RTT for this call, in general? On a scale of 1-5

1 Not useful at all

2

3

4

5 Extremely Useful 

6.  Where else do you think RTT should be required?

• Working Groups
• Task Forces
• Adhoc groups
• RALO Calls
• ALAC Calls
• CCWG Calls
• Other constituencies
• All of the above
• Other, please describe ________________________

7.  Any final comments?

Requests for Real Time Transcription (RTT)