| No. | Recommendation | Recipient | Thematic Group Source | Assignees | Status |
| 11 | ICANN must implement a range of services to facilitate access according to various criteria (gender; cultural diversity) and user needs (disabilities, etc…). | ICANN Board; ICANN Staff | TG2 |
| COMPLETED Pending response from ICANN Staff |
Implementation Details
Having made ICANN realizes the fundamental importance of inclusion and diversity, the At-Large Community has played a key role in the implementation of ICANN’s programs and services to embrace communities that have historically suffered from barriers to access.
At-Large has researched and tested various captioning and translation tools, and this effort has resulted in the successful implementation of live captioning services during its teleconferences in FY16. This service will be extended in FY17. Addressing the digital divide throughout the native population in North America, an At-Large pilot project will send a student ambassador from the Indian Country in the US, accompanied by two adult coaches, to an ICANN conference to advocate for the rights of tribal communities in Internet policymaking. Spearheaded by At-Large, the Cross Community Committee on Accessibility has been established for the wider ICANN Community to collaborate with relevant staff departments in identifying web accessibility issues, raising awareness of those issues, and improving accessibility as a continued effort.
The aforementioned efforts have facilitated the participation for non-English speakers, underserved communities, and people with disability and special needs in ICANN activities.
Next Step
At-Large will continue collaborating with ICANN staff to raise accessibility awareness, ensure the lasting success of existing programs and services, and help develop future programs and services for accessibility improvements.
Actions:
- :
- Olivier Crepin-Leblond to send the ICANN Board Chairman and ask whether they require any further info on REC 11 and how ICANN has been acting on this recommendation. Olivier Crepin-Leblond will ask ALAC Chair's permission first.
- Olivier Crepin-Leblond to send the ICANN Board Chairman and ask whether they require any further info on REC 11 and how ICANN has been acting on this recommendation. Olivier Crepin-Leblond will ask ALAC Chair's permission first.
- :
- At-Large Staff to ask Chris Gift's team re the implementation of this rec
Notes:
ICANN can meet it's strategic goals for inclusion and diversity through the implementation of services that embraces the various communities which have historically suffered from barriers of access.
ICANN should use caption technology for all its calls, meetings and presentations. This tool not only makes all ICANN activities and programs accessible to Deaf, blind and low vision consumers, but also the English only calls to be translated into multiple languages courtesy of Google translate. Having the captions available in English also helps people in the ICANN community whose first language is not English as most people can read English even if they can not speak or understand it.
- Captioning technology review for conference calls (joint work between the two taskforces): https://community.icann.org/x/8xvxAg
- Prioritization from the primary objectives for the taskforce – including an identification of the key short, medium and long term opportunities: https://community.icann.org/x/EcXhAg
The discussion has been furthered with key ICANN staff during the Accessibility Working Group meeting during ICANN 51: https://community.icann.org/x/kxvxAg
: From At-Large side, this recommendation has been completed. Its status depends on the progress on the ICANN Staff side.
Input from Technology Taskforce:
- (As per Rec 10) ICANN Language Services provides interpretation for for ALAC/At-Large F2F meetings and ALAC and for some RALO conference calls.
- However, they do not as of yet provide support for people with disabilities and special needs during working groups or conference calls.
- Evaluated Caption First which offers an Adobe Connect plugin for live scribing on two calls (as per Rec 10)
- A special budget request to conduct a pilot program to live caption 6 meetings/calls a month has been submitted to the FBSC which was approved by ICANN.
- The TTF also evaluated “Craptions to Captions”, an open source tool for captioning videos. See Technology Taskforce meeting 2015-01-26
- Also, the TTF looked at Amara, www.amara.org , a subtitle editor that makes it easy to caption and translate videos. Amara also hosts volunteer localization & accessibility communities.
- The TTF notes the progress of machine translation tools such as Skype Translator Preview and the already available Google Translate mobile app. The TTF has reviewed and documented these applications at the Translation Tools wiki page.
- The TTF is working with ICANN IT staff to have a new version of the machine translation tools used for the LACRALO English and Spanish mailing lists. See https://community.icann.org/x/z4VZAg
- Also beginning the process for testing captioning of all videos. Glenn McKnight will be demoing some of these at the next TTF call.
-
- Corresponds to Rec 10
Recommendation
ICANN must implement a range of services to facilitate access according to various criteria (gender; cultural diversity) and user needs (disabilities, etc…).
Rationale
ICANN can meet it's strategic goals for inclusion and diversity through the implementation of services that embraces the various communities which have historically suffered from barriers of access.
Implement online tools ie. Captions First to provide visual aids to the disabled attendees and those with English as a second language. Enhancing their experience
ICANN should use caption technology for all its calls, meetings and presentations. This tool not only makes all ICANN activities and programs accessible to Deaf, blind and low vision consumers. Additionally it adds an added feature in that the English only calls can be translated into multiple languages courtesy of google translate.
As a US corporation, closed captioning is mandated under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), which prohibits discrimination and ensures equal opportunity for persons with disabilities in all areas which is why ICANN should adopt captioning on all its calls to best meet these obligations under the Act. Accessibility is the degree to which a product, device, service, or environment is available to as many people as possible; It is not to be confused with usability, which is the extent to which a product (such as a device, service, or environment) can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use.
Captioning is essentially the same as a transcription of the audio portion of a program as it occurs (either verbatim or in edited form), sometimes including descriptions of non-speech elements. Other uses have been to provide a textual alternative language translation of a presentation's primary audio language which is usually burned-in (or open) to the video and not selectable (or closed). Captioning is done by trained operators who can either be local or remote as long as they have a direct feed to the speakers.
Having the captions available in English also helps people in the ICANN community whose first language is not English as most people can read English even if they can not speak or understand it.
The link below will bring you to the archive of the call and the demonstration of how captioning works. We demoed two caption Pods, the one built into Adobe Connect and the one developed by Captions First. in the call below you can see how this works.
https://icann.adobeconnect.com/p1h7z2vs214/?launcher=false&fcsContent=true&pbMode=normal
The difference between the two captioning systems is that the Adobe Connect version only displays text line by line and the Captions First system does it word by word. It also allows for more lines of text to be displayed as well as changes to the color of the captions and the font. These changes make it more easier for users to see and read the text. See image below.
Additionally changes in the background colors allow persons with disabilities like Dyslexia to see text better, which also helps this disadvantage group as well. See image below.
Captions First also provides a separate website for those people with limited bandwidth to see the captions on a separate web page that only displays text. This issue of limited bandwidth is another issue that is mentioned in this recommendation. The call showcases how this is done as well.See image and links in the image below.
You can also see how the language translation feature works as well. Later in the call it shows how to use the google translate button along with the captions to translate the captions into multiple languages.
Example of English to German and Japanese
The cost for the raw and live captioning of the Adobe connect call is $130 and hour plus 18 an hour to clean up the transcripts and makes sure that all people are identified. Transcripts are available within a few days. Caption first can also provide captions in Spanish as well as English. However, Spanish captions cost $165 an hour. The Spanish captions can work along with the Spanish Interpreters. Both captioners can be hired with a few days notice.
