ATLAS2 Recommendation 11 reads as follows:
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.
