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Slide 1: Multi-media Accessibility Are we nearly there yet? Nick Freear, Web Developer Wendy Porch, Research Fellow Institute of Educational Technology, The Open University Techshare 2009 The Open University's Institute of Educational Technology
Slide 2: I have a stammer • Ask me to repeat if you miss something. • And please ask questions! stammering.org
Slide 3: Agenda • What problems are we trying to solve? • Existing research and issues • How can we solve the existing problems? • Outline of project proposal • Key project principles • Some initial evaluations • Examples/demonstrations • Round-up, next steps & discussion
Slide 4: Definitions • Captions o Also known as "sub-titles" in UK o Text synchronised with video, timed text o Prefer styling to indicate speaker - position, colour o For deaf/hard of hearing • Closed captions o "Captioning you have to turn on", broadcast • Transcript o Text, often without synchronisation
Slide 5: Definitions (2) • Audio description o Descriptions o For of the video inserted into spaces in the audio track i.e. what’s happening on screen? blind/ low vision people get it for some TV programs, videos, DVDs, live events to find for online videos o Can o Hard
Slide 6: Context "Basic web accessibility is a known commodity now... But nearly ten years after specifications first required it, online captioning still pretty much does not exist." Joe Clark, A List Apart, November 2008.
Slide 7: More context! iTunes U ( Gratuitous logos )
Slide 8: Doesn’t YouTube do Captions? Yes, captions and annotations, since August 2008. However: • Only the video owner can upload/ author • No editor • (Not portable/ embeddable) • Captions can not be styled • Not open content Only approximately 0.5% of YouTube videos are captioned (automated analysis on small corpus of 34 words - more work).
Slide 9: What's the state of play? At the Open University: • Course media is routinely transcribed (OU/iTunes U 95%) • It is not routinely captioned or audio described. W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines: • WCAG 1.0, 1999 - 1.4: Level A - transcript is sufficient. • WCAG 2.0, Dec 2008 - Level A requires captions, not audio description. Vimler: annotation. Moodle et al: • No easy way to integrate captions Some R&D projects are looking at content personalisation in E-Learning
Slide 10: Accessible Multimedia in E-Learning (1) TILE Project: Adaptive Technology Resource Centre, University of Toronto (http://inclusivelearning.ca) • Early implementation of content personalisation standards that map user preferences to content served. • Not held in a learning management system • Reusable Learning Object Repository for Educators • Videos provided with captions and audio descriptions
Slide 11: Mars Rover Mission Video Audio Descriptions provide an overview of the onscreen action, particularly that which is not mentioned in the narrative of the video. (insert Mars rover example here)
Slide 12: Accessible Multimedia in E-Learning (2) • EU4ALL Project. UKOU, UNED, Atos Origin, York University (amongst many others!) • www.eu4all-project.eu • Content personalisation based on evolved standards related to user preferences. i.e. I'd prefer the video with the audio descriptions please! • Process for providing matching developed for dotLRN and Moodle learning environments • Alternatives for videos in the standards include captions, audio description, sign language interpretations, transcripts
Slide 13: Moodle video with Audio Description (http://eu4all.open.ac.uk/eu4all/mod/resource/view.php?id=75)
Slide 14: Other Accessible Multimedia Fun! Stretch Project (ATRC, University of Toronto) http://stretch.atrc.utoronto.ca • Project 'stretched' perceptions of artists & art students to be more inclusive of people with disabilities • Participants produced numerous examples of cultural works that include multiple sensory modalities & a gallery of works on the theme of inclusion • Provided tools to new media artists for adding descriptions, captions & alternative video
Slide 15: Tools for Adding Captions and/or Audio Descriptions       CapScribe: capscribe.snow.utoronto.ca NCAM's Magpie ncam.wgbh.org/webaccess/magpie LiveDescribe: www.livedescribe.com MovCaptioner: www.synchrimedia.com YouTube CC: www.youtubecc.com CaptionTube: captiontube.appspot.com Accessify's YouTube Caption Creator: DotSub: dotsub.com accessify.com/tools-and-wizards/... – http://is.gd/1yiVU  
Slide 16: How can we address the lack of captions & audio descriptions online? Multimedia Alternatives the MALT Wiki Project Collaborative production of alternative content  Web services to ease use 
Slide 17: Big Principles • Accessibility/usability • Data portability/ content as a service/ connections • Quality & learning design * • Open content • Software as a service • Free (open-source) software • Social production/ co-creation/ crowd-sourcing • Perpetual beta, hacking the Web, agile
Slide 18: Media player evaluation
Slide 19: dotSUB.com - transcribing
Slide 20: dotSUB.com • • • • • • • • • • • "any video any language" + Transcription/ translation can be collaborative - Wiki-like + Captions are portable (W3C TT XML, Subrip SRT) + Ajax-based editor or import captions + Powerful search, including in RSS + Rich meta-data, including caption attribution + Creative Commons licenses are encouraged Uploader must be owner/ permission of owner of video * Connections with eg. YouTube not explicit Captions don't indicate person - TT styling - retrofit? Meta-data not exposed in RSS search or TT - YET No comments, rating, user profile - not "social" YET
Slide 21: Social production • Wikipedia, Geocaching, Open street map, Project Gutenberg, Librivox, talking newspapers, open source … – What motivates? User scenarios ... • Preece, Jennifer & Shneiderman, Ben (2009) "The Reader-to-Leader Framework: Motivating Technology-Mediated Social Participation" – 4 stages – reader, commenter, contributor, leader
Slide 22: View 'in-situ' - client-side (OLnet)
Slide 23: View 'in-situ' - server-side
Slide 24: Multi-layer web service Content-creator YOU | • <a rel=”embed” href=”http://youtube.com/watch? v=UnI”>Title</a> | • Wordpress/ Drupal/ Moodle module/ filter | • jquery.oembed.js | • Oembed – YouTube, Slideshare, Flickr, Vimeo ... | • Remote server | • Player <object> + HTML + Javascript
Slide 25: A new player – uses oEmbed, HTML/ Javascript
Slide 26: YT player modified – user Javascript
Slide 27: Next Steps • • • • • Explore internal/ external funding Conversations Work on player + personalisation Caption/ AD editing/ discovery functions A workshop ("Scripting Enabled") Build a community – please help! N.D.Freear@open.ac.uk – @nfreear W.Porch@open.ac.uk maltwiki.org
Slide 28: We didn't have time for...
Slide 29: Flash 'wmode' is harmful • wmode = 'window' (default) - OK. <object data="player.swf"> <param name="wmode" value="window" /> ... • wmode = 'opaque' or 'transparent' – inaccessible. <param name="wmode" value="opaque" /> • Answer - don't set wmode.
Slide 30: Next steps detail Roadmap: no money, no timescale!  Testing - <iframe>, screen readers, high contrast...  "Complete" the MALT/Flow player - volume, progress bars, theme, language (research Flow controlbar custom.)  Do MALT/YouTube/JS player - matching UI.  Personalization demo,  Plug-ins: Wordpress, Moodle, Drupal...  Audio Description - CapScribe, Java Web Start/JNLP?  Captioning – online/ desktop/ import/ export  Developer documentation.  Translation/ Localization, player - French, Chinese...  Wiki features, community building, talk talk...?
Slide 31: Wordle - project keywords