[Scott Casanova]

Hi Natalie,

 

Our guidelines (while not published) are to provide captioning and American Sign Language interpreting at all official university functions as well as any event that is open to the public.  Our Acad/Admin departments as well as our University Union programming board do this pretty consistently. Smaller student orgs typically don’t however the audiences are much smaller and students only.  Athletics also provides captioning through the scoreboards in the JMA Wireless Dome for athletic events.

 

We’ve been providing captioning and expanding it’s usage for about 15 years now and everything we caption is with live captioners. We have a couple local vendors we work with who provide remote captioning.  Audio is sent out either through a telephone line interfaced with our PA systems or through a skype or zoom connection.  Captions are received back via a website, http://www.streamtext.net, that is displayed on a single or multiple monitors in the space.  For events that are also streamed the captioners are able to caption the broadcast as well on most platforms.  I’ve used PowerPoint’s built in capability a couple of times in emergency situations but found it lacking with name accuracy (something that’s emphasized in our DEIA guidelines) as well as struggling with technical or academic terminology for keynote presentations in certain disciplines. 

 

For events in our student centers event sponsors are responsible for covering the captioner’s fee and all onsite tech support is included in the existing fee structure (meaning there is no additional charge from us if an event is having captioning).  For events outside there may be an additional tech support fee depending on venue (does it have built in capability) and if it’s on-campus AV support or an off-campus vendor.

 

I’d also love to hear what other campuses are doing in this regard, happy to answer any questions!

 

Scott

Scott Casanova ’99
(Pronouns: he/him/his)
Associate Director
Student Engagement

T 315.443.4458   F 315.443.4617
srcasano@syr.edu

124 Schine Student Center, 200 Waverly Ave., Syracuse, NY 13244
scps.syr.edu

Syracuse University

 

——————————————-
Original Message:
Sent: 7/3/2024 8:22:00 AM
From: Natalie Wilson
Subject: Live Captioning Practices

Hello All!

 

We are developing a standard protocol for live captioning at our events. Does anyone have a policy that has been well-received, or if you have found any guidance on when captions are required at events? I am also curious about what technologies folks are using to generate the captions. We have found that PowerPoint’s incorporated AI does an excellent job with a direct mic feed. Are there any other options, other than a live transcriptionist, that works well for you?

 

Thank you!

 

Natalie Wilson

Assistant Director 

Event Management and Technology 

She/ Her/ Hers 

 

 

 

 University of North Carolina Wilmington 

601 South College Road 

Wilmington, NC  28403-5988 

910.962.3833( phone) 910.962.3915 ( fax) 

 

NOTICE: Emails sent and received in the course of university business are subject to the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. ?132-1 et seq.) and may be released to the public unless an exception applies. 

 

 

[Austin Huot]

Hi Natalie, 

Thanks for this great question! I look forward to learning best practices from other institutions. We do not currently have a standard policy at Amherst College. We live stream our major events to amherst.edu/go/webcast and incorporate live captioning provided by either VITAC or White Coat Captioning into the broadcast. As Scott from Syracuse mentioned, we find live captioners to be more accurate than AI/auto-generated and worth the modest fee. The live stream serves the dual purpose of making the event available to remote audiences and providing closed captioning to anyone attending the event in person (via their mobile device). 

Best,
Austin

______________________________________

Austin Huot (he/him/his)
Director of Conferences & Special Events
Amherst College | Office of Communications

413.542.7666 (office) | 413.658.7107 (mobile)

 hear my name

——————————————-
Original Message:
Sent: 7/5/2024 10:21:00 AM
From: Scott Casanova
Subject: RE: Live Captioning Practices

Hi Natalie,

 

Our guidelines (while not published) are to provide captioning and American Sign Language interpreting at all official university functions as well as any event that is open to the public.  Our Acad/Admin departments as well as our University Union programming board do this pretty consistently. Smaller student orgs typically don’t however the audiences are much smaller and students only.  Athletics also provides captioning through the scoreboards in the JMA Wireless Dome for athletic events.

 

We’ve been providing captioning and expanding it’s usage for about 15 years now and everything we caption is with live captioners. We have a couple local vendors we work with who provide remote captioning.  Audio is sent out either through a telephone line interfaced with our PA systems or through a skype or zoom connection.  Captions are received back via a website, http://www.streamtext.net, that is displayed on a single or multiple monitors in the space.  For events that are also streamed the captioners are able to caption the broadcast as well on most platforms.  I’ve used PowerPoint’s built in capability a couple of times in emergency situations but found it lacking with name accuracy (something that’s emphasized in our DEIA guidelines) as well as struggling with technical or academic terminology for keynote presentations in certain disciplines. 

 

For events in our student centers event sponsors are responsible for covering the captioner’s fee and all onsite tech support is included in the existing fee structure (meaning there is no additional charge from us if an event is having captioning).  For events outside there may be an additional tech support fee depending on venue (does it have built in capability) and if it’s on-campus AV support or an off-campus vendor.

 

I’d also love to hear what other campuses are doing in this regard, happy to answer any questions!

 

Scott

Scott Casanova ’99
(Pronouns: he/him/his)
Associate Director
Student Engagement

T 315.443.4458   F 315.443.4617
srcasano@syr.edu

124 Schine Student Center, 200 Waverly Ave., Syracuse, NY 13244
scps.syr.edu

Syracuse University

 

——————————————-
Original Message:
Sent: 7/3/2024 8:22:00 AM
From: Natalie Wilson
Subject: Live Captioning Practices

Hello All!

 

We are developing a standard protocol for live captioning at our events. Does anyone have a policy that has been well-received, or if you have found any guidance on when captions are required at events? I am also curious about what technologies folks are using to generate the captions. We have found that PowerPoint’s incorporated AI does an excellent job with a direct mic feed. Are there any other options, other than a live transcriptionist, that works well for you?

 

Thank you!

 

Natalie Wilson

Assistant Director 

Event Management and Technology 

She/ Her/ Hers 

 

 

 

 University of North Carolina Wilmington 

601 South College Road 

Wilmington, NC  28403-5988 

910.962.3833( phone) 910.962.3915 ( fax) 

 

NOTICE: Emails sent and received in the course of university business are subject to the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. ?132-1 et seq.) and may be released to the public unless an exception applies.