[wac-announce] News from the WAC: Automated Captioning Demo, OSU to Host Big Ten Accessibility Conference

[Ken Petri]

NEWS from the OSU Web Accessibility Center (WAC)
- May 8, 2006 -

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In This Email:
  * Event: WAC on Automated Captioning at Digital Union Showcase (May 10)
  * Event: OSU Hosts the Big Ten Plus IT Accessibility Conference
(June 19 and 20)
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WAC ON AUTOMATED CAPTIONING AT DIGITAL UNION SHOWCASE

The Web Accessibility Center is taking part in the 2nd Annual Digital
Union Showcase, Wednesday, May 10, from 11:30 AM to 1:30 PM, at the
Digital Union, third floor of the Science and Engineering Library (SEL
370).

We will have three "electronic poster" presentations displaying
possibilities for automated captioning of video and audio content and
discussing the advantages of captioning for enhanced learning. One
presentation demonstrates a "proof of concept" captioned video
currently being used at the university. Another gives an overview of a
full-blown potential workflow process for automated transcription,
production, and delivery of captioned content. A third is an overview
of IBM's enterprise-level captioning solution, ViaScribe.

A main purpose of the session is to start a conversation at the
university on the advantages captioning will bring to all learners. We
hope to do some consciousness raising, keeping in mind that automated
captioning is not an easy thing to achieve, however necessary it may
be to future of the mission of education at OSU.

The announcement is here:

http://digitalunion.osu.edu/NewsAndEvents/20060426DUAnniversaryShowcase/

We look forward to seeing you there!


OSU HOSTS THE BIG TEN PLUS IT ACCESSIBILITY CONFERENCE

Mark your calendars. OSU and the WAC are hosting the 2006 Big Ten Plus
IT Accessibility Interest Group 2006 Conference and Workshop, June 19
and 20. The conference is convened in order for Big Ten Plus
institutions IT stakeholders to share their experiences in offering
resources and services to people with disabilities and to identify
areas that would benefit from inter-institutional collaboration.

Attendees are invited to submit abstracts for papers to be discussed
at the conference.

Online registration, an overview of the conference, and a call for
papers is here:

http://cita.uiuc.edu/collaborate/cic/2006/

The objectives of this year's conference:

* Strategic Planning: Allocation of resources, hiring of staff with
specialized skills, organization of training, dissemination of
information, collaboration within and between institutions.
* Marketing Access: Tactics in presentation and message in
dissemination of information on accessibility.
* Standards: Creation of common technology standards and development
best practices.
* Purchasing: Development of purchasing and deployment policies and
requirements.
* Consortiums: Influencing third-party vendors and sharing strategies
for remediation of systems via inter-institutional consortiums.

As campus location information firms up, we will send out notice.
Please have a look at the web site and register early.

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Thanks for reading!
Your WAC Staff
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  Ken Petri, Director
  Indrajit Mukherjee, GAA
  OSU Web Accessibility Center
  102 Pomerene Hall
  1760 Neil Ave.
  Columbus, OH 43210
  Phone: (614) 292-1760
  mailto:wac at osu.edu
  http://wac.osu.edu
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