This past summer, the staff at UWW-TV (UW-Whitewater) was busy seeking answers to the question of how to provide real-time closed captioning services for events broadcast on the campus cable television channel. Many state schools broadcast live sporting events like football and basketball, along with commencement ceremonies and newscasts, while experiencing the need to seek out a cost-effective option in order to be compliant with Section 508 of the American Disabilities Act.
A number of options were considered during the research process, with the understanding of one fact: We need to find a way to have all programming captioned beginning the fall semester of 2018.
The first thought, and the one least desired by staff and students, was to eliminate the practice of broadcasting events live. The alternative would be to record each multi-camera production with announcers and outsource the finished product to a vendor to caption in post-production. The idea of eliminating live programming was dismissed as quickly as it was first considered.
The second involved vendors who specialized in real-time captioning via speech recognition. Testing a number of these systems with game clips and commencement ceremonies proved to be a problem. Names of students/players were often butchered, as were the titles of many of our chosen mascots. The quality compared to what one sees from a free auto-generated speech recognition via video storage sites.
The third option was enlisting the services of a state-contracted vendor that produces real-time captioning through the talents of a professional with qualifications of speed and accuracy similar to a court stenographer. While the initial concern here was expense compared to other options, UWW-TV went this route, with the support of campus administration.
Making the need to live caption a campus issue was the best way to go with this venture. We were fortunate to have an administration that fully backed the program’s efforts, and by mid-summer, funding was approved to proceed with the necessary vendors for our live captioning needs. UWW-TV student employees still manually caption shorter, post-produced programs, but their time dedicated for captioning efforts is far less than expected for the upcoming school year.
Campus cable stations across the state of Wisconsin have students working hard over the next few months broadcasting games, special events, and original student programs. It has been a rewarding experience to see how far everyone has come over the years with technology, while continuing to provide great opportunities for our student broadcasters. As an educator, if you have determined your own best-case strategy of success to close caption live events, that is yet another accomplishment to be proud of.
Jim Mead, Director of UWW-TV, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater
