Accessibility

Both Berkeley’s Disability Access & Compliance (DAC) and Berkeley’s Disabled Students’ Program (DSP) assist the Berkeley community with many accessibility and accommodation needs: mobility access, live/video captioning, transcribing, ASL/VRI services, and virtual accessibility guidelines

• DAC supports all of our campus community, regardless of level of disability or need

• DSP is strictly for student accommodations, includes a student’s submitted letter of accommodation (LOA), and ensures students receive ADA-compliant accommodations

Given our increased class size, we want to help instructors manage Disabled Students' Program (DSP) accommodations for all Fung MEng leadership courses. If/when you receive an official DSP letter from a student, please forward the letter to Felicia Rabang, and refer the student to her for follow-up:

Felicia Rabang, fbautista3@berkeley.edu

Felicia will work with you and the student to implement the accommodations as needed. The most frequent accommodation in the MEng program is time-and-a-half or double-time on exams, if applicable.

• If you are sharing your video only to your course, and that course has no Letters of Accommodation (LOA) requiring captioning, you may post an uncaptioned video. Keep in mind you may receive a LOA at any point during the semester.

• Zoom, Kaltura and YouTube’s automated captioning and transcription services are not ADA-compliant, and automated captions are NOT an acceptable form of captioning.

• A quick way to determine if the captions are acceptable is to check to see if there is punctuation and speaker identifiers.

• When in doubt, contact either dsp-captioning@berkeley.edu or access@berkeley.edu

  • If showing videos that need ADA-compliant services, contact dsp@berkeley.edu or dsp-captioning@berkeley.edu

New DSP Data Management System (AIM)

What is AIM?

• It’s a web-based database system that provides a means for DSP to communicate and interact with faculty, staff, and disabled students from one robust platform.

• It’s a Comprehensive Accommodation, Appointment, and Case Management Software program that’s built By Disability Services Professionals, For Disability Services Departments such as DSP.

• It’s also fully integrated with Berkeley Student Information System (SIS/Cal Central) making coordination of services for students easier.

What Can Instructors Do In AIM?

• See a comprehensive list of students

• Perform sort or search functions

• View accommodation letters (LOAs)

• Find email addresses of students and export complete list to a file

• Upload a copy of course syllabus

• Initiate an exam request

• Upload a copy of an exam to be proctored

• Complete a video captioning request

• See notetaker assigned to course as well as their notes

Questions about AIM?

• Email: dsp@berkeley.edu.

• Website: https://dsp.berkeley.edu/accessible-information-management-system-aim

Video Remote Interpretation (VRI) Services

• Berkeley uses Linguabee for American Sign Language (ASL) Video Remote Interpreting, or VideRemote Interpretation (VRI)

• VRI is an alternative solution to on-site interpretation, especially in remote areas where an interpreter cannot be physically present in the same room as those who need the service

Scribe for Zoom Meetings

• Scribe for Meetings: gives participants the ability to download PPTs, PDFs or other shared documents in an accessible format (tagged PDF, Word doc, braille or BRF file, etc.) via web link they follow during a meeting or webinar

• Scribe for Education is currently free for Berkeley users. For more information, reach out to Lucy Greco at lgreco@berkeley.edu

There are two ways to add captions to class sessions: live/during session or asynchronously/afterward (via recording)

Captioning

• Live captioning by Zoom (automated): powered by Otter.ai (same vendor as Zoom Cloud auto-captions and transcriptions).

• Closed captioning in Zoom (manual): you can arrange for someone on your team (a fast typist and good listener) to type the captions as the meeting takes place.

• Third-party captioning service for live or video captioning: you can hire a vendor to create live captions for you, integrating into your Zoom session through an API.

  • 3PlayMedia has an agreement with UC Berkeley

Transcriptions

• Zoom allows you and other users to either download a transcript after a meeting, or enable live transcription services during a meeting via automatic speech recognition (ASR) services.

• Link: How to Enable & Use Zoom Live Transcription Services

• Once enabled by host after the meeting begins, Zoom Live Transcription lets participants access subtitles and transcripts via their in-meeting menu bar.

• Live transcription can enhance the general accessibility of a meeting, including in these cases:

• Hearing individuals who benefit from audio prompts

• Individuals who use captions to aid English language comprehension

• Situations to compensate for low audio quality and enhance understanding

Known Issues/Limitations:

• Live transcription is not available in Zoom for UC Berkeley HIPAA accounts

• Live transcription is not currently available in Breakout rooms

• Live transcription does not create subtitles in the Zoom recording. Subtitles only appear during the live meeting. Hosts who want subtitles to appear in the Zoom recording need to turn on Zoom Audio Transcription (only for Cloud Recordings).

• This feature will only provide English captions.

More Info on Communications Accommodations Services

• Visit Berkeley’s Communications Accommodations page (Office of Disability Access & Compliance)

UC & ADA Compliance Policies on Captioning/Transcription Services

• DSP, LOA & Accommodations for Students in Online Environments

• UC Guidelines for Transcripts and Captions

• UC Policy on Accessible Documents & PDFs