Arcadia Posted March 5, 2017 Share Posted March 5, 2017 "“Legacy†content, such as “Course Capture†classroom lecture videos and podcasts, which are three to 10 years old and see limited use will be available only to members of the campus community, Koshland said. " "In a 10-page letter to UC Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks and campus counsels on Aug. 30, the DOJ identified several barriers to participation by individuals with hearing, vision or manual disabilities in the UCBerkeleyX platform’s Massive Open Online Courses, or MOOCs. Those barriers included certain videos that did not have captions, did not have sufficient color contrasts, or had formatting, keyboard accessibility, or other problems. The DOJ also found shortcomings in the university’s YouTube and iTunesU platforms including inaccurate and incomplete captions, lack of alternative formats for certain visual information, low color contrast, and absence of closed captions in videos. Remedial measures proposed by the DOJ included developing procedures and monitoring to ensure that the university adheres to technical standards; and a system of soliciting and responding to feedback regarding barriers to online course access. “Remediation for accessibility issues would need to be determined for each video, but captioning alone would exceed a million dollars as that work costs $1.90 per minute,†UC Berkeley spokesman Roqua Montez said in an email. “Of course, this projected cost does not include the human cost – the administrative cost – which would undoubtedly increase the overall dollar amount.†The DOJ also instructed the university to pay compensatory damages in an unspecified amount to aggrieved individuals." http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/03/03/uc-berkeley-to-restrict-access-to-classroom-lecture-videos-and-podcasts/ "Beginning March 15, 2017, access to iTunesU course content will be suspended. On the same day we will begin the process of moving the publicly offered YouTube content made from the current legacy channel [youtube.com/ucberkeley] to a new authentication login required channel. The entire process is expected to take three to five months. During this time the ETS team will migrate the videos into the new channel behind CalNet/CAS authentication. Berkeley users seeking to view this older content will be able to access it by logging into YouTube with their bConnected/Google-supported identity." http://news.berkeley.edu/2017/03/01/course-capture/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nansk Posted March 6, 2017 Share Posted March 6, 2017 This is sad. Why are compensatory damages sought? Was anyone harmed by viewing the free content? If this was an Asian uni, "aggrieved individuals" would just avoid those videos. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Julie of KY Posted March 6, 2017 Share Posted March 6, 2017 It's sad that something that the university made freely available is being taken down for these reasons. I agree that a student at a university should receive any accommodations that they deserve. However if a university wants to freely make public any videos they should not have to accommodate everyone who might want to watch them. ... it sounds like some of the complaints may have nothing to do with these videos, but it sounds to me like some are. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lilaclady Posted March 6, 2017 Share Posted March 6, 2017 This is really sad. I hope other uni's will not have to follow suit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mabelen Posted March 6, 2017 Share Posted March 6, 2017 Sad but understandable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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