The Venting Thread

[Parasaurolophus]

I have now discovered that the university, although it's purchased Zoom and WebEx licenses and all that jazz, does not have the facility to provide closed captioning for hearing-impaired students.

WTF?


I was ready to pay out-of-pocket for third-party software, but it turns out that I can't even set it up because it's got to go through whichever IT person is designated as the 'administrator'. So I have to type my own captions, or find a student who'll do it for a piddly honorarium from the accessibility office (in which case, I sort of doubt that they'll be of adequate quality). Grr.

[ciao_yall]

I have now discovered that the university, although it's purchased Zoom and WebEx licenses and all that jazz, does not have the facility to provide closed captioning for hearing-impaired students.

WTF?


I was ready to pay out-of-pocket for third-party software, but it turns out that I can't even set it up because it's got to go through whichever IT person is designated as the 'administrator'. So I have to type my own captions, or find a student who'll do it for a piddly honorarium from the accessibility office (in which case, I sort of doubt that they'll be of adequate quality). Grr.

DSPS services are federally mandated. And funded. Your institution will take care of this.

[Parasaurolophus]

I have now discovered that the university, although it's purchased Zoom and WebEx licenses and all that jazz, does not have the facility to provide closed captioning for hearing-impaired students.

WTF?


I was ready to pay out-of-pocket for third-party software, but it turns out that I can't even set it up because it's got to go through whichever IT person is designated as the 'administrator'. So I have to type my own captions, or find a student who'll do it for a piddly honorarium from the accessibility office (in which case, I sort of doubt that they'll be of adequate quality). Grr.

DSPS services are federally mandated. And funded. Your institution will take care of this.

I dunno whether they're federally mandated in Canada. What I do know is that the institutional response has been: the best we can do is have a student transcribe the captions for you.

I did find a volunteer this morning, except that Zoom wouldn't let me pass the captioning job onto them. Maybe they'd accessed from a phone or something. Sigh.

[mamselle]

We just have a regular basic Zoom professional account, and I've seen a tab at the bottom left of the main margin for "Closed Captioning" when I'm using it.

I'm trying to remember now if that's when the folk dance group is running its program, so maybe they have a different level of service, but they're a student run organization, so I doubt if they have a very high-falutin' version, either.

Are you sure it's not something you already have, but just have to find and turn on?

M.

[Parasaurolophus]

We just have a regular basic Zoom professional account, and I've seen a tab at the bottom left of the main margin for "Closed Captioning" when I'm using it.

I'm trying to remember now if that's when the folk dance group is running its program, so maybe they have a different level of service, but they're a student run organization, so I doubt if they have a very high-falutin' version, either.

Are you sure it's not something you already have, but just have to find and turn on?

M.

When you click the tab, you have the option of typing the captions yourself, designating a participant to type them, or using third-party software to caption it. Zoom doesn't actually offer captions itself.

That's what I've learned, at least. The same appears true for WebEx. You can kludge a workaround with Google LiveTranscribe, but it's inelegant and requires some juggling.

[downer]

JFC! Why do you reply-all to an invitation to a Zoom, saying you can't do it, when the invitation itself had an RSVP button in it? I guess it does reassure me that no matter how little effort I put in to teaching, my classes will be more organized than yours.

[ergative]

We just have a regular basic Zoom professional account, and I've seen a tab at the bottom left of the main margin for "Closed Captioning" when I'm using it.

I'm trying to remember now if that's when the folk dance group is running its program, so maybe they have a different level of service, but they're a student run organization, so I doubt if they have a very high-falutin' version, either.

Are you sure it's not something you already have, but just have to find and turn on?

M.

When you click the tab, you have the option of typing the captions yourself, designating a participant to type them, or using third-party software to caption it. Zoom doesn't actually offer captions itself.

That's what I've learned, at least. The same appears true for WebEx. You can kludge a workaround with Google LiveTranscribe, but it's inelegant and requires some juggling.

If you record the event to the cloud on Zoom, doesn't it automatically provide captioning? Or is that license-dependent? My university's license gives straightforward captioning once a recording has finished processing.

Uploading to Microsoft stream also provides captioning. My colleagues say that the Stream captioning tends to be more accurate, although I haven't noticed the difference much myself.

[OneMoreYear]

We just have a regular basic Zoom professional account, and I've seen a tab at the bottom left of the main margin for "Closed Captioning" when I'm using it.

I'm trying to remember now if that's when the folk dance group is running its program, so maybe they have a different level of service, but they're a student run organization, so I doubt if they have a very high-falutin' version, either.

Are you sure it's not something you already have, but just have to find and turn on?

M.

When you click the tab, you have the option of typing the captions yourself, designating a participant to type them, or using third-party software to caption it. Zoom doesn't actually offer captions itself.

That's what I've learned, at least. The same appears true for WebEx. You can kludge a workaround with Google LiveTranscribe, but it's inelegant and requires some juggling.

If you record the event to the cloud on Zoom, doesn't it automatically provide captioning? Or is that license-dependent? My university's license gives straightforward captioning once a recording has finished processing.

Uploading to Microsoft stream also provides captioning. My colleagues say that the Stream captioning tends to be more accurate, although I haven't noticed the difference much myself.

On our University WebEx account, if you save to the cloud, you can choose to have the automatic transcripts included (It's in the recording preferences).   If you save the recording to your computer rather than the cloud, the transcripts do not appear (at least as far as I can figure it out so far).

Real-time captioning requires someone in the meeting to type them. The problem in WebEx is that the person typing the captions is sharing a document with the captions which covers other documents you might be sharing on the screen. We've not figured out a workaround to this so far. Anyone know how best to handle this?

[Caracal]

The University I teach at started their COVID screening tool ahead of a planned class return in August. We are required to fill it out every day. It's fairly ridiculous like most of these things. My favorite part is that the last question is "are you planning to come to campus today?" and after that you are told "you're cleared to come to campus!" Great, but I just told you...

Anyway, since then the planned return to campus was postponed and then watered down to the point where in practice a pretty small number of classes are actually meeting in person. Students could move in, but it is already about half commuter students and I think dorms are far from full.

So, we get a notice that there is now an exception form you can fill out so you don't have to do the form if you aren't going to be on campus this semester. Great, the form only takes 20 seconds to fill out, but I'm imaging some scenario where for some reason I don't look at my email for two days and come back to increasingly dire threats of what will happen to me if I don't fill out the form.

Except the exception only applies if you aren't coming to campus this semester and you live more than 30 miles away. I live 22 miles away. The justification for this is that the school has a "responsibility" to anyone close enough to campus to make sure they are connected with resources and testing, should they become ill. Obviously, this is just a made up reason. I don't really think there's anything nefarious behind this, its just a classic case of the way bureaucracies operate. I suspect they are mostly concerned about clusters among students who live together near the university off campus. Ok fine, but then why not just let people opt out if they can attest, that they won't be on campus and don't live with anyone who will be on campus.

I thought for a second about just saying I lived 30 miles away, but I do have to click some things saying I attest to all of this being true, and while it seems extremely unlikely anybody would ever check, it seems like good general policy to not lie on record to your employer. Anyway, sorry for this boring story, hopefully posting it here will relieve me of the need to bore my friends and family by ranting to them about it.

[the_geneticist]

We are now required to get a flu shot to be on campus.  That means that EVERYONE (even folks who haven't set foot on campus in months/are living abroad/etc.) has been sent a survey to verify our compliance.  It has 2 questions: Did you get a flu shot?  What date did you get your flu shot?
No asking for medical verification.  No asking if you're even in the same damn county as campus.
I think it's a test run for when/if there is a widely available COVID vaccine.  I'm certain it will be required.

[fishbrains]

Today, I had to do the following:

• Shower
• Shave
• Apply deoderant
• Comb what's left of my hair
• Wear long pants
• Present myself as a functional adult through meaningful conversation

It was awful.

[Caracal]

We are now required to get a flu shot to be on campus.  That means that EVERYONE (even folks who haven't set foot on campus in months/are living abroad/etc.) has been sent a survey to verify our compliance.  It has 2 questions: Did you get a flu shot?  What date did you get your flu shot?
No asking for medical verification.  No asking if you're even in the same damn county as campus.
I think it's a test run for when/if there is a widely available COVID vaccine.  I'm certain it will be required.

There's also an option for medical exemption for the small number of people who actually have conditions that don't allow them to get vaccines.  I don't have any problem with schools requiring flu vaccines and I won't have a problem with them requiring a Covid vaccine. (assuming it goes through the proper channels) I share your annoyance about it not mattering if you are going to be on campus. If I'm going to be on campus, my employer has a legitimate interest in my health and vaccinations. If I'm 20 miles away, I don't really want to tell them whether I have a runny nose or not.

[AmLitHist]

Today, I had to do the following:

• Shower
• Shave
• Apply deoderant
• Comb what's left of my hair
• Wear long pants
• Present myself as a functional adult through meaningful conversation

It was awful.

I am so, so sorry for you, fishbrains.  I hope you've recovered.  <<shudder>>

I have a Zoom meeting this afternoon with a summer PitA student and need to change into a less-ratty sweater.  I've been putting it off all morning.

[mamselle]

Could you maybe knit something up quickly? (Interthreaduality...oh, sorry, bad...)

M.

[the_geneticist]

We are now required to get a flu shot to be on campus.  That means that EVERYONE (even folks who haven't set foot on campus in months/are living abroad/etc.) has been sent a survey to verify our compliance.  It has 2 questions: Did you get a flu shot?  What date did you get your flu shot?
No asking for medical verification.  No asking if you're even in the same damn county as campus.
I think it's a test run for when/if there is a widely available COVID vaccine.  I'm certain it will be required.

There's also an option for medical exemption for the small number of people who actually have conditions that don't allow them to get vaccines.  I don't have any problem with schools requiring flu vaccines and I won't have a problem with them requiring a Covid vaccine. (assuming it goes through the proper channels) I share your annoyance about it not mattering if you are going to be on campus. If I'm going to be on campus, my employer has a legitimate interest in my health and vaccinations. If I'm 20 miles away, I don't really want to tell them whether I have a runny nose or not.

The medical exemption is helpful for the handful of folks who can't get vaccinated at the moment. 
I also noticed that there is no deadline for the compliance.  I get it, the flu vaccine just came out, folks are busy, etc.  I'll have to ask my students if they are getting the same emails even though all of their classes are remote and very few are living on campus.