A devoted team of tech, faculty, and staff at North Harris College (NHC) is exploring the realm of audio (possibly video later) podcasting. Those who are interested in joining this team, please sign-on and give us your thoughts and ideas.

This forum will help develop an appropriate podcasting model that will serve students, community relations, faculty support, and NHC marketing efforts. We will also address technical challenges.

This is an informal working group, but members will be expected to contribute time, effort, and ideas to bring North Harris College Podcasting to life.

Edited by rooneal on May 4, 2006 at 09:08 AM

There has been a lot of discussion about accessiblity of podcasts. Because it's an audio medium, it is not accessible to those who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing, as well as those who have auditory processing disorders. I have consulted with an ADA lawyer to get her interpretation of the legal requirements, and I think it's pretty reasonable.

If the podcast accompanies a specific class for which students have to register and pay for, then timely transcripts of all podcasts only have to be provided if there is a student in the class who needs them. If the podcast is public, something that is available to all students and/or something that is for the public, then they must be accessible even without a specific request.

There are still logistics to consider -- an instructor may not know until the first day of class if they have student who would need access, so planning ahead for the possibility is needed. If the same recordings are used each semester (i.e. historical recordings for history classes) then it's probably a good idea to go ahead and get transcripts so you're not scrambling at the last minute when a request comes in. It's really the same as web accessibility -- it's much easier to consider access at the development stage than have to rush and try to retrofit on short notice. And unfortunately, because students register and change schedules at the last minute, there's no way to avoid the possibility of short notice, and short notice does not relieve us of our legal responsibility to provide access.

So there are still lots of things to figure out (who is responsible for making sure they're done, who does it, who pays for it, etc.), but I think this is quite do-able. I think the potential for using podcasts in an educational environment is exciting (I'm presenting on this topic at an international conference this summer!) and am happy we're considering them on our campus.

-Beth Case

I am still learning this medium. I read your post, but it said it was one of two. Where is the other one?

I read Beth Case's e-mail, which she said she posted here, and this is what I understand.
If a professor podcasts, as I have done this semester, and there is no one in the class who requests a transcript, and--this is the main point it seems to me--the podcasts are posted on an INTERNAL server, then no transcript needs to be provided.

However, it the podcasts are made available to anyone who might want to listen, as mine are now at ITunes, then a transcript MUST be provided whether anynone in the class requests them or not.

Finally, if a student requests a transcrip, even if the podcast is on an INTERNAL server, then one must be provided.

Is this a correct interpretation?

Bob

Yeah, I am not seeing her post either. Even though the system is saying 1 of 3 now. perhaps Mark is gonna have to let us know.

As mentioned before, I'd like to take the approach that others (such as Stanford and Harvard) are doing this already and would like to see what they have done to be in compliance. No use re-inventing the wheel.
Edited by rooneal on May 4, 2006 at 01:11 PM

I've corrected the forum. It looks like Beth wasn't logged in when she made the post. I'm not sure if this is a system error, but I will continue to look into the problem.

Mark...

I did some research and found this service (Libsyn) that hosts podcasts and handles bandwidth ... starts at $5/month for 100MB storage and unmetered bandwidth if we did not want to tax our networks initially.

Their URL is http://www.libsyn.com

Juan/Mark—

I am blown away that we were able to go from mere concept to working files in such a short time. You are both consummate professionals!

We obviously have more work to do, but you guys have done a lot of the heavy lifting already.

Thanks!