Dunlaoghaire-Rathdown’s Social Inclusion Week, which runs from October 12-17 was yesterday launched at Marlay House in Dublin with guests from local organisations and a speech by An Cathaoirleach, Cllr Marie Baker.

During the week a series of events will be held including a reading of IDK’s “A Birthday for Ben” book which will take place at Dun Laoghaire County Hall on Tuesday 13th at 1pm.

The book reading will be hosted by author, Kate Gaynor, and an exhibition of drawings from the book by deaf artist, Karen Quirke, will also take place

(compiled by Miriam Walsh)

Premier Captioning Wicklow are proud to advise that they are working with a deaf student at Trinity College Dublin to provide support in group tutorials where students are asked to discuss questions or issues raised by the tutor.

The service is remote, which means the transcriber does not have to be physically in the room. This makes it less intrusive for the student and convenient for PCR staff, who do not need to travel. All that’s needed, is for the college’s IT department to set up internet access to the room, and for the lecturer to wear a small microphone to enhance the Skype audio.

The text is relayed to the captioner via the Internet and the student receives the captioner’s text either through their own laptop or even their iPhone. This means they are in no way different to any other student.

CART (Communication Access Realtime Translation) is a well-known solution in the US and is cited in the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act). It is available at most schools and universities in the United States and PCR (Premier Captioning & Realtime) is actively promoting CART here in Ireland.

PCR’s Michelle Coffey explains, “Our plans are to have it provided anywhere and everywhere it is needed!” She adds, “I’d love to have people knocking on our door asking about the service”. The reality however is that not many people know about it. She hopes however that when people do, they will see the benefits and ask access officers in education about the service.

One barrier PCR finds is that access officers in universities tend to ask students to tell them what services they require rather than telling the students what is available. The student is at a disadvantage before the first lecture even begins, as they may not know about all the services available.

Another drawback is that some schools/ colleges cannot afford the service due to budgetary constraints where services are being cut, not increased.

PCR recently explored the podcast market by publicly transcribing audio and video messages, a videophone message and You Tube clips. They have transcribed podcasts to gauge the time needed. This would help educators in Ireland, where podcasts are increasingly used in teaching.

The benefits of CART are endless and don’t stop at education as the service can also be used for conferences, theatre, product launches and more.

Future plans for PCR include exploring the theatre and cinema markets, with the possibility of captioning a play or Christmas pantomime.

For now however their focus is on education.

This is a big step forward for PCR as Trinity College is the first university they have worked with. However, the academic year has only just begun so any interested parties can contact PCR for more details about their services.

Further reading:

Premier Captioning & Realtime

Communication Access Information Center (US-based)

October 1, 2009

RTE, Ireland’s national TV broadcaster, aims to subtitle all its shows by 2014, with the help of digital tools. For now, here’s an outline of the work involved, as discovered by Miriam Walsh, IDK’s journalist intern.

It may be hard to believe – but subtitles don’t just magically pop up on TV screens as soon as 888 is pressed on the remote. Meeting with Anne Barry, who adds subtitles to RTE shows, I learned how one half-hour TV show can sometimes take over half a day to add subtitles to.

Learning about the process and the different kinds of subtitling, I got an insight into how the team determines which shows are subtitled and which are not. Working backward through the day, RTE’s main focus is on prime time TV, which airs from 6pm until 12am at night. At this time shows such as RTE News and Weather, Home and Away and CSI are all subtitled.

For children, some early evening TV shows including Kazoo have subtitles, as does morning show Balamory. Because the process is so costly, Anne and the small team of four must ask if it is worth their time and the expense of subtitling shows such as Arthur, which appears at 6.45 in the morning.

The questions they have to ask are, will kids be up at that hour? And will those kids be of reading age? There is little point providing subtitles for a sleeping audience or those too young to read them.

Sometimes it is not possible to get subtitles for a TV show and there is little that RTE can do about this. They do however try to buy in shows that have subtitles or shows that can be subtitled over those which cannot. The Big Big movie on a Saturday night is always given priority, as are movies shown during school holidays and mid-term breaks.

The summer is a slower period for RTE with more reruns being shown for adults. This gives the team more time and money to spend on children’s TV shows and so priority is given to these at this time.

In terms of the subtitling of childrens’ TV shows, Anne thinks RTE has done as much as they can to make this possible. With connections in Disney, Anne stresses that she is always searching for subtitled shows. RTE’s new childrens’ shows include Dex Hamilton, which will be shown from October.

It is RTE’s aim to have 100% of TV shows subtitled by 2014. Anne believes this process will be easier in future when the system is digitised. RTE’s online TV player currently does not support subtitles, but will do in future.