Campus Technology Magazine recently awarded Kennesaw State with its 2018 Impact Award in Infomation Technology Infrastructure and Systems on Aug. 15 after the university developed a closed captioning software system.
Campus Technology, a higher education magazine, gives out the award once a year to universities that positively impact their campuses with technology. The Distance Learning Center and University Information and Technology Services earned the award after continuing with a year-long project to create a closed captioning system.
Assistant Director of Academic Web Accessibility Jordan Cameron and Instructional Designer Megan Gibbs led the project, which produced the closed captioning system, KSU MediaSpace. The system is now used in more than 30 institutions in Georgia.
The system, created to be more cost-effective, allows instructors to edit and share educational content with accurate closed captions. This helps remove disadvantages that deaf or hearing-impaired students sometimes face when a course does not provide necessary learning materials such as video and audio files without accurate captions.
In cases where class resources do not have accurate captions, students may have to place an accommodation request and wait for their required materials while students without hearing impairments begin their classes.
“Closed captioning is an accessibility measure,” Cameron said. “By having a robust captioning system in place, we eliminate these barriers before a student with diverse learning needs ever enters a course.”
While many might assume that the system was made for the assistance of deaf and hearing-impaired students, Cameron said that “all KSU students are the beneficiaries of the system.”
A 2016 national study by Oregon State University eCampus Research Unit found that 71 percent of non-hearing impaired students sometimes use captions and 75 percent of them use captions as a learning aid.
Jim Cope, the former executive director of the Distance Learning Center, told KSU officials about the recent advances of online programs, and said that “it has been important for us at Kennesaw State to be cognizant of ways we can ensure all of our students have the same level of access to online material.”
