Course materials in iCollege

Content folders will contain one of the following sets of course materials.

• If the content folder has a title, except for the folder titled “Important Topics”:
• This is the new version of the course materials, except for Important Topics which have not been updated yet.
• The updated materials are
• A video with open captions below the video (captions do not block any of the video content).
• An audio version of the video lecture (good for playing while driving).
• PDF files:
• Slide images from the video.
• Fill-in-the-blank transcripts of the video. It is recommended that you print out the fill-in-the-blanks version and bring them to class or use while watching the videos.
• Complete transcripts of the video.

• If the content folder is listed as “ChX” (with X being a number).
• This is the old version of the course materials which are in the process of being updated.
• The materials in these folders include:
• A video with no captions.
• An audio version of the video lecture (good for playing while driving).
• PDF files:
• A transcript of the recorded lecture (these were created by students for extra credit and the accuracy of these transcripts is questionable).
• Fill-in-the-blanks notes for the chapter. It is recommended that you print out the fill-in-the-blanks version and bring them to class or use while watching the videos (if the videos are available).
• Complete notes for the chapter.
• These old versions will only be available if a request from the Access and Accommodation Center (formerly Disability Services) is NOT received stating that the course materials must be ADA compliant. If such a request is received, then the non-compliant course materials (most likely the video, audio, and/or transcripts) will be removed from the course. The chapter notes will likely remain as available.
• When using these older materials, you need to cross-reference the recorded lectures / transcripts with information provided in the notes, in the course text book, and/or on Mastering. Spelling errors likely occur, especially for scientific words, as a simple example. Please use “common sense” when trying to determine what is correct. If everything except the transcript states the same thing, then that is the correct version.
• These older versions are useful when correctly used with cross-referencing. If a single change is made, such as correcting the spelling of a single word, then the new requirements instantly apply to that item. This means they would need to be removed for not meeting the current ADA requirements. The older versions are left in place until the new versions have been created. That is better than not having access to them at all.

Video files and audio files (if available) can be played directly through iCollege by clicking on the file and then the play button. Video files are mp4 files and audio files are mp3 files. These file types can be downloaded to your computer (click the download button below the video or audio player after clicking on the file in the content folder). These video and audio files can be synced to devices in the way you would normally transfer files to that device. The files will not directly download to a device and be usable, they must be transferred from a computer to your device.

Dr Hollier is in the process of updating his course materials. Updating the course materials to meet the current ADA compliance standards takes a long time for each topic. Dr Hollier is working on updating all materials as fast as he can. The Access and Accommodations Center (formerly Disability Services) can require specific conditions to be applied to a course so that all parts of the course meet ADA and Section 508 requirements. When a request is received from the Access and Accommodations Center, the requirement must be applied to the entire section of the course so that no student(s) are being discriminated against. All students are legally required to have equal access to the course materials when the College has been presented with valid documentation to the Access and Accommodations Center.

The old recorded lectures were not created from a transcript, they were recorded real time with me sitting in front of a computer and talking about what was on the slide. At that time, recorded lectures were new to Perimeter College, and college education in general. The College Faculty were not informed that we had to do anything other than record a lecture. Since the expansion of online courses in education in general, accessibility has become a big issue. The recorded lectures were put through machine-generated transcription, but the outcome was terrible. The recorded lectures were then put through human-generated transcription for one course, and it came back still well below the legal requirements of accuracy. In the past, transcribing lectures were assigned to students as part of the course work, and that also fell well below the legal requirements of accuracy. Updating the old recorded lectures is more than just adding captions. The following would have to be done to make them meet current standards: update the sound quality, use ADA compliant images, add alternative text to all images, provide a description of images within the narration, and have accurate transcripts. To make these changes means the entire lecture has to be started from the beginning.

The old recorded lectures are usable only if a request from the Access and Accommodations Center does not come through stating that certain requirements must be applied to a specific section of a course.

Each course has 50-100 hours of recorded lectures. It takes two to four weeks to create a single one-hour lecture, given I still have full-time work commitments and commitments outside of work (I do have a life!). The work involved in creating each new video is:

• Updating the PowerPoint slides with current information / images that are meeting readability/visual standards.
• Writing the transcription of what should be discussed for each slide.
• Creating alternative text for all images (for the hard of hearing), viewable in the pdf version of slide images made after the lecture has been recorded.
• Describing the images in narration, adding that into the transcript prior to recording the lecture (for the visually impaired).
• Recording the lecture itself. Editing the recording to remove errors, loud noises, etc.as best as possible.
• Adding captions by playing the lecture and copying and pasting 6 second segments one after the next for the entire lecture into the screen-capture software.
• Rendering a non-captioned version of the lectures. Playing the non-captioned lecture with captions beneath the video while screen capturing it. Rendering the open captioned version of the lecture.
• Exporting the transcript into document format, creating the transcript version, slide images version, and fill-in-the-blank version. Then applying specific properties to these documents so that they are all accessible by screen readers and that the alternative text shows up for any images.

I am currently working on new versions of lectures so that they meet all ADA and section 508 requirements. However, given that I work full time and have other commitments, it will take 1-2 years per course. As new versions are finished, they will replace the old version (new versions added to the course and old versions removed from the course).

When the requirement for compliance in a specific course is received from the Access and Accommodations Center, Dr Hollier has no choice but to remove all non-compliant course materials. If new versions of the course materials are not ready, then students will have to rely on the remaining course materials provided in iCollege (likely the notes for the chapters), the lecture textbook, and anything provided through the Modified Mastering site for the course. Dr Hollier is never happy when he removes course materials from a course, but Dr Hollier is required to comply with legal requirements when he receives such a notification.