Project Description

 

Community Access to Speech Recognition

The Liberated Learning Consortium is an international research group dedicated to improving access to information through Speech Recognition (SR) based captioning and transcription systems. Recognizing the need to engage community based stakeholders in ongoing Liberated Learning development, the Consortium initiated partnerships with a number of Canada’s leading National Disability Organizations.

Through the Social Development Partnerships Program - Promoting Accessibility and Youth with Disabilities themes, Saint Mary's University, Trent University, IBM Research, Learning Disabilities Association of Canada (LDAC), Canadian Hard of Hearing Association (CHHA), the Neil Squire Society, and Easter Seals Canada are collaboratively developing emerging SR technologies that increase access to information for Canadians with disabilities. During this project, the project team will utilize a results-based approach for three simultaneous activity streams:

The team will integrate and standardize Speech Recognition usage in National Disability Organization programs and services. National offices, Provincial chapters and branches, and members will increasingly use SR to ensure information is more accessible. Learn more about partner involvement

To empower youth with disabilities, students with disabilities attending post secondary education will be given special user accounts for a new Hosted Transcription Service. Students will be able to upload previously inaccessible, recorded media (i.e. recorded lectures) and receive a SR generated transcript. Learn more about HTS

To exploit SR technologies beyond the project lifecycle, a third activity stream will investigate various innovations and business models that facilitate universal access to these tools for organizations and individual citizens.

Project Outline

  • Start / End January 2010 / March 31, 2012
  • Program: Social Development Partnerships Program
  • Themes: Promoting Accessibility and Youth with Disabilities
  • Sponsor: Office for Disability Issues Human Resources and Skills Development Canada
  • Project Objectives:
    • Increasing organizational usage of SR based captioning/transcription technologies
    • Increasing individual access to SR based captioning/transcription technologies
    • Developing transferability strategies that enable other disability organizations to effectively utilize SR based captioning/transcription technologies
  • Outcomes (medium term results)
    • An initial group of Canadian students with disabilities will have increased access to information through a Hosted Transcription Service;
    • Project partners will have increased their usage of SR to improve information accessibility
    • More captioned and transcribed media resources which are currently inaccessible will be available to Canadian consumers as accessible multimedia;
    • Existing partners will enhance their organizational capacity to leverage advanced SR technology
    • New National Disability Organizations and other partners will join the Liberated Learning network and become engaged in Liberated Learning activities