Captioning is a lifeline in lectures, seminars and conferences for attendees who’re deaf, hard of hearing or use English as a second or other language. Typical users don’t know or use sign language and can capture notes from sessions, thanks to stenographers, palantypists or court reporters providing CART (Communication Access in Real-Time) on their behalf.
CART In Higher Education
Scientific and medical transcribers are in need for deaf students entering STEM fields for the exact same careers as the professionals who serve/d their own hearing and education needs.
The Business Of CART
Oregon-based Elizabeth Archer describes how her voice-text business provides CART in the US and internationally, using Google Hangout, Skype, Zoom and newer web platforms. CART gives a verbatim transcript of all dialogue in a setting, whether one-to-one, for multiple users (via mobile devices), to large groups and/or live streams from conferences and symposia. Museums, theatres, arts and science venues also use CART for live talks on-site.
Court Reporting Pays Well With No College Degree
As mainstream-educated students with cochlear implants move into third- and fourth-level education globally, demand for court reporters in the roles above, will only grow. While Microsoft’s AI speech-recognition technology transcribes like a human, the solution struggles with different accents, speaking styles and noisy settings – just like hearing-device wearers!
Closed captioning for videos, live captions for webinars and transcripts for podcasts in person and online, all require well-paid court-reporting roles without the need for a college degree. In Ireland, Bray College of Further Education (BIFE) ran a stenography course but lists no details for the 2017-18 academic year. Try the NCRA for online inductions to Machine Shorthand if you are interested in exploring this career opportunity.
Five years ago, Cornell University announced an online-realtime captions pilot for deaf students taking STEM subjects, however detail about the project’s outcomes is sketchy.
