Six Ways to Support International Week of Deaf People
International Week of Deaf People (IWD) is a global event held the last full week of September to raise awareness of the rights, contributions, and culture of deaf individuals.
This year, IWD is set for Sept. 18- 25. The theme is “Building Inclusive Communities for All.” Each day has its own theme under the larger inclusivity theme, which are listed as follows:
- Monday, Sept. 18: Declaration on the Rights of Deaf Children
- Tuesday, Sept. 19: Building Capacity Across the Globe
- Wednesday, Sept. 20: Realizing “Nothing Without Us”
- Thursday, Sept. 21: Putting Deaf People on the Agenda
- Friday, Sept. 22: Achieving Sign Language Rights for All
- Saturday, Sept. 23: International Day of Sign Languages: A World Where Deaf People Can Sign Anywhere
- Sunday, Sept. 24: Building Inclusive Deaf Communities
”A world that is more conscious of deaf persons’ needs and rights is a world where deaf people are provided the access they need to contribute as equals.”
Learn more about each day on the World Federation of the Deaf website.
Coming together to show awareness for Deaf people within communities helps people better interact and communicate with deaf people. This week gives people an avenue to advocate for policy change and improvements in education, employment, and accessibility.
“A world that is more conscious of deaf persons’ needs and rights is a world where deaf people are provided the access they need to contribute as equals,” the World Federation of the Deaf states.
Here are a few ways organizations and individuals can support IWD:
- Promote Awareness: Use your organization’s communication channels, such as social media, newsletters, and websites, to spread information about IWD. Raise awareness about the importance of deaf culture, sign language, the importance of assistive devices and technology, and the challenges faced by deaf individuals in various aspects of their lives.
- Create Accessible Content: Ensure your organization’s online content is accessible to deaf and hard of hearing individuals. Provide captions, subtitles, and transcripts to make your content inclusive.
- Collaborate with Deaf Organizations: Partner with local or national deaf organizations to co-host events and share resources. Collaborating with experts and advocates from the deaf community ensures that your activities are respectful, accurate, and relevant.
- Advocate for Policy Change: Use the IWD to advocate for policy changes that promote accessibility, equal rights, and inclusion for deaf individuals. Engage with policymakers and relevant stakeholders to raise awareness about important issues.
- Host an Event: Organize events, workshops, webinars, or seminars focused on deaf awareness, sign language education and accessibility. These events can help educate your employees, clients, and your community about the experiences of deaf people.
- Make a Long-Term Commitment: Supporting the IWD is not just about a week of activities. Consider making your support for the deaf community an ongoing commitment beyond the IWD. Implement sustainable practices, such as offering accommodations, fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace, and regularly engaging with deaf organizations, and make sure you’re giving deaf people a seat at the decision-making table.
Ensuring accessibility is essential for deaf people to have equal opportunities, rights, and engagement in every facet of life. Accessibility tools and technology, such as captioning, alternative formats facilitate interactions in educational settings, workplaces, healthcare environments, and daily interactions.
Exploring Cold Data Storage Solutions in Higher Education
The evolution of data storage has seen a shift from traditional physical media to more advanced and flexible solutions, such as cloud storage. Cloud computing has revolutionized the way organizations manage and access their data, offering scalable, cost-effective, and convenient storage options.
In the start of the 21st century, early cloud storage providers began offering scalable solutions for data storage that didn’t require companies to keep and maintain server rooms on site. Today, many businesses and organizations of all sizes create and store large amounts of data for a variety of reasons.
”In the context of data storage, cold storage refers to storing data that doesn’t need to be accessed frequently but needs to be preserved for compliance, regulatory reasons, backup, or archival.”
Advantages to Storing Media in Cold Storage
In the context of data storage, cold storage refers to storing data that doesn’t need to be accessed frequently but needs to be preserved for compliance, regulatory reasons, backup, or archival. A network of connected devices is used to save files, documents and other media to a remote database, rather than storing them on a computer’s hard drive, a local storage device or an on-site server maintained by the organization. Information is accessible when needed, but not taking up active storage space.
Storing media in cold storage offers several advantages, particularly for institutions that need to retain large amounts of data for long periods of time.
- Cost-Effectiveness: Cold storage solutions are significantly more cost-effective than traditional storage options, including for third-party providers like Zoom, Class Collaborate, Webex, and Teams.
- Long-Term Retention: Cold storage is designed for long-term data retention, which can be archived and stored for regulatory compliance, historical records, or in other instances where immediate access is not required.
- Data Preservation: Cold storage systems are optimized for data durability and reliability. They use redundant storage mechanisms and data integrity checks to ensure that data remains intact over time, reducing the risk of data loss due to hardware failures or other issues.
- Scalability: Institutions can easily scale their cold storage solutions as their data storage needs grow. This allows them to adapt to changing requirements without significant infrastructure changes.
- Data Security: Cold storage systems can offer enhanced security features, such as encryption at rest, to ensure that archived data remains protected from unauthorized access.
- Regulatory Compliance: Many institutions are required to retain data due to regulatory or legal obligations. Cold storage provides a reliable way to meet these requirements.
- Backup and Disaster Recovery: Cold storage can serve as a secondary backup option for critical data, providing an additional layer of protection against data loss due to disasters or hardware failures.
Manage Large Data Workloads With Ease
YuJa Himalayas Enterprise Archiving Platform helps institutions manage large workloads, identify compliance issues and create data retention policies, which are built in the cloud and meets SOC-2 Compliance standards.
Five Advantages of a Lockdown Browser in Higher Education
While the primary purpose of a lockdown browser is to maintain the integrity of the assessment by minimizing opportunities for cheating and unauthorized access to information, there are a variety of other advantages to using this type of browser in higher education testing:
Reduced Cheating Opportunities: Lockdown browsers prevent users from accessing other websites, applications, or files on their device during the assessment. This significantly reduces the chances of cheating through conducting online searches, copying answers, or using unauthorized resources. Lockdown browsers are integrated with remote proctoring services that use webcam and microphone monitoring to deter and detect cheating behaviors. This adds an additional layer of integrity to the assessment process.
Compatibility: Lockdown browsers are designed to work with various learning management systems (LMS) and online testing platforms, making them adaptable to different educational environments.
Enhanced Security: Lockdown browsers often have built-in security measures that help prevent various forms of cheating, such as copying and pasting, taking screenshots, and using virtual tools. Lockdown browsers can also disable certain browser features, such as right-clicking and opening new tabs, to prevent users from exploiting these features to cheat or access unauthorized content.
Consistent Testing Environment: Lockdown browsers create a standardized testing environment for all students, regardless of their device or operating system. This helps ensure fairness and consistency in the testing process. Additionally, lockdown browsers are often used for browser-based assessments that require students to interact with online content, simulations, or tools, which can provide a more dynamic and engaging testing experience.
Data Collection and Analytics: Lockdown browser systems can collect data on student interactions during assessments, providing educators with insights into how students approach and engage with the content.
Generate Confidence in Every Testing Environment
No matter how an institution conducts tests, it’s important to offer support so students understand what to expect and how to resolve any issues that arise without leaving their quiz page, and so instructors feel confident in the assessment process.
IntelliVid Research Discusses Future of Video in Higher Education With YuJa
Steve Vonder Haar, a Senior Analyst with IntelliVid Research, recently interviewed YuJa Co-Founder and Chief Business Officer, Nathan Arora, on the evolving role of video in education, how the market has changed since the pandemic, and the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) in higher education technology tools.
YuJa is a great example. It started with a purpose-built Video Platform for teaching and learning, and for delivering educational content at scale. Since then, several products have been added to the suite of tools, including those that focus on delivering accessible content, managing data and storage, test proctoring, and audience engagement.
While the company continues to serve the higher education market, the focus has been on deepening its impact. Rather than expanding horizontally, YuJa “serves a single audience with a number of different products that serve them more effectively, all within the same realm,” Arora said.
“The pandemic accelerated a need to become more digital not just in teaching and learning, but in all interactions.”
The pandemic led to a big increase in utilization of video in higher education, as institutions worldwide were forced to get on board. After nearly 100 percent utilization, usage has gone down, but not to pre-pandemic levels. The pandemic accelerated a need to become more digital not just in teaching and learning, but in all interactions.
“That means our products become much more pervasive, but it also means there’s a need to do things better and more cost effectively. So if you’re going to manage larger volumes of content, you’re going to make content a central part of the strategy, you have to make that more accessible,” Arora said. In addition, everyone should benefit from media, and with a centralized, enterprise-deep strategy, they can.
Vonder Haar also asked how AI would impact the development of video related applications and how it has impacted YuJa’s roadmap and go-to-market strategy. AI is already being used in technologies like automatic transcriptions and captioning, and to extract valuable insights. In higher education, though, Arora said institutions tend to take a more measured approach to implementing new technologies.
Fostering a culture of innovation and continuous improvement is essential to keep pace with evolving technologies and pedagogical trends. In the future, Arora said he sees AI being used in other meaningful ways that keep the academic rigor of the institution, but noted it will be institution-led.
YuJa Announces 2023 Scholarship Winner
Students entered essays on a variety of topics, including artificial intelligence, virtual and augmented reality, video conferencing, medical advancements, Chat GPT, and more.
A panel of judges selected Esther Kim as the winner. Esther is a student at the University of Southern California, where she is majoring in occupational therapy. Her essay was titled “Assistive Technology Devices.” In it, she highlights how assistive technology devices have transformed the lives of nonverbal individuals with autism by providing them with a means to communicate, increasing their independence, and fostering social interaction.
Read more about Esther below and watch this video spotlight to learn more.
Tell us about yourself.
“I want to still be actively involved in volunteering with special needs organizations in my free time and help in any way I can with my experiences and expertise.”
My name is Esther Kim. I am extremely passionate about helping the special needs community because my younger brother Joseph, who has autism, changed my life. I am very active and athletic so I love spending time outdoors, constantly working on improving myself and my health.
In my free time, I crochet all sorts of knick-knacks and clothes while watching an exciting horror film or Friends for the 10th time in a row.
What has been your best experience in school?
My experience in school has been so fulfilling in many ways. Some of my best memories and experiences has been exploring the Los Angeles area including the beaches, museums, amusement parks, and all of the concerts and events around USC.
What influenced your choice of major?
My younger brother Joseph heavily influenced my choice of occupational therapy as a major because I was able to witness firsthand how impactful this career can be for people with specific needs. This major has been a dream and a goal of mine since middle school so it feels unreal to be living out my dream.
How do you envision yourself in five years?
In five years I will hopefully be working as an occupational therapist at a clinic with children with special needs. I want to still be actively involved in volunteering with special needs organizations in my free time and help in any way I can with my experiences and expertise.
What do you hope to learn from your college experience?
From my college experience, I hope to learn as much as I can about autism spectrum disorder. I have so much hands-on experience, spending so much time with people on the spectrum but I would love to really learn about and get a deeper understanding on the biology, science, and quirks of autism spectrum disorder.
Whitepaper: US Department of Justice and Department of Education Warn Educational Institutions That ‘Accessibility Cannot Be an Afterthought’
The letter covers accessibility challenges, legal framework, enforcement actions, and guidance and regulations, as well as highlights valuable resources for obtaining guidance. It also sends a strong message that accessibility is a priority at the federal level and that the government will use its authority to ensure institutions are meeting accessibility standards.
“Online accessibility for people with disabilities cannot be an afterthought.”
We’ve created a whitepaper that highlights the importance of digital accessibility, along with each of the sections of the letter and what they mean for higher education today.
Read the full whitepaper
The Legacy of Judy Heumann, “The Mother of Disability Rights”
As a child in 1949 living in Brooklyn, New York, Heumann contracted polio and began using a wheelchair for mobility. At the age of five, she was deemed a “fire hazard,” and denied entry to school, according to her website. As a child, her mother advocated for her and she was eventually allowed into school. Though this was among the first discriminatory acts against her, it was not the last.
“Some people say that what I did changed the world, but really, I simply refused to accept what I was told about who I could be. And I was willing to make a fuss about it.”
“It was still a radical claim that disabled people didn’t see themselves, or their conditions, as something to be pitied. Or that they insisted what most held them back wasn’t their health condition but society’s exclusion — maybe attitudes that they were less capable to do a job, go to college or find romance; or a physical barrier, like a sidewalk without a curb cut,” said NPR’s Joseph Shapiro in an article about Heumann.
Shapiro shared that he wrote an article about disability rights in 1987 in which Heumann said “Disability only becomes a tragedy when society fails to provide the things we need to lead our lives — job opportunities or barrier-free buildings, for example,” she said. “It is not a tragedy to me that I’m living in a wheelchair.” The article was not published because the idea she relayed seemed so “unexpected and strange.”
Starting a Revolution
In 1970, after Heumann passed her oral and written teaching exams, but she ultimately failed the medical exam where she was again deemed a “fire hazard.” This time, examiners said she would not be able to evacuate children or herself during an emergency. Heumann sued the board of education to allow her to become a teacher. The New York Times headline read “Woman in Wheel Chair Sues to Become Teacher” and the article noted she would be the city’s first teacher in a wheelchair. Her lawyers said the case was the first such civil rights suit ever filed in a federal court.
She was instrumental in the development and passage of Section 504, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Rehabilitation Act, and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which “have been advancing the inclusion of disabled people in the US and around the world and fighting to end discrimination against all those with disabilities.”
“Section 504 became a model for the ADA, which would extend the principles of non-discrimination to all public accommodations, employment, transportation, communications and access to state and local government programs,” NPR said. That means if you’ve ever used an elevator in a subway station or busy public area, if you used the curb cuts to more easily get on a sidewalk, or if you’ve used the accessible restrooms in a public space, you’ve benefited from the ADA. Closed captions, transcripts, and website accessibility, are all other examples of services for disabled people that benefit everyone.
When Richard Nixon vetoed the 1972 Rehabilitation act, Heumann helped lead a protest that shut down traffic in Manhattan. She also launched a 26-day sit-in at a federal building in San Francisco to get Section 504 of the revived Rehabilitation Act enforced. “(The sit-in) has often been described as the longest nonviolent occupation of a federal building in American history,” The New York Times reported.
More Advocacy Efforts
Heumann never stopped at securing rights for herself, but continued her work for others. Heumann co-founded the World Institute on Disability (WID), which was among the first global disability rights organizations led by people with disabilities. The institute is “dedicated to designing, building, and supporting whole community solutions by removing barriers to include people with disabilities.”
Heumann served the Clinton Administration as the Assistant Secretary for the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services in the Department of Education from 1993 to 2001. From 2002 to 2006, she was the World Bank’s first Adviser on Disability and Development.
She was appointed by President Barack Obama as the first Special Advisor for International Disability Rights in the U.S. Department of State, a position she held from 2010-2017. She also was the Director for the Department on Disability Services and responsible for the Developmental Disability Administration and the Rehabilitation Services Administration.
The American Civil Liberties Union said she traveled to countries on every continent to help change the way people perceive those with disabilities and to help remove barriers they face in their everyday lives. Between 2000 and 2015, 181 countries passed disability civil rights modeled after the ADA, according to NPR.
Documentary and Book Release
Just before the pandemic, Heumann was featured in a documentary released at the 2020 Sundance film festival. “Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution,” was about Heumann and others who attended a summer camp (Camp Janed) for children with disabilities in the Catskills. Heumann later was a counselor at the camp. Camp Janed became “the beginnings of a revolution.”
“What I want is for the book and the film — and other books and films — to allow people to recognize the real absence of representation of disability in media, broadly speaking”
Heumann also has a memoir, “Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist.” Heumann told The Cut, “What I want is for the book and the film — and other books and films — to allow people to recognize the real absence of representation of disability in media, broadly speaking. Black disabled people, Latino disabled people, Asian disabled people, indigenous disabled people, disabled people with visible and invisible disabilities — they’re pretty absent. And yet, in the United States, it’s more than 20 percent of our population. Disability is something that all families experience, temporarily or permanently.”
“Some people say that what I did changed the world,” she wrote, “But really, I simply refused to accept what I was told about who I could be. And I was willing to make a fuss about it.”
Learn more about Judy Heumann on her website.
Photos courtesy of Judithheumann.com
YuJa Contributes to Heartland Community College and Illinois Community Colleges Online’s Accessibility Efforts
Heartland Community College, a public community college with four campuses in Illinois, has made tremendous strides in accessibility and has helped lead Illinois Community College Online’s accessibility efforts. One of the primary drivers has been YuJa Panorama, one product in YuJa’s suite of high-impact media solutions that help institutions deliver accessible, engaging video and media content to users.
“…the shining star of this transition is (YuJa) Panorama.”
YuJa Panorama enhances accessibility with auto-generation of a number of Accessible Alternatives of course material in the background — from HTML, to electronic Braille, EPUB, audio (speech-to-text), high contrast, tagged PDF files and more and provides a Visual Gauge for a quick check of accessibility. Detailed reports at a course and institution level help measure and track accessibility.
Anna Catterson, Ph.D., Executive Director, Online Learning & Instructional Technologies at Heartland Community College and an Assistant Professor, Baker University School of Education and Jewel Crowley-Custis, Coordinator of Instructional Technologies at Heartland Community College recently published a white paper Breaking Down Barriers in the Heartland to highlight the institution’s journey to accessibility.
“When Heartland Community College began this journey, the college was not aware of many accessibility laws and regulations, especially when it came to Section 508 Refresh,” the whitepaper states. “Our college was not alone, in fact, after a poll completed in 2019, over 85% of community colleges in Illinois reported that they had no accessibility plan or timeline (Illinois Community Colleges Online, 2019).”
“Panorama is integrated into every course and is viewable on both the faculty and student side. The faculty are provided an accessibility score for their entire course with suggestions on how to improve accessibility.”
The institution launched YuJa’s Enterprise Video Platform and YuJa Panorama for Digital Accessibility this past fall. “While YuJa has expanded options for video recording, including the automatic addition of captions to each video recorded or uploaded, a video editor and various options of recording features, and video quizzing, the shining star of this transition is Panorama,” the authors note.
“Panorama is integrated into every course and is viewable on both the faculty and student side. The faculty are provided an accessibility score for their entire course with suggestions on how to improve accessibility, especially for their documents. Each document that is uploaded is also provided with a scale of how accessible it is. Students have the option to download every document, such as a syllabus into various formats, including braille, epub, text-to-speech, and more. To date, since the implementation of Panorama, Heartland Community College’s overall accessibility rate for Canvas courses is 64% with over 2000 uploaded files with no accessibility issues.”
Read the full whitepaper on LinkedIn.
The Leading Alternative to VidGrid Chosen By the Majority of Former VidGrid Customers
Benefits of Migrating to YuJa Enterprise Video Platform
YuJa empowers learning enterprises to create engaging educational experiences. “Switching technology solutions doesn’t have to be a burden. Our experienced implementation and support teams understand all the logistics and can help create a seamless transition for the institution and students alike,” said Nathan Arora, Chief Business Officer at YuJa Inc. “YuJa is an innovative, robust, affordable alternative to VidGrid for educational enterprises.”
All-in-One Platform
YuJa’s Enterprise Video Platform is an all-in-one solution that empowers instructors and course designers to securely create, manage, discover, collaborate and stream accessible content across devices.
“Switching technology solutions doesn’t have to be a burden. Our experienced implementation and support teams understand all the logistics and can help create a seamless transition for the institution and students alike,” said Nathan Arora, Chief Business Officer at YuJa Inc. “YuJa is an innovative, robust, affordable alternative to VidGrid for educational enterprises.”
- It’s designed with institutions in mind, and quickly integrates with your LMS.
- The Media Platform is a comprehensive Video Content Management System (VCMS) that hosts video and digital media in a secure Cloud environment.
- YuJa facilitates flipped classroom and classroom capture, with hardware, software, browser and mobile capture options.
Consolidate Your Ed-Tech Tools
In addition to lecture capture, YuJa’s solutions enable consolidation of many ed-tech tools into one platform. Solutions include:
- Live Streaming
- Video Conferencing
- Test Proctoring
- Digital Accessibility,
- Archiving and Compliance
- Real-time audience response
Support You Can Count On
We pride ourselves on our second-to-none customer success, implementation and support teams. Customer service is always included with each deployment license, which includes live, total user customer service, dedicated account management staffing and consistent support, all backed by the team’s award-winning product engineering and operations teams.
Our Experience is Broad
YuJa has experience migrating hundreds of thousands of terabytes of video data from all competitors, including VidGrid. YuJa also has a highly-experienced Customer Success team that has performed migrations at scale, from start to finish, in a matter of weeks.
Student Perspective: How YuJa’s Accessibility Tools Helped a University of Alberta Student in Their Final Semester
Odayh Jamal recently earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Environmental Engineering at the University of Alberta, a Top 5 Canadian university located in Edmonton, Alberta. During his last semester, two of his instructors started using the YuJa Enterprise Video Platform’s Lecture Capture tools to record and disseminate lectures to students.
Student Use Case
“Videos captioned in other platforms were often unreliable and inaccurate. It wouldn’t catch certain words, making it hard to find what you’re looking for later.”
Odayh used the Video Platform for three primary purposes, all of which reflect the university’s goals of providing accessible and inclusive content to learners:
- Transcripts: YuJa features like transcripts, which provides text of spoken words, made searching simple. “The transcripts made it easy to read everything that was said during class,” Odayh said, adding that transcripts also simplified searching by keywords when reviewing for exams. “The ability to search the text allowed me to find exactly what I was looking for.”
- Auto-Captions: An accessibility feature, many students use captions for an added layer of comprehension. Instructors were using another vendor prior to YuJa, but Odayh said the captions weren’t reliable. “Videos captioned in other platforms were often unreliable and inaccurate. It wouldn’t catch certain words, making it hard to find what you’re looking for later,” he relayed.
- Rewatching Lectures: Before starting an assignment, and particularly before midterms and finals, Odayh said he would rewatch lectures to review any problem concepts and to ensure he was prepared. “(The other software) wasn’t optimized for learning,” Odayh stated. “In my final semester at the University of Alberta, YuJa made it easy to find information in eClass (Moodle Learning Management System).”
Embracing New Technology Improve the Learning Environment
Odayh said instructors embraced the new technology, which provided another avenue to connect during the pandemic. “If institutions want to make a positive switch, using YuJa could help improve the learning environment for students,” he concluded. “It’s definitely easier than other platforms.”
