Podcasting and Accessibility

Introduction

This document provides some background, guidance and pointers to further information and support in relation to addressing issues around accessible podcasting. Its focus is supporting students with hearing impairment.

Summary of main points and tips

 

● Check at the earliest opportunity whether any of your students are likely to be excluded by the podcast. If so, discuss with each of them how you can take other, equivalent approaches.

 

● Record at the best quality you can and exclude background noises.

 

● Recorded audio can be replayed and this may benefit some deaf students - consider doing more with audio or being supportive or students who ask to record sessions.

 

● Consider using the podcast Show Notes to describe what has happened in the audio in either summary form or full transcript form, depending on the nature of the podcast and its learning value.

 

● Severely or profoundly deaf students will not be able to use the audio directly and you will need to engage them in other ways.

 

● Be clear about the value of learning in the recording. If you need to provide alternative materials they should offer equivalent benefits, not necessarily identical content.

 

● Do not pre-script podcasts in order to create an accessibility 'transcript' - this is likely to significantly limit the benefits of the podcast for others.

 

 

 

Our responsibility

Legislation requires that no student is disadvantaged by the teaching methods and materials we use. We have a responsibility to proactively find equivalent methods of teaching our students if they are not able to access resources.

You should have been made aware of any deaf students enrolled in your class and have been provided with a copy of their Learning Contract.

Note that there are degrees of hearing impairment. These can be described as mild, moderate, severe and profound deafness. This is useful in helping us work out how we need to respond. Deafness not only affects the degree to which people hear, but also their communication needs more generally because deafness may have impacted significantly on their use of language.

It is advised that you tell your students that you intend to use podcasting during the module, explain what that means and its significance to the module. Explain its benefits and find out whether there are students in your class who cannot access digital audio. You will then need to assess how best to provide access to the learning and the benefits supported by the podcast experience. The benefits may be perceived as hard information or more subtle benefits relating to engagement, orientation or illustration of concepts, for example.

Degrees of deafness and implications for the educational podcaster

People described as having mild deafness may have difficulty in hearing speech. They may or may not be wearing hearing aids. For podcasters this highlights the need to record audio properly. Carefully consider the conditions in which you are recording and be sure to exclude background noise where possible. Before recording make sure that all participants are close enough to a microphone. Monitor the voice levels through headphones and by watching level indicators on your recording device. Make adjustments as necessary.

People with moderate deafness will probably wear a hearing aid. Without it they may not be able to understand speech. They may be able to hear amplified telephones. They may well be able to use recorded digital content. Digital audio may even provide a benefit to them as the media can be played and replayed as necessary. You may even decide to record audio specifically for some students with mild and moderate deafness because it offers them repeatable access to the spoken word. Also note that some students in this category may be highly dependent on visual clues to enhance their comprehension - they may be used to paying particular attention to gestures, expressions or reactions. Some may lip read. Therefore recording content for deaf students should of course be done in consultation with those students.

People with severe deafness may wear hearing aids, but may find it difficult to understand speech. They may rely on lip reading and sign language.

Profoundly deaf students may have a small degree of residual hearing, but will not be able hear speech.

If you have severely or profoundly deaf students you will need to engage them in other ways. Audio will be of no use to them, however podcasting might still have a role to play in finding the best solution for them because podcasts are composed of media (eg audio or video) and a text description. The text description is often brief, providing a title and an indication of what is covered by the media. There is no limit to how much detail you can add to the description technically. Consider using the text description, often referred to as the Show Notes by podcasters, to describe what has happened in the audio in such a way that the notes engage the reader and leads them to the same learning outcome as those students who listen to the audio.

Producing detailed show notes is good for all students, but will obviously add to the effort required to podcast and may seem to make the media redundant - it won't make the media redundant if the media is well produced. Depending on the type of podcast, you can take various approaches to producing Show Notes. They can be,

 

● a simple list of related information and links.

 

 

 

You might consider asking other students to do a summary of recordings on a rota that accurately captures the meaning and view points. In addition to capturing the essence of the recording this can be a useful learning experience in itself for those involved. However you will need to ensure this is carried out.

 

 

 

Do not pre-script podcasts in order to create an accessibility 'transcript' - the benefit of the human voice and conversation will be lost. Scripted recordings result in stilted audio that struggles to engage and so is likely to be of less educational value.
Note that where transcripts are needed you can use voice recognition software such as Dragon Naturally Speaking if there is just one voice involved. Dragon needs to be trained beforehand, but it is very accurate with most voices. In some circumstances you may find that Dragon does a fair job on voices where the software hasn't been trained. However be aware that correcting errors from voice recognition can take more time than doing a manual transcription. You will get better results from good quality recordings with no background noise.

The main educational disability experienced by deaf students is that of a language disability. Usually we learn languages through hearing them. Learning languages without being able to hear them is a laborious process and reading can be a laborious task for some deaf students. Allow time for this and when writing Show Notes write them carefully in plain English. Explain technical jargon or provide a separate glossary for deaf students.

Whatever approach you take ask your deaf student if it is proving useful and whether it can be improved or simplified.

Further Information

 

● This document was produced by Andrew Middleton, Academic Innovation, LTI with reference to several documents produced by the Disabled Student Support Team at Sheffield Hallum University (disability-support@shu.ac.uk, ext. 3745).

 

 

 

There are further resources on the benefits and barriers of podcasting in the JISC TechDis advice and guidance on mobile learning .