The University of Southampton has been investigating an alternative to manual note takers, by making recordings of lectures more inclusive.
For example, they have looked at providing an online searchable interactive transcript time-synchronised with video, audio and notes. The transcript can be printed out on paper, time synchronised with images from the video and student notes with QR codes to replay the recording from any point on any mobile device.
The project was run in trial form with first year students who required notetaking support. Through this trial, Southampton was able to identify areas for improvement, such as making transcripts available to all students as the more people who could edit the transcripts, the better the accuracy.
The trial has shown potential
The project has been evaluated through student evaluations and transcript accuracy measures. They found that transcript accuracy could exceed 90%, without editing, with good quality recordings of lectures using wearable wireless microphones.
Findings from the project have been presented to other higher education providers. Slides from a presentation at Jisc Digifest 2017 can be seen here.
Learning points and reflections
All lecturers should be required to wear wireless microphones to help them make good quality recordings of their lectures and these recordings should be made available to all students in their classes. The best accuracy captions and transcripts using a speaker independent recognition system should also be made available to all students in the class so they are able to edit them to improve the accuracy if required.
Further information
You can find other case studies about reasonable adjustments and inclusive educational environments here.