Web Video Standard to Revolutionize e-Learning

The first Web Standards Group Canberra meeting for 2012 was in the DEEWR conference centre. This has a very useful 300 seat theatre, with an area outside for breaks and some smaller rooms. This has a separate entrance from the DEEWR office, making access easier.

VIDEO SYNCHRONIZATION

First speaker was Christopher Giffard on problems with "video", in terms of interaction and accessibility. Assistive aids for the disability, such as closed captions, are considered excessively time consuming. He pointed out that HTML5 could be used poorly to support accessibility.

Christopher advocated the use of "timed data". This is interesting as I have been considered the issue of synchronous and asynchronous online learning. Many of the issues are the same: how do you allow for events which happen at a particular point in time, and others which do not.

There is an emerging standard for the use of <track>, which is similar to <source>. However, there have been few implementations. Track can be sued in <video> or <audio> to provide subtitles and captions. The captions are stored externally and then specifies an algorithm for synchronising this with the video or audio. Track can be manipulated with Javascript. Track works by specificity a source file for the caption content, a language and a data type (such as text/vtt) and a kind (such as "captions").

Christopher built a tool Captionator.js to support track, using the Media Text Tracks JavaScript API.

Christopher recommended WebVTT (Web Video Timed Text), a new caption specification language. This is a flat text file format based on SRT. It has lines of text starting with start and stop time codes, followed by text captions. There can be limited HTML type mark-up in the text, for bold, italics and the like. There are also "Chapters" to tag segments of video (with sub-chapters).

These features could be very useful for educational videos, for all students, not just those with accessibility requirements. Videos can be given a table of contents like a book.

In 200 I experimented with using synchronized audio with slides for education. See "Tips and Traps With Electronic Presentation Tools":

1. Text,
2. Slides (in OpenOffice format),
3. Audio Slideshow (in Real Media Slideshow).

However, this material took considerable effort to prepare and depended on proprietary formats for playback.

It would be interesting to see if this could now be automated for recordings of presentations where slides are used. In multimedia equipped classrooms, such as at ANU, it should be possible to automatically create chapters in the video labeled with the title of each slide. If the slides in turn match a set of course notes, it should be possible to link the video to the sections in the notes. This could then be used to automatically create an "enhanced" eBook, with text, slides and video all cross referenced.

It should be noted that the technology is not limited to linear video. Christopher pointed out that not only can closed captions be displayed, but they can automatically pause the video to allow time to be read.

FORMAL LANGUAGE TO SUPPORT LEARNING SYNCHRONIZATION?

The use of a formal language to synchronize text and video suggests that perhaps something similar for learning. At present an educational designer will describe what the student needs to know and have done at the beginning and end of a course, but not in detail in between. In effect there is only synchronisation at two points: the start end of the course. In contrast a computer programmer will specify precise details as to what a process has to have done which it reaches a point to exchange data with another. This would get around the problem of students not knowing what they need to do or when they need to do it.

NEW WORLD OF VIDEO A FEW MONTHS AWAY

Christopher pointed out that support for video synchronization will be available in web browsers within a few months. Mozilla are "making progress" with Firefox. IE10 will support WebVTT, TTML and the JavaScript API.

Christopher demonstrated using a video of "Minister Garrett Introduces the School Funding Review". With this the transcript introduces each speaker and allows the viewer to click on a line of the text and play the relevant clip. He also showed a media management system to keep track of how accessible videos are.

More than PDF needed for accessibility

Gian Wild talked about "PDFs and accessibility - AGIMO review" at the Web Standards Group meeting in Canberra, today. At the previous WSG Meeting, an AGIMO representative expressed the view that it was not feasible to make PDF, RTF or MS Word files accessible and so agencies should provide information as accessible web pages. This would not be a great change from the current formal AGMIO advice: "Agencies are reminded that it is still a requirement to publish an alternative to all PDF documents (preferably in HTML)." The formal release of the AGIMO PDF Accessibility Review, was due in mid-2010 (and is now four months late).

My view is that while in theory PDF could be made accessible, but in practice this is so hard to do it is not worth the trouble. It is simpler to create an accessible web page with HTML. Ideally a good quality HTML page can replace PDF.

Gian started with an introduction to web accessibility issues. She pointed out that WCAG 2 guidelines do not cover cognitive disabilities (including dyslexia, aphasia). Also colour blindness is common. Few people are completely blind (that is not being able to see any light). Many use magnifiers to make the text larger. Also "screen readers" do not cope well with Flash and JavaScript. She showed an example of text transposed to demonstrate what a person with dyslexia is faced with. She pointed out that physical disabilities have difficulties with keyboards and/or mice.

Gian pointed out that Youtube now has automated text captioning. The creator uploads a file of the text and Youtube automatically matches this to the audio.

Gian the went on to discuss the Disability Discrimination ACT and the precedent set by the SOCOG case I was an expert witness for. The Australian Human Rights Commission recommends WCAG version 1 (version 2 to follow). Federal agencies are required to comply with WCAG version 1 now with version 2 to follow. The Australian Human Rights Commission gets more complaints about PDF than any other format.

There were 40 submissions to the AGIMO PDF review. Vision Australia found tagged PDF difficult to use and lacking in support from assistive technology. AGMIO looked at best practice advice from Adobe. Assistive technology vendors advised they were reluctant to support tagged PDF as so people use it. As a result AGIMO will not define as accessible and will require an alternative format.

However, tagging is useful, as for example for text to speech. What Gian seemed to be saying was that a simple text PDF document was easier to navigate than a complicated web site with lots of menus. However, a simple web page might be even better.

Gian demonstrated to use of a text to speech system (in this case BrowseAloud.com). She pointed out that these systems can be useful for people who have a physical disability as they can place the pointer over some text to be read without having to click. One feature of the software is a dictionary. It occurs to me that some of these features and guidelines could be of value to students, particularly with those learning in a second language.

Gian suggested that AGIMO and other governments should fund an accessibility toolkit for WCAG 2, to translate the esoteric language of the guideline into something web designers can understand and use. Gian also pointed out that many simple accessibility tips (such as "use simple language") in WCAG 1 was removed from WCAG 2. These sort of useful tips could be included in a government sponsored cookbook.

One interesting option I suggest is the use of e-book formats. These could provide a useful alternative to PDF for large government reports. The EPUB e-book format is based on HTML. It should therefore be possbible to create an e-book which looks good online, prints like a conventiaonal report and could be easily also provided as an accessible web site. This would remove the need for PDF and web versions.

ps: The meeting was at the Geoscience Austrlaia building in Symonston. This is worth a visit just for the display on geology in the foyer, the library, map shop and cafe.