Rochester Institute of Technology advances academic captioning course

Americas Jul 17, 2012

Automatic Sync Technologies (AST) and Ensemble Video  on July 16 announced the completion an integrated platform for captioning video course material at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). AST’s CaptionSync is now integrated into the Ensemble Video platform to meet the accessibility and learning requirements across the RIT student body, including students from the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID), one of nine colleges at RIT. Both companies are attending the Campus Technology Conference, Boston Seaport World Trade Center, on July 17 and 18 and are available for contact in the Exhibit Hall at Booth 744.

“There is no corner cutting here, and the fact that Ensemble developed the custom integration with AST and streamlined the platform to handle our high volume of captioning is a massive time saver for us,” said J. Ian Webber, senior manager Academic Technology and Media Services, RIT. “We have used AST for many years because of their high quality and speed. To have CaptionSync integrated into our system is an enormous benefit.”

Ensemble Video mapped to the RIT workflow and incorporated AST tools that were already built into the university’s captioning services. The new platform service needed to go beyond criteria for a general audience caption experience and meet a unique set of needs. The new service exceeds general accessibility standards, accommodating special requirements that boost comprehension, such as high-level font and display using specialized color, sizes and background.

“AST has a long relationship with RIT, and we are extremely pleased to partner with Ensemble in the development of an integrated platform for captioning workflow,” said Kevin Erler, president of Automatic Sync Technologies. “Our CaptionSync technology is designed to meet the highest level of accessibility standards. The NTID defines best practices to increase learning comprehension and we are proud to implement this within the integration of RIT’s new platform.”

Ensemble worked closely with RIT to enable a caption format customization capability that made it easy for RIT to implement the custom changes to match the NTID use standards. “We are proud to be selected to develop the platform for RIT, because they have unique needs and demands in serving the NTID college,” said Andy Covell, CEO at Ensemble Video. “The integrated platform is designed to advance RIT’s captioning ability, and we are pleased to develop the platform to deliver these extended capabilities.”

For more information, visit http://www.ensemblevideo.com,  http://www.rit.edu, http://www.automaticsync.com