Using Networked Multimedia to Improve Educational Access for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Students
Anna C. Cavender · 2007 · SIGACCESS Accessibility and Computing · doi:10.1145/1328567.1328571
Summary
This paper proposes a networked multimedia platform to address the specific challenges deaf and hard of hearing students face in mainstream university classrooms. The author identifies three core problems. First, isolation: as more deaf students enter mainstream universities, the demand for skilled sign language interpreters and captioners with specialized domain knowledge (e.g., Complexity Theory) outstrips local supply, and the best interpreter for a given student may be located at another university entirely. Second, visual dispersion: because deaf students receive nearly all classroom information visually, they must constantly juggle attention between the instructor, presentation slides, the interpreter or captioner, and their own notes — a cognitive burden that causes information to be missed and leads many to request note-takers, sacrificing the educational value of personal note-taking. Third, exclusion: even with accommodations in place, the time delay inherent in interpreting and captioning makes real-time classroom participation (call-and-response, Q&A) inequitable, and activities outside formal lectures like project groups and study sessions often inadvertently exclude deaf students. The proposed solution leverages the same networked Tablet PC infrastructure being developed for all students (Classroom Presenter and ConferenceXP), ensuring that accessibility technology parallels rather than diverges from mainstream educational tools.
Key findings
The proposed platform addresses each challenge through a distinct technical approach. Networking enables remote interpreters and captioners to connect to classrooms via cyber-infrastructure — the instructor uses a microphone, earpiece, and laptop camera to relay audio, video, and presentation materials, while students's webcams relay questions through the interpreter. Consolidation brings multiple visual streams onto a single device, allowing students to see the instructor, presentation, accommodation of choice (interpreter video or captions), and their personal notes all within visual proximity on a Tablet PC, reducing the attention-splitting problem. Collaboration leverages the same networked Tablet PC system used by all students — digital ink over lecture slides enables cooperative note-taking (following LiveNotes), and electronic question submission provides an equitable alternative to spoken Q&A. The research is being conducted in collaboration with Rochester Institute of Technology and the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID), which supports over 400 deaf students with 120+ sign language interpreters and 50+ captioners. The Summer Academy for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Students at the University of Washington provides a 9-week test bed with mainstream college courses.
Relevance
This research anticipates the remote interpreting and captioning infrastructure that became widespread during the COVID-19 pandemic, when mainstream video conferencing platforms suddenly needed to support the same kinds of accommodations described here. The key design principle — that accessibility technology should parallel rather than replace mainstream educational tools — remains a powerful argument for inclusive design over bolt-on accommodations. For accessibility practitioners, the visual dispersion problem identified in this paper generalizes beyond classrooms: any situation where deaf users must split visual attention across multiple information sources (video calls with shared screens and interpreter windows, for example) creates the same cognitive burden. The consolidation approach of bringing all visual streams into a single, spatially organized display is directly applicable to modern videoconferencing accessibility design. The collaboration with NTID also models best practice for accessibility research: working directly with institutions that have deep expertise in serving the target population rather than designing in isolation.
Tags: deaf and hard of hearing · higher education · sign language · captioning · remote interpreting · video relay service · inclusive design · participatory design