Captioning Curriculum:  Hit Counter
Not  Quite as Simple as it Seems
by Vykki Ruvalcava

             When I was granted a one-semester sabbatical to investigate captioning, it seemed obvious that I could go to the various captioning companies and gather all the information I needed to understand the process, pick up tricks, and create a captioning curriculum that would fully prepare the students for this new and growing career.  After all, they need captioners more than we need students.  These companies are growing exponentially, and with the Americans With Disabilities Act mandating captioning almost to a 100 percent level by 2006, certainly we could all work together.

            Well, we can work together.  But one of the very first obstacles I ran into and slowly began to understand and appreciate is that these companies are all in competition with one another, and their tricks of the trade, methods of production, and their business practices are all proprietary; and rightly so.  Each company has a service to sell and each has worked out a system that works for them.  Think about it.  Even having students as interns is a possible hazard in some circumstances.  Suppose those interns learn just enough to launch out on their own and steal away a portion of the client market?  Or suppose, even worse, they take away company secrets and go to work for a major competitor, sharing those company secrets as they go -- possibly from company to company. 

We have all been faced with teaching ethics in this field.  It was much simpler when the ethics dealt solely with court reporting and the law.  Now that court reporting has branched out into the business arena, the rules remain the same in the jurisdiction of the law; but business has totally different applications and NO set rules.  It never even crossed my mind before I began my investigation that I might have difficulty learning more than generalities about the complete captioning process.  Then again, perhaps that is exactly what the students need to learn.  There is plenty to study just by addressing captioning protocols and developing an understanding of the process itself.  The graduate will be trained ultimately by the captioning company they go to work for.  Each company has different requirements and methods.  So maybe the best way to assist students to ready themselves to go into captioning is a lot like the rest of the court reporting curriculum in the sense that students should be exposed to a broad picture of the applications so they hopefully develop a real sense of understanding of the career.  The next stage in learning would be to personalize it into practice in a particular application.  We teach students about depositions and court in the hopes that they develop this broad picture so they can better function when they are thrown into situations they’ve never yet imagined; then they are trained by the court or the deposition agency they choose to work for.  

The captioning companies that I visited gave me guided tours and were very helpful.  I think we can work together if we can appreciate that we, as educators, must protect these companies’ rights to their proprietary information.  Internships can be addressed and worked out if we let the companies themselves take the lead and set the limits.  I wouldn’t, however, expect partnerships with several companies simultaneously.  I think most schools might pair up with one company and develop an allegiance of sorts. 

I think the software companies can be of great assistance by training us on their captioning software and making it available to the schools.  To really begin to do captioning, the schools will have to acquire certain equipment.  An encoder is mandatory, along with the computer and software to support it.  At Cerritos College, we were permitted to acquire equipment and software before we even had a course outline because our school itself wants to ensure compliance with the ADA in the area of educational videos, and we were able to show that our students would be able to practice captioning while creating captioned videos for our school.  (Pretty smart, huh?)

Captioners can help the schools by sharing information with the students and teachers.  The preferable way to do this is to visit the schools.  Unfortunately the second block I ran into as I began my research was that most captioners are so busy right now, it was difficult to make contact at all.  The amount of work they are being called upon to do is growing daily.  All the captioners I have met were tremendously willing to share.  Now we need to channel their energies to the schools.

I quickly learned one other thing in my investigation and that is this:  Every captioner I spoke with said they loved their job.  If anything will ultimately sell this career, that will be it.