(ELECTRONIC MUSIC)
Hello, my name is Estella Oncins
I have short black hair and I wear a pair of glasses and a sweater.
Due to COVID I am working remotely from home.
I am sitting at the desk of my home office.
On my back there is a map of the world.
Accessibility is a world wide issue
which has a wide spectrum and involves all of us.
I am going to present you the LTA project Live Text Access.
which is an European founded Erasmus+ project
aiming to create open educational resources for two accessibility professionals
respeakers and velotypists.
What are respeakers and velotypists and which is their role in accessibility?
In terms of accessibility if you are Deaf or Hard of Hearing or have any hearing problem,
you may have problems in accessing information specially in real-time,
which during the COVID is essential.
Therefore, real-time subtitlers are crucial to ensure that no audience is left behind.
Respeakers are professionals working with their voice.
They listen to speakers and simultaneously repeat, reformulate and translate
what the speakers says into a micro
connected to an automatic speech recognition software,
the software recognises the speakers voice and turns the spoken words into writing.
On the other hand, velotypists or text interpreters
listen to the speaker and type at the same speed of the speakers voice,
writing down everything that he or she says.
In both cases the role of these professionals is to provide access to information in real-time.
The LTA project is a strategic partnership
which involves partners from different countries of Europe.
It started in 2018 and will run for three years.
It has been divided in five stages.
and we are currently working in the third and the fourth.
The first stage defined the skills of theses professionals.
The second stage designed the curriculum for vocational and academic training.
In the current third and fourth stages
we are creating learning materials and assessing them.
The last stage will be certification.
The overall goal is to increase the professionals in this accessibility field
and ensure the quality of real-time subtitling.
Thank you very much.