I-Corps: Real-Time Crowd Captioning

实时字幕在5秒内提供相当于听觉语音的文本，提供（i）聋人和听力困难的人访问现场活动（例如主流讲座），（ii）法庭上的即时记录，以及（iii）联邦授权访问现场电视节目。目前，唯一可靠的解决办法是聘请专业速记员。本计画研究使用一种技术及相关演算法来提供即时字幕。它使3-5个非专业人员能够与专业速记员的表现相匹配。由于该技术能够为用户提供较低的价格点和更具弹性的劳动力，它可以允许人们以以前无法使用的方式使用实时字幕，例如在必要时才按需为生活中的突发事件添加字幕。拟议的研究可以通过获得偶然的机会来改善聋人和重听学生的教育，例如课后对话或最后一分钟的客座讲座，而这些讲座没有安排翻译或字幕。实时字幕也可以用于其他设置中，例如政治事件、学校节目、艺术表演，并且为组织提供为现场事件提供高质量字幕的更具成本效益的手段。年长的重听成年人通常更喜欢字幕，并代表了相当大的和不断增长的人口。听力正常的人可能会受益，因为字幕是听觉语音自动翻译的第一步。此外，由于Scribe允许主要根据领域专业知识而不是打字能力来选择字幕，因此可以在具有复杂行话的技术领域中收集更准确的字幕，这可能有助于减少STEM领域中聋人和重听学生的代表性不足。

Real-time captioning provides a text equivalent to aural speech within 5 seconds, providing (i) access to live events for deaf and hard of hearing people (e.g. mainstream lectures), (ii) an immediate transcript in the courtroom, and (iii) federally mandated access to live television programs. Currently, the only reliable solution is to engage professional stenographers. This project investigates the use of a technology and associated algorithm to provide real-time captioning. It enables 3-5 non-expert individuals to match the performance of an expert stenographer. Due to the technology's ability to provide users with a combination of a lower price point and a more elastic work force, it may allow people to use real-time captioning in ways they previously could not, e.g. to caption surreptitious events on-demand in their lives for only as long as necessary. The proposed research can improve education for deaf and hard of hearing students by enabling access to serendipitous opportunities, such as conversations after class or last-minute guest lectures for which no interpreter or captionist was arranged. Real-time captioning may also be used in other settings as well, e.g. political events, school programs, artistic performances, and provide organizations with a much more cost effective means of providing high-quality captions for live events. Older hard of hearing adults usually prefer captioning, and represent a sizable and growing population. Hearing people may benefit because captioning is a first step in automatic translation of aural speech. Furthermore, because Scribe allows captionists to be selected primarily based on domain expertise instead of typing ability, more accurate captions can be collected in technical domains with complex jargon, potentially helping to reduce the underrepresentation of deaf and hard of hearing students in STEM fields.