Michigan State University has a longstanding stewardship of providing communication access to d/Deaf and Hard of Hearing individuals and those with other communication barriers benefiting from American Sign Language interpretation and Real-Time Captioning (also known as Communication Access Realtime Translation, or CART). RCPD fulfills this commitment through both contracted and employed communication access practitioners, such as ASL interpreters and CART reporters. ASL interpreters contracted by RCPD are certified to the standards of the State of Michigan, with appropriate credentials and certifications for areas of specialty as necessary.
RCPD provides these services at no cost to students with ASL interpretation or CART service accommodations for credit-based academic courses and experiences.
Non-Credit or Extracurricular American Sign Language Interpretation Resources
ASL interpretation and CART services for extracurricular, departmental, and/or special events are coordinated and paid for by the department facilitating the event.
For resources arranging communication access services, please see the American Sign Language (ASL) and CART Services section of the RCPD website.
Remote Captioning for Classroom Accessibility
Students using CART services in credit-based academic courses and experiences work with our two CART reporters on staff. All CART services are provided remotely using Zoom; practitioners are off-site, necessitating technological use of audio-visual equipment to facilitate the reporter’s transcription of verbal content and audible sounds in the classroom environment. We have a variety of best practices that ensures students have ideal communication access and course content comprehension.
Using Zoom for CART
For in-person courses (or when a Zoom is not otherwise already in use for the course), our CART services team will provide you with Zoom links for your courses and events. For online or hybrid courses, the CART team will work with the student and faculty to join those existing Zoom spaces to provide services.
Providing Audio and Video Access to the CART Team
For online courses already held on Zoom, the CART team will use that existing class link. Audio and video will be conveyed to the CART reporter via Zoom.
For in-person courses, the student will need to use their laptop to connect to the Zoom provided by the CART. For faculty, most classroom spaces have tech carts that provide a PC to log into Zoom and manage audio-visual equipment in the room, particularly microphones. Faculty using their own laptops in conjunction with the tech cart should ensure that their Zoom settings are using the in-room microphone and camera systems. Assistance with orientation to these systems for proper facilitation of CART accommodations can be sought from MSU IT Digital Classroom Support. Swift onsite support is available via the DCS IT Help button, located on the tech cart desktop as a red IT button, or via a QR code posted on the tech cart.
Providing Lecture Content in Advance
Our CART team provides services to students at all levels of education at MSU; to enable the best experience in transcription, our CART team preps for lectures and class sessions with advance access to lecture material. This allows for them to preload the transcription dictionary with sophisticated and complex terminology and familiarize themselves ahead of time with the language likely used during class session.