Stenograph University - From Court Reporter to Captioner

Captioning I

From Court Reporter to Captioner

In this course you will study the requirements, duties, practices and obligations of a captioner. You receive instruction on how to seek and compete for employment as a broadcast captioner. You also learn how to construct, maintain and use a broadcast closed captioner’s ON-AIR dictionary. You will learn how to create briefs for captioning; research and prescript for a captioning session; communicate with master control; and troubleshoot in case of emergency. Also provided are your basic ON-AIR broadcast closed captioner’s dictionary lists that include over 12,000 entries required to caption news programs effectively.

> During the course, you will have your current realtime writing skills evaluated by the author’s evaluation team. You will need this evaluation to proceed to the next course, Captioning II. Estimated average completion time for properly qualified students is 17-20 hours of study although your study time may vary.

Captioning II

In this course you have the opportunity to complete up to 30 lessons, each of which focuses on one type of writing change you may have to incorporate into your steno writing to caption effectively. The Personalized Writing Skills Evaluation report you completed in Captioning I will tell you which lessons you must complete to prepare for your second Personalized Writing Skills Evaluation. You may also complete the other lessons for CEU credits or personal enrichment as you choose. You may also download the lesson document files from each segment. If you do so, you will have a 30-part "Quick Reference" guide to how to modify your writing for most captioning situations. Keep the guide to refer to as needed after you finish the course!

Once you have completed your mandatory lessons, you should complete your Captioning II Personalized Writing Skills Evaluation. You then receive an evaluation report which will tell you your progress and whether you need further practice or can proceed on to Captioning III.

Time to complete this course varies from user to user depending upon how many segments are assigned. It is estimated the average user should plan to spend approximately 30-40 hours of study and practice to complete the course. Again, your actual time many vary.

Captioning III

In this course, you will incorporate specialized dictionary entries into your ON-AIR dictionary and complete captioning practice from approximately 15-16 total hours of prepared broadcast caption sessions.

You may wish to practice the pre-recorded broadcasts at speeds lower or higher than those recorded. If you elect to do so you will need an optional Enounce™ variable speed software player license that is not included in your course fee. You may purchase the license from Stenograph or Enounce for approximately $29.95 plus applicable tax. To purchase from Stenograph, contact us at stenou@stenograph.com.

You are also required to practice an equivalent number of hours from ambient local or national news broadcasts of your choice.

During the course, you will also complete two additional Personalized Writing Skills Evaluations that are included in your course fee. You must pass your second evaluation with an accuracy rate of 98% or higher to earn your course Certificate of Completion. Your evaluations will be accomplished from pre-recorded evaluation materials provided for this purpose which are delivered via streaming media when you indicate to the author's evaluation team that you are ready for them.

As you progress through your assignments, you also modify your ON-AIR dictionary with entries needed for the prescribed broadcast captioning practice sessions. These assignments are included in both list and online flashcard format. You will need to download the free Adobe Acrobat viewer to use the list format, and the free Microsoft Powerpoint® viewer to use the online flashcard format.

Time to complete the course for the average user should be approximately 30-45 hours although your personal time may vary, so please allow plenty of time to see the best results.

Additional Personalized Writing Skills Evaluations are available for purchase from Stenograph for those who wish to be evaluated more frequently during participation in the course.