GUIDELINES FOR
HIRING CART PROVIDER
This guideline has been created to facilitate securing and hiring
captioners in a professional and efficient manner. If questions arise, please
visit the National Court Reporters Association (NCRA) at www.ncraonline.org
(exit DHFS).
- Begin
to coordinate CART service requests as soon as you receive the request or
decide to provide CART service as part of your event. Instruct participants
to request a captioner as early as possible prior to the event.
- When
coordinating CART services, aim to secure a professionally trained provider
who is certified through NCRA. A realtime captioner should be able to write
in excess of 225 words per minute. A captioner should be able to concentrate
for long periods of time, have an excellent knowledge of the English
language, and have extensive dictionaries built into their software to
support a wide variety of captioning settings.
- You
may contract services through a court reporting and/or captioning agency or
an individual in private practice. Be prepared to provide, at minimum, the
date and time of your request and the general nature of the assignment
(conference, workshop, religious event, one-on-one, legal setting, medical
setting, etc.).
- Once
you have secured captioning services, provide as much information in advance
as possible, i.e., conference or workshop schedule/agenda, handouts,
outlines, names, topics, technical vocabulary, etc. This allows the
captioner(s) assigned to prepare and add to their dictionary as needed to
ensure as much accuracy as possible. If it is not possible to provide such
information in advance, make every attempt to provide pertinent materials to
the captioner(s) on the day of the event.
- If
the assignment involves an extensive amount of time, is technical, complex,
and/or quick-paced, you may need to schedule a team of captioners.
- Discuss
in advance all financial and logistical details with the captioner or firm.
You should ask or be made aware of the rates and billable services, i.e., is
there a separate preparation time fee, portal time, transcript fee? Will any
captioning be required during breaks and lunch? Before and/or after the
event? For breakout sessions or small group discussions?
- Work
out seating and visibility arrangements with the deaf/hard of hearing
participant(s) and the captioner on the day of the event. Be sure to reserve
seating in the front of the room close to an electrical outlet for the
equipment. Also, it is helpful to inform the speakers or presenters that a
captioner is present to provide an accommodation.
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Last Updated: October 24, 2008 |
