Relay Conference Captioning (RCC) Working in New Jersey

New Jersey NRCS employee Doreen Dougherty is enthusiastic about her experience with Relay Conference Captioning (RCC)

When hearing-impaired New Jersey NRCS employee Doreen Dougherty received information about Relay Conference Captioning (RCC) from Nancy Paolini, New Jersey NRCS Disability Emphasis Program Manager, she was definitely interested.  Although Doreen had her doubts as to how well a real-time captioned event would actually work, she checked out the RCC website where she learned how the service offers deaf and hard-of hearing individuals a means to participate in meetings, phone calls, video conferences, and multi-party conference calls without the services of a sign language interpreter on site.  The service is provided free to all Federal workers by Sprint and Federal Relay and is managed by the General Services Administration.  “For someone who had never before been able to participate in a teleconference without the help of a sign language interpreter, this seemed just too good to be true,” Doreen said.

Doreen’s first telenet conference using RCC convinced her of the value of this technology.  “It’s difficult to watch an interpreter and my computer screen simultaneously during a teleconference or net meeting,” she said.  “To use the captioning service, I opened two windows on my computer screen.  The captioning site where the meeting dialogue was being transcribed was displayed on one side of my screen; the telenet conference site was on the other.  I found I could easily keep up with both.”

Doreen could also ask questions during the meeting.  “I typed what I wanted to say in a dialogue box directed to the captioner, who would then speak the text on my behalf.”  As an additional benefit, “I had a transcript of the entire conference that I could print out once it was over,” she said.

“From start to finish, the entire process was simple and effective.  I registered on-line, which took less than five minutes, and received an e-mail confirmation immediately,” Doreen said.  RCC requires 48-hours advance notice to supply a captioner for an event.  The lead time for procuring a sign language interpreter is normally two weeks. “
Your contact is Barbara Phillips, NRCS public affairs specialist, at 732-537-6044.