23
August
2024
Echo Labs Advanced Captioning and Transcription Technology Solutions to Join Internet2 NET+ Program
By Tiffany Frank - AI Technical Program Manager, Internet2 NET+ Cloud Services
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
Internet2 is excited to announce a new NET+ service offering aligned with ongoing efforts to facilitate the use of services that enhance accessibility in higher education. We have recently signed an agreement with Echo Labs to include its captioning and transcription services in the NET+ Program.
Echo Labs has developed cutting-edge, reported 99.8% accurate, affordable ADA-compliant captioning and transcription technologies. This new provisional NET+ service evaluation agreement allows higher education institutions to now leverage Echo Labs technology to make educational content more accessible to students at a fraction of the previous cost.
The customer agreement is based on the standard Internet2 NET+ terms and conditions developed over the last several years with input from the higher education community.
By adopting this agreement, institutions benefit from custom pricing and promotions not available to direct customers of Echo Labs. NET+ subscribers who sign up will also receive 50 free hours of Echo Labs’s upcoming Audio Descriptions and Live Captioning models upon release.
Echo Labs’ AI Systems Power Accessibility Solutions
The University of Central Florida, the University of Chicago, and the University of Illinois are among Echo Labs’s rapidly growing roster of early adopters. These universities are utilizing CASPER, the world’s first ADA-compliant AI captioning system launched by Echo Labs in March. CASPER has already proven to be a game-changer in reducing digital accessibility bills, with nearly 200 schools partnering with Echo Labs and dozens more joining every week.
This is what your peers from Accessibility Services departments are saying about their experience using Echo Labs on their campuses:
- “Echo Labs exceeded our expectations with exceptional accuracy, even with technical jargon and varying audio quality. Their focus on the academic sphere sets them above other services.”
- “The team at Echo Labs provided excellent customer service, flexibility, and an easy-to-use platform with amazing turnaround times.”
- “I tested the platform with a video recently that, I thought for sure, it would struggle with. Instead it got the files 100% correct, and completed the captions in 24 hours.”
Echo Labs recently joined Internet2 as an industry member, and is an active participant in the Internet2 Cloud Scorecard Directory, which provides a summary of how cloud vendors attest to meet the accessibility, security, technical, and contractual requirements of the research and education community.
How You Can Learn More About NET+ and Echo Labs
If you are interested in more information about the work of the early adopters of Echo Labs or would like to join the NET+ service evaluation efforts, please contact Tiffany Frank.
If your institution is interested in learning more about Echo Labs, signing up for the service, or pricing, visit the NET+ Echo Labs service page or contact us at netplus@internet2.edu.
You can also learn more about Echo Labs during our upcoming NET+ Webinar Series. Join us on Sept. 26 to hear about Echo Labs and other new services in the NET+ portfolio. Registration for this webinar and other events in the webinar series is now open.