Avatar Signing in Examinations

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Avatar Signing in Examinations

• Scottish Qualifications Authority
• Mhairi McAlpine

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Background

• The difficulties that deaf people have in taking
  examinations are known within SQA
• Questions are presented in English, rather than
  BSL, the first language for many deaf people.
• As the grammar of BSL is different to English,
  some candidates struggle with reading the
  questions
• As we look at providing assessments from
  itembanks, it becomes more difficult for
  interpreters to provide a high quality service.

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Potential Solutions

• Interpreters
• May not be familiar with specialist vocabulary
• May not be native signers
• May not interpret the question in the same way
• Video Provision
• Expensive to produce
• Expensive to store and download
• Requires high speed connections

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An Avatar Signed Solution?

• Advantages over human interpreter
• Support can be less obtrusive
• Can provide standard signed support
• No need to request in advance
• Advantages over video
• Much quicker to download
• Economy of scale in production

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This project

• is a consortium of SQA, RNID and UEA
• is funded by TLRP and SQA
• will develop a prototype application

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Demonstration of software

• This is software is just a prototype at the
  moment, and will require further work should we
  decide to make it operational, in particular we
  have identified issues with the lip patterns and
  the non-manual movements

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Trials so far

• Internal trial with SQA stakeholders
• Trial with deaf candidates at Dingwall Academy
• Trial with deaf candidates teachers at
  Donaldsons College
• Trial with deaf adults at Deaf Connections.

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Initial Feedback

• Technically the signing is not yet good enough to
  be reliable.
• Mixed feelings about the use of avatars
• Most would like to see the research continue, but
  the avatar needs to improve.

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Next steps

• We are currently developing more questions in the
  avatar system
• We are refining the avatar particularly in
  relation to the lip patterns
• We are hoping to do further trials with deaf
  teenagers and adults over the course of the
  summer. In particular looking at
• Whether the signs we have used are
  understandable.
• Whether we have managed to significantly improve
  the lip patterns.
• What the outcomes of an test are using human vs
  avatar signing.