Dear student,
To see the ASL version of this information, please go to the bottom of this page and watch the video.
RTI International, a research company, has been asked by the California Community College office to look at ways to serve Deaf and Hard of Hearing students when no in-person interpreters are available for your college classes. One way to provide interpretation services to students when no interpreters are available is by providing Video Remote Interpreting (VRI). VRI is a service where the interpreter is in a different location than the student and the interpreter provides interpretation through a laptop computer. Sometimes a student may also have one in-person interpreter and a second interpreter through VRI. RTI International would like to hear from students about their experiences or thoughts on using VRI.
VRI is different from Video relay service. In VRI, the deaf person is on campus and attends the college class and the interpreter is in a different location. Your college can schedule VRI in advance and will provide you with the technology to use VRI, such as a laptop computer, a web-camera and a microphone so the interpreter can see you signing and hear the teacher and the other students in the class in order to interpret class content and discussions.
In order to take this survey, you must be 18 years old or older to participate. All information that you provide will be confidential and will not be shared with anyone at your college. The on-line survey will take approximately 20 minutes to complete. You can refuse to answer any question and can stop taking the survey at any time.
The information collected from the surveys will be used to help us understand whether or not students like VRI and would be open to using VRI if your college does not have live (in-person) interpreters available. If you have questions about this survey or your participation, please contact Nitya Venkateswaran (
nvenkateswaran@rti.org).
Thank you,
RTI International