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Relay Interpreting with the DIS 6000
Before relay interpreting begins:
- interpreter who becomes relay source: ds6132 left/in channel remains on “floor”; right/out channel: “English” (first turn your Mic off, switching with button “B/A” to out language “A” is easier than cycling through the individual languages)
- interpreter who interprets relay into target language: ds6132: left/in channel switch from “Floor” to “Relay select” : “English” (whatever button A/B/C/D).
When relay interpreting ends:
- interpreter who stops being relay source: ds6132 left/in channel remains on “Floor”; right/out channel: back to your native language (switching with button “B/A” to out language B is easier than cycling through the individual languages)
- interpreter who interpreted relay into target language: ds6132: left/in channel switch from “English” back to “floor”.
Interpreting Suite use: Policies
WHEN YOU BEGIN:
1. Always 1st log on PC
2. Ensure VCR Channel is on A1 
3. No food or drink (except water, on floor)
4. To speak, turn on DIS6132 microphone 
(only 1 microphone per booth can be used at a time)
5. To record, wear 1-ear pad black headphones around neck
6. When listening to recorded video, adjust the BT928 volume 
WHEN YOU LEAVE:
7. Turn down the DIS6132 volume 
8. Log off the PC (do not power off)
9. Clean up your desk (handouts, water…)
Shared Calendar for Interpreting Suite Bookings on Windows Live: How to get started
1. We have set up a *shared online calendar*:
2. 
3. Where do I find this calendar?
a. It is on Windows Live.
b. hale.language.services@live.co.uk will email you an invitation to share this calendar on line.
4. What do I do when I receive the email?
a. In the email, click ‘accept’.
i. If the link does not work, copy /paste the text link from the bottom of the email, but first remove line breaks (paste the link into notepad and make sure that the entire link is on single line).
b. If you do not have a Windows Live account, you will be given the option to ‘sign up‘.
i. If you are not asked to sign up, you may be logged in as somebody else: make sure to create your own account with your own password.
c. For best results, open the calendar with a recent Web browser: Firefox 3 or Internet Explorer 7 (if you cannot upgrade, version 6 works also, with some limitations) or better.
5. MGB36 is the coded room number for the interpreting suite. It is also the name of the online calendar.
6. What do I do next?
a. Simply add an appointment to the calendar by hovering over the time slot required and clicking on “ADD“
i. Under “Calendar”, select “MGB36” (if you add to your personal Calendar, other users won’t be able to see).
ii. Under “what”, include your e mail address so we can contact you in case of changes, as well as Module number
iii. Under “where” include if you do not need all booths (others may want to share)
iv. for additional options, like recurrence (= enter 1 appointment – recurring weekly, until end of it…, no wait: teaching period! – to book your weekly class meeting for the entire teaching period), click on “Add more details”.
b. Don’t forget to update the calendar if you need to cancel a booking.
c. If you want to see a demonstration, watch the live_calendar_shared_mgb36.wmv using Windows media player
7. Who can view the information on line?
a. Interpreting lecturers only.
b. Students can currently not access the data. We may decide later to let them view it (i.e. make the calendar public).
Did you run into problems with the calendar not explained here? View the FAQ.
How to use language services digital videos
- Language Services produced digital videos
- Are MPEG4-compressed to a size and format and stored in a location to be the most versatile answer to your playing needs
- Play over the network shares not only in the interpreting suite (mgb-36) or the moorgate library language centre (mg4-11)
- But from any computer on the campus network, student or staff computer
- Provided access to network shares, see network shares.
- attempt to ensure widest possible compatibility
- by using widely-used audio and video codecs (Windows Media Video 9, Windows Media Audio3, Windows Media Video Screen , MP3) which MS also supports on the Mac-Platform (free download of wmv/wma support for the Mac OS X version 10.3.9 or later, QuickTime version 7.0 or later) from http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/player/wmcomponents.mspx ).
- Have been tested to work in the HALE interpreting suite (mgb-36) and the moorgate library language centre (mg4-11)
- For playing videos on your PC, staff can get necessary upgrades from x4444.
- For playing videos on your home PC, students can contact the student helpdesk.
- Are MPEG4-compressed to a size and format and stored in a location to be the most versatile answer to your playing needs
Managing learning materials: How to use an inventory spreadsheet
- Have the person that wishes to check out items identify the item appropriately, usually by “”title” (“Main and subt[itle]”or “alternate title”).
- You can locate items in various ways:
- either by full text search (menu “Edit” / “Find” or shortcut CTRL+F)
- Select the columns ((ctrl-)click on column headers (=
) or ctrl-space while the cursor is in the column) in which want to search (= restrict the search to these columns)
- Example: you are looking for movies entitled “100 deutsche Jahre” and want to use “100” as search term. If you do not select the column “Main and subt[itle]”, you will have to wade through a lot of unrelated matches in other columns (e.g. field:number).
- Example: you are looking for movies entitled “100 deutsche Jahre” and want to use “100” as search term. If you do not select the column “Main and subt[itle]”, you will have to wade through a lot of unrelated matches in other columns (e.g. field:number).
- use the wildcard “?” to match any single character – useful for misspelled accented characters
- Example: you are looking for the movie “Amélie”, and cannot find it; try searching for “Am?lie” instead
- Then fix the misspelled title (on how to enter accented characters see 5.1)
- Example: you are looking for the movie “Amélie”, and cannot find it; try searching for “Am?lie” instead
- Use the wildcard “*” (star) to match any (0 to many) characters – useful e.g. for ignoring over multiple spaces
- Use “Find all” to make sure you have all relevant entries – double click on the result to jump to that row
- Example: Duplicate movies
- Select the columns ((ctrl-)click on column headers (=
- or by filtering, using the dropdowns (arrows in column headers)
- You can
- Select an option from the dropdown to only display rows that match this condition
- Note: In the dropdown, unlike in the spreadsheet itself, options are automatically sorted alphabetically
- Select “Custom” from the dropdown to create more advanced queries
- Use “contains” to search for a substring (example: you are looking for the “Terminator”, but do not remember, whether the exact title “The Terminator” or “Terrminator”)
- Select “All” from the dropdown to stop filtering or press the button “Remove Filtering”
- Filter on more than 1 column by selecting options in multiple dropdowns
- Select an option from the dropdown to only display rows that match this condition
- The blue color (in row headers and dropdown arrows) indicates that these results are filtered.
- You can
- or by sorting, using the button “Sort on active column” (click on a field in the column you want to sort on, then click the button),
- To sort by multiple columns, sort in descending order of importance.
- Example: you want to go alphabetically through the titles of the French Videotapes.
- click on a field in the column “main & sub”, click “sort”,
- then click on a field in the column “Media type”, click “sort”,
- then click on a field in the column in “Language” and click “sort”.
- Then scroll to “French” in “language”, within the “French” items, scroll to “Tape:Video”, now you can browse the French videotape titles in alphabetical order.
- Example: you want to go alphabetically through the titles of the French Videotapes.
- To sort by multiple columns, sort in descending order of importance.
- Note: if the spreadsheet becomes slow or unresponsive, try one of the following:
- remove filtering, especially on two or more columns. Sorting is faster than filtering
- Ctrl-alt-delete, “task manager”, end application and start over; the spreadsheet has been programmed to remove the filter on restart
- either by full text search (menu “Edit” / “Find” or shortcut CTRL+F)
- When to do what:
- When should you use regular find?
- Whenever possible. That means: If you look for an item which has a findable substring from a single database-field
- Example: Video with the word “Wunder” in the title
- Whenever possible. That means: If you look for an item which has a findable substring from a single database-field
- When should you use the dropdowns?
- If you look for an item that does not have a findable substring from a single database-field
- Example: You are looking for a movie with the title,main&sub=”El”
- Example: You are looking for a specific issue of a periodical title,main&sub=“Schauinsland”, field:volume = 1, field:issue=18 (means: you need to search on multiple fields)
- If you want to browse multiple items
- Example: You need to get an overview what parts of the language program “Deutsch, na klar” we have (there are the main textbook, several workbooks, instructor handbooks, cds, dvds, … etc.)
- If you look for an item that does not have a findable substring from a single database-field
- When should you sort?
- If you expect a dropdown search to get too slow.
- When should you use regular find?
- Locate items in the Media Cabinet by label number
- record checkin and checkout of items in the (violet) section “Location & Loanee”, appropriate column for loanee and date:
- instructor: instructors can check out materials for use within and outside of the lab; record instructor name and date
- students can check out materials for use within the lab only; record the student id number
- when an item is returned, reset the name and date column to blank
- Editing:
- You have been given the editor password (complain if not). This password does not completely unlock the spreadsheet.
- Hiding Columns
- For specific tasks, you can hide certain columns to fit the columns you are working with on the screen. You need to get the advanced password for doing that.
- For specific tasks, you can hide certain columns to fit the columns you are working with on the screen. You need to get the advanced password for doing that.
Learning materials management: Online_resources.xls II: E-repository (2006-7)
I participated in the implementation of a “ learning object” repository – is there such a thing as a learning “object” in a progression-oriented field like SLA? Anyhow, the software of choice was Equella which, as I read on the listservs, is favored by Blackboard Admins for its Blackboard module and is supposed to provide the primary interface to the equella for instructors in their Blackboard course websites.
Since this did not get implemented during my time, we used what seems primarily the admin-interface and, since equella does not come with one, attempted to implement a metadata schema, based on the prior work of an LLAS-sponsored group. We also soon found that despite complexity, the metadata schema was still lacking (E.g. you won’t get through French 101 without several sections on “Negation”. nor German, nor Spanish etc.).
Excel to the rescue once more: Here is a spreadsheet in action that not only allows adding, tagging, searching and filtering links to, once more – easier than to make your own – web-based exercises, but now also allows the collaborative building of a metadata schema. But alas, the number of fields is growing again.
Learning materials management: Online_resources.xls I: Intranet (2003-2009)
Language labs tend to have many multimedia files (audio and video) on network shares – still more flexible than the web-based interfaces we are given (1 user operation does a batch on many files versus multiple clicks are needed for an operation on 1 file).
As a variation on the spreadsheet for multimedia file collections, I created a cataloging spreadsheet that imports lists of audio and video files, including metadata which gets preserved when windows media center records commercial digital TV, from a language center network share – you can find sample code on MS-Excel lists. You can see the import code in action in this screen cast.
Unfortunately, no recursion into subfolders and once more meant to move the files off the network and store on DVDs, for lack of space. Here at least the fields are less and the search relies more on regular expressions.
The current quick and dirty incarnation of self-made source material for interpreting exercises is here: 
Learning materials management: Textbook exercises (2000-2008)
Textbook exercise management is a rapidly evolving field, with more textbook becoming digital and online resources and more metadata getting added and AI getting implemented to enable personalized (data-driven, feedback-based) learning paths.
German.xls was an attempt to be able to sort, search, filter the exercises of some bigger textbooks in the American college market, each containing thousands of exercises (how many? why does it take a sumif() to find out?):
Subtitles.xls converted text files with movie subtitles which can be extracted from DVDs or found into spreadsheet for post-processing (search, filter, sort – and assign different show times, for DVD editions differ). 
online,
Auralog Tell me more 7 is a language program that allegedly comes with “more than five times the amount of content than other language programs” – but strangely not with a table of contents of its exercises. Automation extracted the exercises first into the file system for full text search with Windows Desktop Search, then converted the extracted files into links in the Auralog Content XLS.
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