The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Rehabilitation Act, and the Department of Justice guidelines require both public entities and places of public accommodation (including colleges and universities) to make an equivalent alternative to video available for anyone with a disability. In most cases, captioning is the only legally adequate alternative, and will be necessary in any class that includes a student with a documented disability. In such cases, Disability Services works with instructors to make captioning possible.
Use An Existing Accessible Video
It is possible to reliably find captioned videos on some platforms, including TED and PBS Video. Some Youtube videos are also captioned, though the quality of the captions can vary. You can search for closed captioned videos using Google’s Advanced Search or Youtube Filters.
Creating An Accessible Video
In circumstances where faculty might need to provide their own captions, the CTE can assist with recommending best practices and free tools to develop video captions. For example:
- Youtube has a straightforward captioning tool that faculty can use to create their own captions or edit YouTube’s automatic captions in order to meet the 99% accuracy standard. Please note, however, that YouTube’s automatic captions are not reliably accurate and typically do not meet the legal standard.
- Panopto allows users to upload captions to videos and can create automatic captions. While automatic captions can be unpredictable in quality and do not meet ADA standards, they can create a more accessible environment in courses that do not include any students with documented accommodations.