Accessibility – Captioning

Students Working with Technology

Accessibility: Captioning

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    Making Video Content Accessible: Captions

    Videos are a wonderful way to engage your students in learning, such as posting a:

    • weekly announcement
    • lesson overview
    • instructional content
    • discussion post
    • instructional content
    • assignment feedback

    There are also many videos and podcasts available to be used in our courses that are created by others and can easily be found in YouTube and other video hosting platforms. Regardless of whether the videos or podcasts are your own, or somebody else’s, using them in any of these ways is an example of putting universal design into practice – by varying how students are able to access and engage with your class. If you are creating videos and using them in one or more ways above, you are a universal design practitioner!

    Quick Caption Tips

    It is very important, however, that anytime you include video content, it should have captions that meet the guidelines below; or that audio content has available transcripts. For each video, captions should:

    • be 99% accurate, reflecting the speaker’s exact words with correct spelling, punctuation, and grammar.
    • appear at the same time the words are spoken and not display too fast for viewers to read.
    • include relevant background information (e.g. music description).
    • display from the start of the video to the end.
    • not block important content and be a readable font size.

    By meeting these guidelines you ensure that all of your students have access to all of the videos in your class! This also includes videos posted online or used in a face-to-face classroom setting.

    Captioning Resources

    Here are a few great resources to learn more about captioning for accessibility:

    • WebAIM: Captions is a great summary of the “why” of captioning for students with disabilities; but remember, that captions are helpful for all of our students, regardless of ability – that is the universal design way of teaching!

    Captioning Support at ARC

    The good news is that there are supports offered through the Los Rios Community College District to support your accessibility needs and caption videos or provide transcripts for audio files. The process is simple – submit the Captioning Request Form and our Universal Design and Accessibility Coordinator will reach out to you to complete the process!

    • Do the videos already have accurate captions? Watch this video to find the answer to that question.

    Once you receive the caption files back it’s just a matter of adding them to your video(s).

    Captioning Your Own Videos

    There are some situations when captioning your own videos is not only feasible but reasonably easy to do on your own, depending on how you create and host your videos.

    YouTube Video Hosting and Captions

    If you are the owner of the video, then it is really easy to use the YouTube caption generator to create and edit your captions:

    How to Add Captions While Uploading & Editing Your Videos | YouTube Creators Channel

    Canvas Studio Hosting and Captions

    3C Media for Hosting and Captions

    Using 3C Media is currently the easiest way to request captions for the videos that you use in your classes. It allows you to bypass the District Captioning Request process, skipping the middle man (your UDA Coordinator), and instead allows you to seamlessly request captions immediately when you upload your videos in 3C Media. This option is funded by the DECT Grant and can be used on a first-come-first-serve basis, which means at some point the funding will run out and you will then need to revert back to any of the other captioning options on this page.

    The turnaround time varies depending on whether you choose the AI Captions (approximately 1 day) or human captions (up to 5 days). The human option is better, but if you choose the AI option just be sure to review those captions to ensure 99% accuracy.

    Camtasia Video Production and Captions

    5 Ways to Add Captions to your Camtasia Videos (Easily)

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