Questions About Captioning

Do all videos have to be captioned? 

If you embed a video in a webpage or Brightspace course that was created at, by, or on behalf of FIT, the video must be properly captioned. If you link to a video that was created at, by, or on behalf of FIT, the video must be properly captioned. This is true no matter where the video is uploaded (YouTube, Vimeo, Google Drive, or another place). "Properly captioned" means that the caption file includes punctuation, proper spelling and grammar, speaker names, etc.

Isn't auto caption okay? YouTube and Facebook do a pretty good job.

"Pretty good job" is not good enough. YouTube captions are estimated to be 60-70% accurate and we must meet a much higher standard. Additionally, auto captions are essentially run-on sentences. Captions must have correct spelling and punctuation.

What if my video doesn't have speech? What if my video only has music, but there is no one talking?

All videos must have a caption file. If your video is silent, your caption file would say something like [this video contains no speech or audio]. If your video has music only, your caption file would say something like [this video has music throughout; no speech].

Do videos shown in class need to be captioned even if no students have a disability? I will not be posting the videos in Brightspace. My assumption is a video is equivalent to a lecture.

As noted in the email sent to faculty on January 28, 2019, an assessment of in-classroom technology will take place later this year. This assessment will help FIT come up with a plan for making all in-classroom technology accessible. While in the past institutions weren't required to provide accommodations unless an individual reported their disabilities, this is no longer the case. In order to satisfy current accessibility requirement, the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice now expect institutions to take practical steps to make all technology equally accessible.

I have PowerPoints in my online Brightspace course. I have done voiceovers for PowerPoints that describe what is on the PowerPoint slide, plus a little embellish about what is written on each slide. Do I have to provide captions for every word that I say on the voiceover in order to be in compliance?

As noted in the January 28, 2019 email, faculty members teaching online should contact the Office of Online Learning and Academic Technologies. They will be able to provide you with the information and resources needed to ensure your content is accessible. There are many factors that need to be considered in order to make a PowerPoint accessible, beyond voiceovers.

In our program, video content for the classroom is via YouTube links or commercial videos our professors have designed to provide free of charge to their students. I need to know how to advise our students to access subtitles for YouTube content. As for my faculty video content, the videos they provide are not required for their courses, nor are their classes online courses. 

As noted in the January 28, 2019 email, an assessment of in-classroom technology will take place later this year. This assessment will help FIT come up with a plan for making all in-classroom technology accessible. While in the past institutions weren't required to provide accommodations unless an individual reported their disabilities, this is no longer the case. In order to satisfy current accessibility requirement, the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice now expect institutions to take practical steps to make all technology equally accessible. Note that videos uploaded to YouTube are auto-captioned by YouTube. Auto captions do not typically include capital letters or punctuation. The auto-caption file should be edited to add these elements; this will make the captions compliant.