Accessibility “Easy Button”
This winter break, let someone else handle an important accessibility step for you – captioning your videos. The University provides central funding to caption videos used for instruction, and now is the perfect time to submit your videos to NCOD: Deaf and Hard of Hearing Services for the Spring semester.
If you use videos in your instruction, and they aren’t captioned, CSUN’s NCOD: Deaf and Hard of Hearing Services can have them professionally captioned at no cost to your department.
Submitting your videos for captioning ahead of time allows NCOD: Deaf and Hard of Hearing Services to accommodate your request alongside other requests with short notice, such as videos of breaking news. The start of winter break is the perfect time to send in your videos for Spring 2025! Imagine stress-free holidays knowing your instructional materials are being professionally captioned at no cost.
Requesting Captions
The need for captions is addressed in law and policy, but more importantly, providing them is the right thing to do for our students. Accurate closed captions benefit:
- Deaf and hard of hearing students
- English speakers of other languages
- Anyone studying subjects with jargon, acronyms, and/or technical terminology
- Anyone studying in a noisy environment or encountering technical issues playing a video
- Students who prefer captions
- Videos with sound issues
- Others
52% of students report they find captions helpful for learning and 80% are more likely to watch a video if it has captions (Lewis, 2024).
Auto-captions are common now and accuracy is improving. If your video was auto-captioned, spot-check for accuracy, including punctuation, with an emphasis on jargon, acronyms, technical terms, and key points. Changing mistakes like “can’t” to “can” in the captions (or vice versa) changes the whole meaning of the content.
When submitting your videos to NCOD, another easy way to increase the accuracy of the captions is to include related course materials. Our captioning vendor utilizes human staff who review captions for accuracy, and they will incorporate the information from your course materials in their review.
Audio Descriptions
Now, your captions are ready, but the Student Access and Accommodation System (SAAS) has notified you that there will be one or more blind or visually impaired students in your class next semester. How will they access the videos?
These students use audio descriptions to access videos. Contact Disability Resources and Educational Services (DRES) first, then follow the same steps for captions to get audio descriptions.
Note that there is an extra step for audio descriptions. The vendor will provide a script for your approval before applying the audio descriptions to the video.
Lewis, E. (2024, June 26). Verizon Media and Publicis Media find viewers want captions. 3Play Media. https://www.3playmedia.com/blog/verizon-media-and-publicis-media-find-viewers-want-captions/