You can provide engaging learning opportunities with recorded videos. When providing content through video in your course, also provide accurate synchronized captions as a text alternative for users with hearing limitations to access that content.

What are Some Ways your Online Course can be Designed to Meet this Standard?

• Closed captioning is provided by adding a “sidecar” file (e.g, SRT, VTT) alongside a video file, both of which are run simultaneously by the media player. When given an option for creating your caption file type, select VTT over SRT because VTT files offer users options for preferred color, size, and position of captions.

• Captions should be accurate (i.e., verbatim) for audio content with standard spelling, punctuation, and capitalization.

• Captions should be synchronized to audio, except when that would make captions difficult to read.

• Auto-generated captions can be useful as a starting place but are not sufficient on their own because they are frequently inaccurate and do not provide proper punctuation or capitalization. If you start with auto-generated captions, review and edit them so that the captions are accurate and verbatim what was spoken, include proper capitalization and punctuation, and capture non-speech sounds (e.g, sound effects).

Existing Videos

• For captioning existing videos, faculty at UCF have several options of tools for creating or editing captions, including Clipchamp, Microsoft Stream, and Adobe Premiere Pro. Refer to the video captioning module in FMC Training & Resources in Webcourses for more detailed information and guidance related to captioning tools available through UCF.

• Request Proactive Captioning for courses taught in an online modality.

• Use the UDOIT tool in Webcourses@UCF to check for existing issues related to video captions. While in UDOIT, you can check for and fix other accessibility issues as well. Note that UDOIT scans only Pages, Assignments, Quizzes, etc., in Webcourses@UCF; it does not scan your course files (e.g., Word docs, PDFs, PPTs). So, course files need to be reviewed for accessibility issues separately.

New Videos

• UCF faculty who are credentialed to design and develop online/blended courses have access to Center for Distributed Learning video services. CDL video producers collaborate with you and your instructional designer to plan and produce high-quality videos that will have accurate synchronous captions.

• Before you create your own videos, refer to the video captioning module in FMC Training & Resources in Webcourses for information and guidance related to captioning tools available through UCF.

What Does This Look Like in a Real Online Course?

Example 1. Proactive Captioning Services: Tong Wan, PHY1038, Physics of Energy, Climate Change, and the Environment

Tong Wan provided demonstration videos in her online course that originally had auto-generated captions. She requested Proactive Captioning services and was provided accurate synchronous captions for 300 minutes of video content in her course.

Example 2. CDL Video Services: Yukari Nakamura-Deacon CDL Video Services, JPN1121C, Elementary Japanese Language and Civilization II

Yukari Nakamura-Deacon collaborated with CDL video services to produce a video to introduce herself and the course to students. See Figure 1. All videos produced in collaboration with CDL video services provide accurate synchronous captions.

Figure 1. Screenshot of Instructor Introduction video with accurate synchronous captions.

Example 3. DIY: Stacey DiLiberto, HUM3397, Environmental Humanities

Stacey DiLiberto provided accurate synchronous captions and transcripts for her self-created videos after participating in captioning training hosted by UCF’s Faculty Multimedia Center. See Figure 2.

Figure 2. Screenshot of lecture video with accurate synchronous captions and link to transcript.

Resources for More Information

• Refer to W3C Web Accessibility Initiative Understanding Captions (Prerecorded) for more details and tips.
• Refer to Web Accessibility in Mind’s (WebAIM) Captions, Transcripts, and Audio Descriptions for more details and tips.
• Enroll in Digital Accessibility Basics in Webcourses@UCF for information about UCF’s Digital Accessibility Policy and strategies to make content more accessible.
• Refer to Accessibility at UCF: Video and Audio for more details and tips.