Proactive Captioning for Online Courses

The Center for Distributed Learning provides resources in order to create online accessible multimedia (i.e., audio and video). As a pilot initiative, 20,000 minutes of closed captioning will be provided during the 2019-2020 fiscal year (July 1, 2019-June 30, 2020) for online (W) courses.

  • 10,000 minutes will be allocated for courses being taught in the fall semester
  • A minimum of 7,500 minutes will be allocated for courses being taught in the spring semester
  • A minimum of 2,500 minutes will be allocated for courses being taught in the summer semester

Any unused allocation will be rolled into the following semester. A special announcement for proposals may be called if minutes remain toward the end of the fiscal year (July 1-June 30).

The goal of this process is to provide proactive captioning that benefits all students.

Have Questions?
Please direct any questions about this process to Dr. Kelvin Thompson, Executive Director of the Center for Distributed Learning.

Faculty FAQs

Does this process apply if I have a student who needs an accommodation in my course?

No, this process is for proactive purposes only. Student Accessibility Services (SAS) will contact you if a student in your course has a captioning accommodation.

What courses are eligible to receive captioning?

Proactive captioning is available to academic courses taught in the online (W) modality.

Will media hosted in Panopto be eligible?

No. Media currently hosted in Panopto are not eligible. If the media was recorded with Panopto and is hosted (lives) in Webcourses@UCF, it will be eligible.

My media have captions that were created automatically. Are they eligible?

Yes. Media with automatically created captions (e.g., YouTube) do not meet accessibility standards set in the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA).

What if I need live captioning?

This process is aimed at providing captions for pre-recorded media only.

What types of media will be captioned?

All prerecorded media is eligible (e.g. YouTube, instructor-created narrations). Content in Flash will have to be converted to another file format before being captioned.

Does the media have to exist at the time of submission?

Yes, the media must exist at the time of submission. Additional media created or used throughout the semester must be submitted in a future semester.

Does this mean that the university will automatically pay for all of my captioning needs?

No. Creating accessible course content is still the responsibility of the faculty member. The resources provided in this process are not sufficient to caption all media in online courses.

What criteria are used in determining who will receive funds for captioning?

For proactive captioning requests, a number of factors will be considered:
How many students will have access to the media
Whether interaction with the media result in a grade
How many semesters this media will be used
The estimated number of captioning minutes requested

Faculty are encouraged to apply even if they feel they might not be a top candidate for receiving captioning minutes.

Can I reapply in the future if I do not receive captioning for all my media?

Yes!

Who will review my proposal?

Individuals from the Center for Distributed Learning and the Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning will review submitted proposals after the appropriate deadline.

How will I know if my proposal was accepted?

The committee will respond with a full award, partial award, or no award. In the instance of a partial award, the committee will communicate with the faculty regarding the selection of media to be captioned.