Home » CDL Services » Multimedia Services » Proactive Captioning for Online Courses Proactive Captioning for Online Courses The Center for Distributed Learning provides resources in order to create online accessible videos. Each year 10,000 minutes of closed captioning will be provided from July 15 until June 15 of the current fiscal year for completely online (W) courses only. 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. Beth Nettles, Manager, Learning Content Development, Center for Distributed Learning. Start Application 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 or Zoom be eligible? It depends. Media currently hosted in Panopto or Zoom are not eligible. If the media was recorded with Panopto or Zoom and is hosted in Webcourses@UCF or through YouTube, it may be eligible. Class sessions (whether from Panopto or in Zoom) are not eligible for proactive video captioning since they are typically long and not reused from semester to semester. 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?Most prerecorded videos are eligible, such as YouTube videos, Vimeo videos hosted by Video@UCDL, and videos uploaded to Webcourses@UCF. Content in Flash will have to be converted to another file format before being captioned. Audio files are not eligible. 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. Can I request a transcript for an audio file?No, audio files and transcriptions are not eligible. What languages are supported?Only videos recorded in English are eligible for captioning. Subtitles in another language are not available. 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, the following factors will be considered: – The number of students who will access the video – Whether interaction with the video results in a grade – The number of semesters the video 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 will review submitted proposals. How will I know if my proposal was accepted? The committee will respond with a full award, partial award, or no award. Faculty will be notified by the committee of the results of the review.
