Media Accessibility

Topics Covered

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Our Accessibility Standard

Standard 6: Media is rich with captions and descriptions, and a non-media alternative is available for learner engagement.

Dive More into Media Accessibility

Creating Content

Accessible media will have 3 elements. Accessible notes or slides (if creating a narrated PowerPoint), audio descriptions, and captions.

Notes or Slides to Accompany Videos

If you are creating a narrated PowerPoint, creating accessible slides should be your first step.

Learners should have access to any text transcripts, accessible slides, accessible PDFs, and other accessible visual aids for any videos in the course.

When possible, always try to provide these resources.

Audio Descriptions

Audio-described videos or alternative videos with embedded audio descriptions should be available when a video includes essential information on the screen. Watch the Audio Descriptions video to learn when to use audio descriptions and how to incorporate them into your videos.

Treat your videos like podcasts from the beginning – If I can’t see it, can I hear it, and if I can’t hear it, can I see it?

Tips for incorporating audio descriptions:

  1. Announce the presenter of the information. This is very important if there is more than 1 person speaking.
  2. Incorporate all text that you have shared on the screen.
  3. Describe the image or educational purpose of any image or action being performed on the screen.
 

Captions

Captioning Videos You Created

Watch Do You Need Captions to learn more about captioning and our captioning program for videos you have created. If you would like to update captions on your own, watch:

Captioning Videos You Find

When using YouTube videos for your course, please review the closed captions for accuracy. You can also search for captioned videos by using Amara Captioned Videos. What is Amara? Amara provides access to crowd-sourced captions and subtitles for YouTube videos.

Important Note

It does not matter where the captions are obtained. We believe faculty members should always review the captions for the content they are sharing with learners.

Where Can I Go For Help?

Do you have questions? Click the button below to email our Digital Accessibility Team.