DO-IT - Legal Issues

UW-IT's Captioning Project: A Promising Practice in Setting up a Captioning Project on a College Campus

lylac — Tue, 24 Apr 2018 19:22:01 +0000

Date Updated:

05/26/22

Many videos on campuses are captioned only as an accommodation for a person who is deaf or hard of hearing, even though they benefit many others, including English language learners, those with reading-related disabilities, and individuals who simply want to see the spelling of words spoken in the presentation. The �r��’s UW-IT Free Captioning Project was developed as an effort to promote proactive captioning of videos on campus. By offering free captioning, the Accessible Technology Services (ATS) division of UW-IT is increasing the number of videos captioned on campus, educating stakeholders, and raising awareness of the importance of captioning and the processes involved adding captions to videos. The Free Captioning Project team secured central funding for this project, justifying it as promoting a best practice in education as well as an activity that helps the campus meet its legal obligations under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Staff of the UW Free Captioning Project developed the following steps and helpful hints to assist other campuses in setting up a captioning project.

Secure funding.
Develop an application that requests information about the video and the applicant.
- For the video, ask for the length, how it will impact the campus, the estimated number of individuals that will watch the video, when the video will be available, the link to the video (if available), what type of file format is needed for the caption file (e.g., .srt, .vtt), and/or transcript file type (e.g., .doc, .txt).
- Ask for the name, email address, position, and department of the applicant.
Set up an account with a captioning vendor.
Create templates for emails for advertising, for your approval process, and for a reply to the applicant when accepting/declining videos for the project.
Decide how you will obtain the files to be captioned. For example:
- If an applicant has more than one .mp4 file for videos, setup a file to share the videos and captioning files using a file sharing service such as Dropbox or Google Drive. Create a system for naming the drive (e.g., applicant name and department).
- Use subfolders with the project name within the shared folder, if the applicant has more than one application approved.
- Have applicants upload files and notify you when new videos are added.
Determine how you will send the new captioned files back to the applicant. For example, when the vendor has completed captioning you could upload the captioning files to the file shared folder and notify the applicant that the file is ready or you could download the .srt file or other file format as needed and email it back to applicant.
Have an approval process in place. Identify staff who will receive, review, and decline/approve applications.
Advertise the availability of the program in a variety of ways including in newsletters, on a website, and via email and social media. When advertising the project, indicate that it is for proactive captioning and not an accommodation for a specific individual (because that serve should be already provided by a campus disability services office).
Track the progress of your project. The system you use should be designed to capture applicant information and progress through the captioning process (e.g., waiting for approval, being captioned, or complete).

Helpful hints:

When uploading the videos to the vendor site you may need to compress files to meet vendor limits.
Create custom settings and share the information with the vendor for transcription services to ensure that speakers are labeled properly.
When replying to the applicant that their submission is approved, send them information and encourage them to setup their own account with the caption vendor and continue captioning their videos in the future.
Create or find links for tutorials for uploading captions to different platforms (e.g., YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo).

For additional resources and information on creating accessible videos consult the following resources:

Creating Accessible Videos
Captions: Improving Access to Postsecondary Education
Making Videos Accessible
3Play Media: Accessible Video Made Easy
CaptionSync
Quality Captioning by the Described and Captioned Media Program

Additional knowledge base articles about captioning include the following:

How can Office for Civil Rights resolutions help guide campuses in making information technology accessible?

lylac — Mon, 14 Dec 2015 20:05:03 +0000

Date Updated:

05/26/22

In order for information technology (IT) to be accessible to and usable by people with disabilities, it must afford these individuals the opportunity to acquire the same information, engage in interactions, and obtain services as people without disabilities. The U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights (OCR), Department of Justice (DoJ), and courts of law have resolved civil rights complaints with respect to IT access for individuals with disabilities at more than a dozen postsecondary institutions in the United States.

Resolutions to OCR and DoJ complaints regarding inaccessible IT suggest that institutions of higher education consider:

developing corrective action strategies, e.g., to systematically review and update websites and PDF files to be more accessible
developing and disseminating an accessible IT policy
creating IT accessibility standards
providing training and education
developing procurement policies and procedures
developing and publicizing grievance procedures
addressing accessibility within already developed, procured, and used IT, including websites, learning management systems (LMSs), classroom technologies, and purchased software

Beyond that, ideally an institution of higher education might have:

a campus-level task force with annual reports
a IT accessibility guidance website
standard accessible web page templates
IT accessibility consulting/testing services
accessibility included on IT development and support teams
collaboration between vendors and staff for creating and purchasing accessible software and technology
IT accessibility courses offered
accessibility included in general IT training
accessibility included in IT job postings
an IT accessibility leader in each campus unit
captions promoted as a best practice
grant writers encouraged to include accessible technology in grant outcomes
accessibility-awareness activities and products
IT accessibility capacity-building institutes
grants secured to supplement and expand the reach of IT accessibility efforts
leadership related to IT accessibility in professional organizations and publications
students with disabilities as accessibility testers

Find more information consult legal cases by issue on the �r��’s website. Consult the Information Technology resource section of the DO-IT website for additional information regarding the implementation of universal design principles to make IT accessible to everyone.

Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and its 2008 Amendments

Alicia Teasley — Mon, 02 Nov 2015 22:37:53 +0000

Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and its 2008 Amendments

Civil rights legislation for individuals with disabilities.

Issue:

Legal Issues

Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973

Alicia Teasley — Mon, 02 Nov 2015 22:35:34 +0000

Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973

Legislation that required that U.S. federal government procure, develop, and use accessible IT.

Issue:

Legal Issues

What are key issues regarding IT accessibility in higher education?

lylac — Wed, 01 Apr 2015 00:09:50 +0000

Date Updated:

05/23/22

Many key issues regarding IT accessibility have surfaced in legal resolutions and settlements involving higher education institutions and technology accessibility including:

Definition of “Accessible”
Accessibility Audit and Corrective Action Strategy
Policy
Training and Education
Procurement
Websites
Learning Management Systems
Classroom Technologies (Podiums, Display Equipment, and “Clickers”)
Banks and ATMs
Grievance Procedure
Captioning
Ownership of Accessibility

The �r�� maintains a web page on legal cases by issue on which they describe in further detail the key issues listed above that have surfaced in legal resolutions and settlements involving higher education institutions and technology accessibility. For each issue, a few example cases are identified in which that issue is addressed. Each case is linked to the UW Resolution Agreements and Lawsuits page, where additional information is provided about the case.