Accessibility

Multimedia

Multimedia refers to the integration of text with video, audio or image files in electronic content. To ensure accessibility of multimedia content on the web, learning management systems, electronic communications, etc., alternate forms to represent the information should be provided.

On this webpage

Accessible video & audio

To be accessible to most users, video should include captions, a transcript and audio description in an accessible media player. According to a 2016 study done by Oregon State University, students will use captions and transcripts to enhance their learning and aid in comprehension. The majority of students who participated in the study were not registered to require academic accommodations.

For audio files to be accessible, they should always be accompanied by a transcript. Before creating captions, please check the DCMP Closed Captioning Standards to learn about creating fully accessible, understandable and usable captions.

Access Technology Services at the UW campus, promotes captioning as a teaching best practice that benefits all students, including English Language Learners, students who wish to see the spelling of technical terms, and students who need to search for specific content in a set of videos.

Do you have questions? Would like to schedule a training session? Please contact Ana Thompson, Academic & Access Technologist.

Captions & transcripts

Captions are composed of time-synchronized text of the audio content of a video while transcripts are text documents that contain all the spoken content of a video or audio file. The commonly seen captions on web video that can be turned on or off are called closed captions. Open captions, the kind that are “burned in” the video are not accessible and should be avoided. Aside from helping hard of hearing students, captions and transcripts can also assist ESL learners better understand video content. Another benefit is that it can help all students better understand technical terms in video or audio content.

At University of Washington there are three main approaches to caption your videos:

  • Do it yourself
  • Submit high-impact videos to the UW-IT Free Captioning Service
  • Submit it to a third party vendor

Do it yourself captioning

Whether you type and time a transcript to convert it to caption file, edit auto-created captions or type captions directly, the way you caption depends on where the video is hosted.

Vimeo, Facebook

  • Vimeo – This hosting tool does not include machine-generated automatic captions, but provides a way to upload caption files obtained through other means. For instructions on how to upload captions to Vimeo, see Vimeo’s help page on Captions and Subtitles.
  • Facebook – Find information on captioning videos in Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn, on UW-IT Social media captioning page.

YouTube, Zoom, Panopto

These tools offer automated captioning that should be checked and edited to ensure accuracy:

  • YouTube – Correct captions directly in YouTube. For instructions see YouTube’s help page on how to Edit Captions. If it is more feasible to have captions produced in another program, via the UW free captioning program or third-party vendor, you can then upload the caption file to YouTube.
  • Zoom – See the UW information page on captioning Zoom recordings.
  • Panopto – Panopto generates automatic speech recognition captions by default. For more information, access the instructions to edit or manually delete your captions for each recording.

Canvas

If you do not already have a caption file in SRT, VTT, etc. format, you can use a caption file creation tool such as Amara.org. Amara is a user-friendly, free tool that can help you not only type captions and produce a caption file for videos you own.

To learn more about accessible video, access the Creating Accessible Video UW resource.

UW-IT captioning service

Accessible Technology Services (ATS) will caption a limited number of UW video presentations without charge through a service supported by UW-IT. Individuals, departments, and other units at the UW are encouraged to apply for funding to caption highly-visible, high-impact, multiple use, and/or strategic videos. Examples include:

  • Videos available to the public on a high-use website
  • Videos that will be used multiple times in a course
  • Videos developed by several faculty members to be used in several different classes

If you are interested in applying for this service, please access more information and to apply for this service, please see the UW-IT Help page.

Submit to 3rd party

3PlayMedia

The state of Washington has K-20 education contract for a reduced fee of $1.95/minute for video captioning. Their services include seamless integrations with YouTube, Panopto, and other platforms. Information on setting up an account with 3PlayMedia and more are located on the Washington HEC Contract webpage.

Note on accommodations

Captioning videos is required when students who are deaf or hard of hearing enroll in your course; captioning in this case is as well as other accommodations are provided by Disability Resources for Students (DRS). For more information, contact uwbdrs@uw.edu.