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Access to Course Content: Guidelines on Captioning Audiovisuals

Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1998

To be accessible, technology must permit students with disabilities to receive the educational benefits provided through technology in an equally effective and equally integrated manner. Additionally, people with disabilities must be able to access the information with substantially equivalent ease of use as people without disabilities.

The Board of Regents has determined that all institutions in the USG fall within the scope of Section 508. Course content, to include audiovisuals such as DVDs and YouTube clips, must be accessible to all students, including students with disabilities.

Guidelines for Faculty

Audio or video recordings must have closed captions or subtitles available.

If your audiovisuals are not captioned, please search ǧÃŬAV Libraries Databases: Films On Demand, Academic Video Online, or Kanopy. If you cannot locate the video, please email library@ung.edu as soon as possible for further assistance.

If a captioned version is not available, please proceed with one of the following steps:

  1. Contact the Distance Education and Technology Integration (DETI) Director, Irene Kokkala, as far in advance as possible to arrange for recordings to be captioned. There is no cost to your department for this service.
  2. Contact Student Accessibility Services to arrange for expedited closed captioning of recordings through CIDI (Center for Inclusive Design and Innovation). The CIDI charges a fee for this service.
  3. Instructors can caption their own recordings by uploading the files to their My Media repository in eLearning@ǧÃŬAV (D2L). Kaltura, the video platform used at ǧÃŬAV, creates basic closed captions that can be corrected with the integrated Closed Captions Editor. The recordings can be embedded with closed captions and a transcript in an eLearning@ǧÃŬAV course. Contact DETI for details and training. 

Online Videos

Instructors who choose to use recordings from public websites (YouTube, Vimeo, etc.) should carefully review the recordings for accuracy. Only use videos with accurate captions. 

Alternate Forms of Access

Alternatives to closed captioning of audiovisuals are required by law to be "equivalent" and "effective." For information on why sign language interpretation, C-Print captioning (real-time speech-to-text captions), and alternate assignments generally do not meet this standard for videos, please contact Student Accessibility Services.