Faculty Guide to Captioning Course Materials
If you receive notification that a student in your course requires captioned audio-visual materials, please follow the guidelines below to ensure your course materials will be accessible to all students enrolled in your course.
If you have questions about this accommodation or would like further assistance, please do not hesitate to email dar@reed.edu and/or with us.
- For synchronous events (e.g., live Zoom lectures): Ensure that you have enabled automated captions in Zoom. For questions about how to do this, contact its@reed.edu. Some students may require the services of a professional captioner rather than automated captions. DAR will email you to notify you if this is the case. If you have not received such a notification from DAR, then automated captions will suffice for synchronous activities.
- All of the asynchronous (i.e. pre-recorded) video materials used in your course must be captioned, and audio-only files must be transcribed. This includes both existing videos/films and also recorded lectures that students are available for students to view asynchronously. To ensure equal access for all students in your course, all video/audio files must be captioned/transcribed before they are disseminated to any students in your course.
- If any students in your course create video presentations that other students are required to view, these materials too will need to be captioned according to the guidelines outlined here.
- To request captioning for a video you have created: Simply upload the video to your media library in Panopto, and the Instructional Technology Services (ITS) staff will begin working on captions. ITS will develop a workflow with you to link to your media once it has been captioned. The captions will be added to the video stored in Panopto; students will have the option to turn the captions on and off as desired.
- ITS generally needs a turnaround time of 3 business days for files that are uploaded to Panopto during business hours. This means you will need to upload your video and audio files to Panopto at least 3 business days in advance of when you plan to distribute them to your students.
- For videos and films you request through the Library, Jim Holmes will review your videos and communicate with you in the event that captioning is not available for a video on your list.
- From a universal design perspective, we recommend letting all of your students know that closed captioning is available for your videos, as some students will benefit from using captions for reasons other than a disability.
- For YouTube videos: Many have auto-generated captions. Preview the video to check the captioning quality. If the captions are accurate, you can use the video as-is. If the captioning accuracy is low, or there are no captions, contact ITS as soon as possible to ask if they are able to assist with captioning the video (which may depend on video ownership).