Strategies to Up Your Captioning Game: Policy, Process, and Tools

Captioning video and transcribing audio content are critical for accessibility and one important aspect of complying with new web accessibility regulations. It can be challenging to understand the landscape and ensure captioning takes place at large, decentralized research universities with many stakeholders and separately controlled distribution channels that all represent the institution’s public presence. This session will describe the multitiered approach implemented for a strategic captioning program at a large university facing compliance challenges that grew to achieve high rates of captioned content. Strategies will include university-level approaches for leaders, practical takeaways for implementation staff, and available technical solutions that can help report on progress to leaders and stakeholders. Members of the university’s Digital Accessibility Services team will describe their approach to facilitate, guide and document their efforts and results. They work with dozens of multimedia-producing entities, small and large, across many contexts, and the presenters will offer best practices for each as well as the tools used to undertake this effort on their campus.