{"id":1334,"date":"2019-09-16T16:07:38","date_gmt":"2019-09-16T20:07:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/accessible-education\/?page_id=1334"},"modified":"2026-01-18T17:22:41","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T22:22:41","slug":"captions-a-faculty-guide","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/accessible-education-student-support\/accessible-education-faculty-resources\/accessible-course-materials\/captions-a-faculty-guide\/","title":{"rendered":"Captions: A Faculty Guide"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>\n\n[Accessible Education and Student Support and Information and Library Services]\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What Are Captions?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Captions provide synchronized text for <strong>all<\/strong> audio content (unlike subtitles), including dialogue, identification of speakers, music, laughter, and sound effects. They eliminate a communication barrier and ensure that people who are Deaf\/Hard of Hearing have equal access to film and audio material.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Guiding Principles<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Captioning is an inclusive design strategy that is helpful to many, not just people who are Deaf\/Hard of Hearing. Ensuring that all materials are accessible from the start eliminates the need for an accommodation.<\/li><li>Bates is required by federal and state anti-discrimination laws to ensure all electronic and information technology is accessible to students with disabilities.<\/li><li>Advanced planning is key.<\/li><li>All students must have an equal opportunity to access content at the same time, in the same manner, and in the same location.<\/li><li>Auto-captions do not generally meet ADA requirements for an academic accommodation<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">When are captions required?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Any film or audio content being used in the classroom, online\/Lyceum, or as part of the course needs to be captioned (even if optional). For audio files alone, a transcript may be sufficient (please consult with Accessible Education staff).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Examples:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Full length films<\/li><li>Film clips<\/li><li>Online material (ex: YouTube)<\/li><li>Class capture<\/li><li>Audio-only (ex: podcast, song)<\/li><li>Student work\/presentations<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Process and Steps<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Test your existing media to see if it is captioned:\u00a0<ul><li>Occasionally, something will be labeled\u00a0 \u201cCC\u201d that isn\u2019t actually captioned<\/li><li>All captions are not created equal. Check to ensure captions meet FCC\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.3playmedia.com\/2019\/02\/25\/fccs-new-quality-standards-closed-captioning-video-programming\/\">quality standards<\/a> for Accuracy, Synchronicity, Completeness, and Placement.<\/li><\/ul><\/li><li>If media is in ILS collection, contact Chris Schiff, Music and Arts Librarian a minimum of <strong>14 business days<\/strong> in advance:\u00a0<ul><li>Chris can let you know if a captioned version is available, and if not, assist in ordering an accessible version.\u00a0<\/li><li>Do not plan on using material until it is received and checked. This is particularly important for material from Bowdoin, Colby, and other libraries.\u00a0<\/li><\/ul><\/li><li>If you are ripping materials yourself (ex: taking clips from full-length film), they must be captioned.\u00a0<ul><li>If you do not know how to do this, consult with Chris Schiff or Michelle Holbrook-Pronovost in Digital Media Studios.\u00a0<\/li><\/ul><\/li><li>If you are creating your own content (recorded lectures, videos, etc.) you can add captions manually.  We recommend using YouTube, Zoom, or Ensemble because these platforms apply auto-generated captions to all uploaded videos and they provide a user-friendly caption editing platform so the user can ensure accuracy.  Please review <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/accessible-education\/using-editing-automatic-captioning-for-youtube-videos\/\">Using &amp; Editing Automatic Captioning<\/a>.<\/li><li>If you cannot find a captioned version of your material or if you have created your own material and would like assistance captioning, please review the following options:<ul><li>If you have a student with an approved academic accommodation for accessible audio\/visual material, please send your material to Accessible Education as soon as possible, preferably <strong>14 business days<\/strong> in advance.\u00a0<ul><li>Materials will need to be sent to an outside vendor for captioning.<\/li><li>Once complete, you will receive a caption file that will then need to be  uploaded to the platform you are hosting your video (YouTube, Google Drive, Ensemble, etc.)  <ul><li><a href=\"https:\/\/support.google.com\/youtube\/answer\/2734796#upload\">Instructions for uploading caption files to YouTube videos<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/support.google.com\/drive\/answer\/1372218?co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop&amp;hl=en\">Instructions for uploading caption files to videos on Google Drive<\/a><\/li><li>For assistance, please contact Curricular &amp; Research Computing at mhanraha@bates.edu<\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ul><\/li><li>If you do not have a student with an approved academic accommodation for accessible audio-visual course material but are interested in captioning from an inclusive design standpoint, please contact Pat Schoknecht pschokne@bates.edu.<\/li><\/ul><\/li><li>When planning student projects, be aware that they would need to comply with all of the above if using any video or audio material. <\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Thank you for your\npartnership in ensuring equal access for students. Please reach out to us with\nquestions or for assistance at any point. <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[Accessible Education and Student Support and Information and Library Services] What Are&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1431,"featured_media":0,"parent":1336,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"class_list":["post-1334","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","with-sidebar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/accessible-education-student-support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/accessible-education-student-support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/accessible-education-student-support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/accessible-education-student-support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1431"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/accessible-education-student-support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1334"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/accessible-education-student-support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1524,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/accessible-education-student-support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1334\/revisions\/1524"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/accessible-education-student-support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/accessible-education-student-support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}