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University Captioning Procedures

Accessibility should be at the forefront of Public Facing University Event planning and with the University Online Presence. When planning Public Facing University Events (both in-person and virtual), all schools, departments, and university-related entities are required to include accessibility in their event planning in accordance with University Policy. The following Procedures, which support the university Captioning Policy can assist Content/Event Sponsors with implementing captioning to allow all audience members, regardless of ability, to participate fully with the material in real-time.

Note: While captioning services are required for Public Facing University Events, captioning services are strongly encouraged for all University Events.

Definitions

  • Audio and Video Media - any audio and/or visual material with sound and/or spoken words used in any part of a Public Facing University Event or University Online Presence.
  • Content/Event Sponsor – AU department, office, academic unit, or recognized student organization sponsoring the University Event and/or University Online Presence. If captioning services are required, the Content/Event Sponsor is responsible for costs associated with these services.
  • University Event – any event, program or activity sponsored by a university department, office, academic unit, or recognized student organization, excluding workplace meetings and AU courses. Students with disabilities who request accommodations for AU courses need to register with the Academic Support and Access Center and request accommodations. Employees with disabilities who request accommodations for workplace meetings need to contact HR Employee Relations.  
  • Public Facing University Event – any event, program or activity sponsored by a university department, office, academic unit, or recognized student organization, excluding workplace meetings and AU courses that is available for attendees that are not part of the American University community (e.g., students, faculty, staff) and anyone can join the event without pre-registering, providing an RSVP, or receiving a specific invitation to the event. Events that are live streamed online on publicly available services, such as Facebook or YouTube, are considered to be public facing. 

What is CART?

Communication Access Real-time Translation (CART): providing text captions, during live event, in which the content shows up in real-time; able to be read visually.

CART services are available for in person, online, and hybrid events.

  • In person events: 
    • Onsite captioner. Some events will require that the captioner is present at the event to provide CART services. Talk with your vendor before the event to ensure that their equipment is compatable with presentation technology you are using.
    • Remote captioner: If you are using a room with built in audio/video features, the captioner may be able to provide CART services remotely. Talk with your vendor before the event to ensure that their equipment is compatable.
  • Online events: Most online meeting and webinar services have features to display closed captioning. You will need to hire a remote captioner to transcribe the captions. See How do I live caption my online meeting or webinar? 
  • Hybrid events: Talk with your vendor before the event to determine if an onsite captioner or a remote captioner would work best for your event.

Procedures

  1. Providing captioning at all University Events is encouraged. If you plan to include captions as part of your programming, include a statement like this one in your advertisements or announcements:
    This event will have live captioning. If you would like to request other disability-related accommodation or further accessibility information, please contact [event sponsor email] by [date]. Every reasonable effort will be made to fulfill requests.
  2. For Public Facing University Events, advertise and open your event to RSVP at least two weeks prior to the date of the event. Advertisements and announcements should include a statement like this:
    If you would like to request disability-related accommodations or for further accessibility information please contact [event sponsor email] by [date]. Every reasonable effort will be made to fulfill requests.
    When requiring an RSVP, you will need to promote the event at least 3 to 4 weeks in advance to give attendees the opportunity to request accommodations before the two week request cutoff.
  3. If CART accommodations are requested, the hosting unit needs to schedule and fund CART services. 
    1. Deaf Access Solutions (DAS) is the AU partner for providing CART services. When ordering services, be sure to mention your event is for American University to be eligible for partner pricing. 
    2. You may hire other CART vendors, as needed.
      1. Some CART service offer automated or AI captioning; this is not a replacement for live human captioning.
      2. Hybrid CART captioning is allowed, this is when AI is used to speed up captioning transcription and a human captioner is making corrections in real time.
    3. When requests for CART captioning are received after the two-week RSVP date, the meeting host should still make an effort to provide the service. If you are unable to hire CART service due to short notice, contact digitalaccessibility@american.edu for guidance. 
    4. If you get overlapping accommodation requests, e.g. captioning and sign interpretation, you do not have to provide both. If the event is streamed online, you should prioritize captioning in order to meet WCAG requirements.
  4. If an event is planned and advertised without two weeks’ public notice for RSVPs, or if an RSVP channel is not in place, then plan to caption the event regardless of audience feedback.
  5. If you are co-sponsoring the event with another organization, institution, business, etc., captioning is still required, as part of the AU captioning policy. Work with the co-sponsor to ensure that captioning best practices and recommended planning steps are followed.
  6. If you intend to make a recording of your event available after it is over, you should have the recording re-captioned to improve the accuracy for future viewers. Options for post-event captioning include:
    1. Use the Zoom machine-generated transcript but review and make corrections to the captions before posting publicly. Be sure to enable “Audio transcript” in your Zoom account and record your meeting to Zoom Cloud.
    2. Use YouTube’s automatic captioning feature, but review and make corrections to the captions before posting publicly.
    3. Hire a captioning service to create a fresh caption file for your recorded video. 3Playmedia  is the AU partner for providing CART services. When ordering services, be sure to mention your event is for American University to be eligible for partner pricing. 
    4. Do not post the recording until it is fully captioned.
  7. AU’s Audio Visual (AV) department provides live streaming services for on-campus university events that you would like to stream online (via its AMS division). You will still need to hire a CART service to provide captions. They also offer video editing services to pre-recorded content, but are not able to edit previously compiled SRT/VTT closed captioning files.

Have Questions?

Questions about captioning procedures should be directed to your department’s event planner or digitalaccessibility@american.edu.

More Resources

Additional Instructions for Captioning can be found in this Knowledge Base article:

 

Standards for Captioning

Pursuant to federal regulations, AU’s policy on responsible use of web stipulates that digital content must be compliant with WCAG 2.0, level AA standards for accessibility. 

Types of Captions

  • Open Captions are permanently embedded in the video and can’t be edited. These are typically seen on video recordings.
  • Closed captions are a more versatile form of captioning and are recommended (use whenever possible):
    • Includes the ability to edit if you find errors.
    • In some video players, users can move closed captions if they obstruct viewing.

Automated or AI captioning 

No. Automated or AI captioning is not a replacement for a live human captioner when CART services are requested. At this time, leading automated caption services can only guarantee roughly 80% accuracy for certain dialects.

Accuracy Guidance

While 100% and errorless accuracy is the goal, American University strives for 99% accuracy in verbatim captions at Public Facing University Events and recorded content.

Quality Standards

  • Captions should be synchronized and appear at approximately the same time as the audio is delivered
  • Captions should be equivalent and equal in content to that of the audio, including speaker identification and sound effects.
  • Captions should be available for minimum duration of 40 frames (1.3 seconds).
  • Captions should not exceed 160 words per minute.
  • Avoid overlapping captions with chyrons (e.g., Breaking News banners at the bottom of the screen).
  • For podcast and audio-only content: You are required to provide a transcript for pre-recorded audio material.
    • Posting the transcript as a webpage is the most accessible way to provide a transcript.
    • Word documents and PDFs are less accessible formats for transcripts because it requires your user to open a new application to access the content. If you use these formats, be sure to test them for accessibility errors before posting.
  • If the video includes voice over at the introduction and close only, the video still needs to be captioned.
  • Video without an audio track does not require captions.
  • Video with music only, or other generic sound may or may not require captions. Video with sound that contributes to the video’s meaning does require captions. Example Use Cases:
    1. Background Music Chosen for Specific Reason
      Example: A portion of an AU graduation where graduates and attendees are celebrating while the AU alma mater playing in the background. In this context, the lyrics should be in the captions.
    2. Known Musical Compositions
      Example: A video of a ballet performance of Swan Lake would require the captions to include the title of the music, the composer’s name, and a description of the tempo. Each titled section of music should be updated in the captions throughout the performance. 
  • Video with sound that does not contribute to the video’s meaning does not require captions.

Example: A text only marketing video with stock music audio track.
Note: In this example, you should still provide a text version of the video content for people without vision to understand the intent of content via screen reader. 

Example: A Live Video Feed (e.g, Traffic Cam, Weather Cam).
Note: In this example, you should provide text above the video content to label what is the focus of the camera view, i.e. "Intersection of Nebraska Ave and New Mexico Ave." or "View from the top of Bender Arena, looking north."

  • If you are pre-recording content that you will present at your live event, and you’ve determined that captions are required, the best method would be to send your video/audio content to your professional captioner ahead of time so they can prepare for the content in advance. This will ensure that screen readers can access the live captions all in one place. Please make sure captions are turned on when broadcasting the video materials.

Do you know an AU community member who is seeking disability accommodations? 

  • Students: If the student is attending the event to meet a course requirement or assignment, contact ASAC at interpreting@american.edu for more information about scheduling a CART service. Students must be registered with ASAC to request an accommodation.
  • AU Faculty/Staff member: If the event is required for work related reasons, contact Employee Relations at employeerelations@american.edu.