ÈËÆÞÓÕ»ó

All ÈËÆÞÓÕ»ó-created videos that are available to the public must be captioned, including videos posted to ÈËÆÞÓÕ»ó websites and ÈËÆÞÓÕ»ó social media feeds.

If the video will be available only to members of the ÈËÆÞÓÕ»ó community (i.e., a ÈËÆÞÓÕ»ó username and password is required for viewing), and the intended audience of the video is small, then you should provide a means for the audience to let you know if they need captioning or other accommodations. If you receive an accommodation request, then the video should be captioned.

If the video will be available to a large audience, such as the entire ÈËÆÞÓÕ»ó community, even if a ÈËÆÞÓÕ»ó username and password is required, then the video should be captioned.

As a best practice, anyone creating video content should include transcription and captioning as a normal part of the production process. 

There are several options for captioning a video:

1. Hire a captioning service (i.e., send your video to an outside vendor). Be sure to request captioning rather than a transcript. ÈËÆÞÓÕ»ó does not currently have a preferred vendor for captioning services but can recommend Rev.com ($1.25/minute as of January 2021). 
2. Caption it yourself in Panopto. Panopto, ÈËÆÞÓÕ»ó’s media server, can publish videos that are viewable by the general public or that are limited to the ÈËÆÞÓÕ»ó community. ITS can train you, other staff, or student workers on how to add captions in Panopto. The training itself takes about 15 minutes. From there, plan to spend at least five times the length of your video on adding captions. If you are working from a full transcript of the video, adding captions may go faster.
3. Caption it yourself using the YouTube Caption Editor. If you have a YouTube channel for sharing videos, YouTube will likely generate automated captions for your videos. These machine-generated captions are typically not sufficiently accurate and will likely require manual editing in order to meet accuracy standards. If the captions can be perfected with only a few minor corrections, you can correct them directly in YouTube. For instructions see the . If the automated captions require significant corrections, you may wish to outsource the captioning to a third-party service. Whether you are sending your video to an outside captioner or adding captions in house, plan to give yourself at least a week to get the video captioned.

Captioning of recorded videos typically costs between $1.00 and $2.50 per minute (January 2021).

If you are paying hourly for captions done by a ÈËÆÞÓÕ»ó student worker, you should assume that creating captions will take at least 5x the length of the video. In some cases, captioning might take up to 8x the length of the video.

All public-facing video content on ÈËÆÞÓÕ»ó websites and social media feeds must include captions. If you are unable to add captions to a video, it is best to remove it.

Providing a stand-alone transcript is suitable for audio-only recordings. For videos, captioning must be embedded into the video.

Keep in mind, however, that creating a transcript is the first step in captioning a video. If you happen to have a transcript available, this will speed up the captioning process significantly if you are captioning the video yourself or hiring a student worker to do the captioning. You can find .

All public virtual events should, at a minimum, provide automated captions for participants. For events that are only open to the ÈËÆÞÓÕ»ó community, automated captions are optional but recommended. 

For all events, if an accommodation request is received for captioning services, then automated captions are not sufficient, and a professional captioning service should be hired to provide real-time captions. For high-profile events, such as commencement, professional captioning is strongly recommended even if you have not received an individual accommodation request.

Be sure to include an accessibility statement on all of your promotional and registration materials, advertising that automated captions will be provided and inviting participants to notify you of additional accommodation needs. You can find .

ÈËÆÞÓÕ»ó does not currently have a preferred vendor for captioning services but can recommend the companies listed below. You may wish to contact several companies if you’re seeking the best price. Demand for captioning services is currently high nationwide so you should contact companies as early in the planning phase as possible. When hiring a vendor, be sure to follow ÈËÆÞÓÕ»ó’s contract guidelines.

Once you’ve hired a captioning service, the company will assign an individual captioner to type captions during your event.

We recommend hosting your event on Zoom. You can find instructions for integrating the captioner into your Zoom event in our .

Recommended captioning companies:

• (CART services only, no Typewell)
• (CART and Typewell)
• (CART services only, no Typewell)

Automated or machine-generated captions created by platforms like Zoom and Google Meet are beneficial for a wide variety of users, though they may not be adequate for disability accommodation purposes. If someone has requested captioning for an event, you may ask them whether automated captioning would adequately meet their needs, or whether they prefer CART (i.e., live captioning services). From there, defer to their preference. If you're unsure of their needs, it's best to err on the side of making your event more accessible and hiring a professional captioning service.

If automated captioning is sufficient for your purposes, you can find instructions using the following links:

• Using automated captions in Zoom

Most real-time captioning companies offer two types of live captioning services: CART and Typewell. CART provides a word-for-word (verbatim) transcript of what is said. Typewell is a “meaning-for-meaning” service that ensures the overall meaning is conveyed via text, while removing speech that is extraneous to the meaning, such as false starts and filler words like “um” or “like.” 

We recommend using CART services, unless you receive an accommodation request for Typewell services, in which case you should defer to the individual’s preference.

Live captioning ranges from $80-$125 per hour for CART services and $60-$80 per hour for Typewell services.

Each department or office is responsible for captioning their own events. Much like planning for the costs of advertising, catering, and materials when hosting an event, accessibility and accommodations are an important part of event planning and budgeting. 

Departments in need of additional funds to ensure event accessibility may contact Rob Tust to discuss funding options.