Skip to main content

Do I always need to provide video captions?

Dear Aggie Banner

Dear Aggie,

I have not received a notice of any students needing accommodations like closed captioning of videos. Does this mean I don’t need to worry about closed captioning, or is there something else I should be aware of?

~Checking in about captions


Dear Checking,

This is a great question! We all want to work with our students in providing necessary accommodations through Disability Access Services (DAS) and academic supports through the Office of Institutional Equity (OIE). However, we can make some decisions in our course design that support all our students, reducing the need for special accommodations. This idea of designing our courses to minimize barriers and maximize learning for all students is known as Universal Design for Learning (UDL).

Think of how curb cut-outs in sidewalks help people who use wheelchairs. But they also help people with strollers, shopping carts or rolling bags. Similarly, adding captions helps students who are deaf or hard of hearing, but they also help many other students, because the captions provide a different representation of the course material.

Who does closed captioning benefit?

The short answer is everyone. Here are a few examples of how closed captions can benefit any student:

Enhanced note taking

By being able to see and read the closed captions, all students can take more accurate notes. This is particularly true for students for whom English is not their first language. In lectures with technical terms, students can also see how those often-unfamiliar terms are spelled.

Improved attention, engagement and focus

Students use captions to help them focus on the material; this is particularly true for students with attention deficits.

“Foreign” language and vocabulary

English language learners experience English as a foreign language. This can also be true for students learning new disciplinary language and vocabulary. In both cases, the students can see the spelling, potentially hear the pronunciation, and better understand technical terms.

Reviewing videos in different environments

If a student is in an environment that is noisy (e.g. a public space like public transportation or the gym) or an environment in which they can’t turn on the sound (e.g. a library or while watching a sleeping baby), they can still use the captions and stay caught up with your video content.

Searchable text

In some cases, captions are key-word searchable, allowing students to easily go back to a particular spot in a video. Canvas Studio captions are not key-word searchable, but Zoom audio transcripts are.

I hope that you will consider adding closed captions to your videos, so that you can help all your students rock your course. I’ve provided a few resources below to help you get started with captions in Canvas Studio. Ideally, our courses and classrooms should make it possible for every student to succeed, without anyone needing to request an accommodation like captioning. As stated by Katie Novak:

"We can’t prevent all the challenges students will face, but we can help to alleviate them by designing a learning environment that leaves no room for failure."

~Aggie

P.S. I would be remiss if I didn't point out that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Rehabilitation Act have requirements around captioning. The ADA requires that when public entities (like New Mexico State University) make materials available, they must be accessible. Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act requires (for example) that an online lecture at a public university must include captions.

Resources

It is important that the captions be of high quality. You can edit the auto-generated captions in Canvas Studio, to ensure that they are accurate. This guide and the recorded Academic Technology workshop (below) give you the tools to do this.


If you have a teaching question for Dear Aggie, please e-mail her at dearaggie@nmsu.edu