Audio and Video Accessibility

While audio and video content are temporarily exempt from the Ontario government’s regulations for accessibility, we do expect them to eventually be enforced. It is beneficial to start including transcripts of audio and captions of videos now to ensure you do not have to audit old content later.  Also, consider that captions and transcripts added to video widen your audience segment and make your video universally accessible.

Faculty and Staff

As stipulated by the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0) Level A standards: all videos or audio on any public-facing website must be captioned and/or transcribed. Videos or audio used behind a login portal, in courses, or for staff/faculty training made by a third party must be captioned upon request.

Classroom Accommodations

If you have a student in your course who requires captioned media, please contact Accessibility Services as soon as possible. Laurentian University’s Accessibility Services will work with everyone involved to ensure full access to course materials.

Captioning videos enable people who are deaf or hard of hearing to watch synchronized media presentations. Captions provide the part of the content available via the audio track. Unlike subtitles, captions not only include dialogue but identify who is speaking and include non-speech information conveyed through sound, including meaningful sound effects.

There are two types of captioning: open captions always are in view and cannot be turned off, whereas closed captions can be toggled on or off by the viewer. There are a few factors to consider when deciding whether open or closed captioning is optimal for your media content, such as the target audience, where it’s being uploaded, what video player or platform, and accessibility features of the video player.

For the most part, it makes more sense to use closed captions. However, open captions should be used if the video will be uploaded or displayed on a video player that doesn’t support captioning, video is embedded in presentation software (e.g. PowerPoint), displayed on TV signage that may not have sound, or if the video file is downloadable and being shared with multiple people.

There are a variety of tools available for captioning depending on the platform or video player used. If you want to try captioning videos yourself, we recommend checking out the following resources:

• Described and Captioned Media Program (DCMP) Captioning Guide
• Add your own closed captions (YouTube) by Google
• Present with closed captions (Google Slides) by Google
• Amara, the flagship project of the Participatory Culture Foundation, is a free tool that allows you to caption, subtitle, and translate video.

Audio description, also referred to as described video, is a narrated description of a program's main visual elements, such as settings, costumes, and body language. The description is added during pauses in dialogue, and enables people to form a mental picture of what is happening in the program.

While audio description is less common, it is necessary for videos used for training or tutorial purposes. For more information, refer to Audio Description of Visual Information by W3C.