Do ALL videos need to be captioned?
Yes. Section 508 requires all users, regardless of disability, to have a comparable experience from all media, including videos. For a video to be accessible to a viewer, the person watching it must be able to understand what is happening in both the visual and audio portions of the video.
Accessible videos have three main elements:
- Captions: The audio parts of your video appear as text at the appropriate time and give access to people who are hearing impaired or deaf.
- An audio description: A description of a video’s visual elements, gives access to people who are blind or visually impaired.
- A 508-compliant video player: Ensures a person who requires keyboard navigation or an assistive device can navigate the window where the video plays (that is, the video player). UMass Lowell uses Brightcove and Ensemble as its video players. Be advised that YouTube video is not 508 compliant.
All videos posted on the UMass Lowell website (including course materials), regardless of origin, need to comply with these standards. The university has two ways to caption non-compliant videos depending on the video's length and purpose:
- If the video is less than five minutes long and is being used for promotional or marketing purposes, please file a Web Services ticket and include the original video file.
- If the video is longer than five minutes or is being used in course materials or informational purposes (for example: lecture, panel), please contact Information Technology (IT) by submitting a I.T. help ticket.