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All materials, including documents (articles) and videos, used and/or created by faculty, staff and students must be accessible, in accordance with the ADA and Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 [1]. When choosing materials to provide to others, verifying that they are accessible is important. Documents should be available virtually and be accessible to assistive technology. Accessible materials are useful for many individuals, including those who are blind/visually impaired, have ADHD or learning disabilities, are auditory learners, and are English as second language learners. When choosing materials, it is important to verify that the platform in which they are located, including the document itself, is accessible. Furthermore, videos must include closed captions. Captions are useful to those who are Deaf/hard of hearing, English as second language learners, and visual learners.
Locating Documents (articles, PDFs, etc)
- Simpson Library Resources
- Contact Paul Boger (from Simpson and Stafford Library) at 540-286-8025 or pboger@umw.edu
Locating Videos
**Special Note: All videos, even those that have been done professionally, require a manual check for accurate captions before use.
Using Kanopy:
UMW employees have access to create a free Kanopy account through UMW libraries and stream thousands of videos, most of which are already captioned. Video captions will need to be verified by the user. If the video is not captioned, you can request captioning through Kanopy. For questions related to Kanopy, contact Summer Durrant (sdurrant@umw.edu) in Simpson Library.
Using Films on Demand:
Films on Demand is available through the UMW Library Service. Most videos located on this platform are captioned; however, this is not guaranteed. Video captions will need to be verified by the user. Should a video be captioned incorrectly or not captioned at all, a request can be made to the platform for this to be rectified. Please email video.support@infobase.com, including the non-captioned video URL in the email, stating your request in the subject line. Turn around time is approximately 2 weeks.
Asking your Librarian
- Rosemary Arneson at rarneso3@umw.edu or 540-654-1147.
- Librarians are highly skilled at finding learning resources, and may even subscribe to one or more video libraries specifically for captioning purposes.
Consulting the Publisher
If the video is part of the textbook purchased from a publishing company, inquire with the publisher for a captioned copy of the video. All publishers will have a different process for these requests. While the request may not result in a captioned copy in time for your course or event, the more requests publishers receive, the more likely they will be to provide captioned videos in the future. Remember they are not required to caption their videos, but by law, as a public university, we are required to show captioned videos.
Consulting Search Engines
- How to Search for Closed Captioned YouTube Videos[2]
- Google: Type the title in the search bar, click videos, click tools, then change All Videos, to Closed Captioned. (See Below)