Choosing Third-Party Videos

When curating videos created by others, caption (and when applicable, audio description) accuracy is essential. To ensure your content is fully accessible, please follow these steps:

• Check for Captions: Only choose videos that include closed captioning.
• Verify Accuracy: Watch the video all the way through to confirm the text matches the spoken audio (and includes any visual information needed to understand the content (e.g., slide content) otherwise an audio description is required for accessibility). If accurate, it can be used as-is. If not accurate, additional steps are required (see Handling Inaccessible Third-Party Videos below).
• Avoid Auto-Generated Text: Automated captions and transcripts are often inaccurate and lack proper punctuation, making them frustrating and difficult for users to follow. 99% accuracy is required to meet accessibility standards.

How to Verify Caption Quality

• Locate the "CC" Button: Check the control bar at the bottom of the video. If there is no "CC" option, the video is not accessible.
• Enable Captions: Click the "CC" button to turn the text on.
• Check the Source: Using YouTube as an example, look at the language indicator to determine how the captions were made:
  • Auto-Generated: Displays as "English (auto-generated)." These are often inaccurate, and they require additional steps to ensure accessibility.
  • Human-Generated: Displays simply as "English" (or the relevant language). This indicates proper, non-automated captioning methods were used.

Finding a Captioned Video

Finding accessible content depends on the platform you are using. You can save time by filtering your search results to exclusively show captioned videos. 

Here is how to locate and verify captioned videos on YouTube:

• Search for your topic: Enter your keywords into the YouTube search bar.
• Open the Filter menu: Click the Filter button located near the top right, just above your first search result.
• Apply the Caption filter: In the drop-down menu, look under the "Features" column and select Subtitles/CC. Your search results will instantly update to show only closed-captioned videos. However, you'll still need to verify their accuracy and whether they are auto-generated or human-edited and whether visual content is described or if an audio description is required to meet accessibility standards.

Whenever possible, avoid inaccessible third-party videos and search for an alternative accessible replacement. If you're not the owner of the video, you won't have access to edit the captions, so you should do the following:

• Contact the Content Owner: Reach out to the creator. Explain that you would like to use their content for academic purposes but cannot do so until it is accurately captioned (or transcribed). Ask if they can make it accessible by the time your term begins.
• Request Permission to Edit: If the owner lacks the time or resources to add captions, ask for their explicit permission to copy and caption the video yourself.
• Provide a Standalone Descriptive Transcript: If you must use a specific YouTube video and cannot obtain permission to alter it, you must create a separate descriptive transcript (including any visual information required to understand the content) as an accommodation. Include the following disclaimer alongside the video link:
  • "This video is hosted and maintained by an individual or organization not affiliated with Old Dominion University. Although ODU does not control the accuracy of the automated closed captioning, a human-generated alternative transcript may be available: [insert transcript]"