Creating and curating accessible digital media can take time and forethought. If you plan on incorporating pre-recorded media assets into your course content, this article will review best practices and considerations for making it more accessible to a broader range of people, including those with cognitive, motor, auditory, and visual disabilities. By learning about and adopting these practices, your content can be most effective for all learners including those who have an identified need and those who may be hesitant to share a need. 

There are also new legal implications for digital content that elevate the necessity to review our best practices and bring course materials in line with expectations. For more, read Brown’s Digital Accessibility Policy draft.

At Brown, all course media, including videos, must include accessible visual elements, which is described in the aforementioned policy draft. This is achieved by adhering to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).

WCAG has various levels of compliance requirements for digital elements like color contrast standards, verbal descriptions, and closed captioning, and all digital material at Brown must comply with their 2.1 AA standard.

It is essential for instructors to understand and implement these guidelines to ensure that our course materials meet federal accessibility compliance standards and foster an inclusive digital learning environment.

These best practices should be considered for all digital media that you are linking to or assigning in your course. This includes media that you self-record, content that you produce with a campus learning design or media partner, and third-party media that you source for your students to watch like YouTube videos from experts outside of campus or resources through Course Reserves in the library.

To conform to WCAG guidelines, all educational videos included in Brown courses are required to have human-reviewed captions. Brown recommends that instructors make their best effort to comply with this requirement. Panopto will automatically generate machine captions for videos you upload to your Media Library in Canvas. You can then either edit these captions yourself in Panopto to correct potential mistakes, or you can request human-reviewed captions and text transcripts of videos by emailing [email protected]. 

When searching for third party media (for example, links to YouTube videos), high quality captions should be a pre-requisite for inclusion in your course. Make sure to select videos or podcasts that meet accessibility requirements. 

Human-reviewed text transcripts should be provided with your videos and podcasts. These can take the form of accessible PDFs or Word docs that are linked in Canvas alongside your videos.

Audio description is an audio track that plays simultaneously to a piece of media’s source audio, with the purpose of providing a running narration describing key visual elements or other important information for visually impaired viewers. 

In ideal circumstances, audio description can be toggled on or off based on a viewer’s needs. At Brown, the Panopto player which is linked to your Canvas course, has the capacity to play back audio descriptive tracks. For more on preparing audio descriptions in Panopto, see their guide on How To Add Audio Descriptions.

It can be challenging to write these descriptions. Below are some general guidelines from Pope Tech’s blog:

• Describe the visuals that are important to understand what the video is communicating. Don’t describe every detail.
• Just describe the visuals – don’t interpret the visuals.
• The description should be in the present tense, active voice, and third person.
• If the video has information that’s only provided through text (like someone’s name, email, or content) all the information conveyed by that text should be included.

Further details on writing audio description can be explored via the Described and Captioned Media Program Description Key.
A best practice that we recommend when creating original media is to plan your video or audio script to use verbal descriptions, describing any relevant on-screen information up front when you are recording your media, thus diminishing the need for a highly descriptive audio description track. We include some examples in the section below, and there are more helpful resources on audio description and verbal descriptions on Harvard’s Digital Accessibility Services website.

Any meaningful visuals that appear on screen in your videos (e.g., graphs, diagrams or images) should be described in the spoken audio. Non-verbal queues–such as pointing, gesturing, or on-screen annotation–are not sufficient unless they are also accompanied by a clear verbal description. 

• If multiple speakers are in a video, ensure that they introduce themselves so their voices are identifiable.
• Focus on describing what is seen, without any personal assumptions or conclusions. 

• If you’re doing a screen capture (e.g., a software demonstration), describe clearly what you’re selecting and where it’s located within the application or screen. Describe any changes that occur as a result of your actions. Narrate what you type.
  • “I am highlighting the entirety of row 30, and selecting ‘Print’ from the ‘File’ menu on the top left. This will open up a new dialogue box from which you should adjust your paper size parameters.”
• When using math equations, chemistry formulas, or music notation in a video, these should be read aloud instead of simply gesturing to them.
• To ensure you’re providing the proper verbal descriptions, as you read your script, ask yourself: if you were to play back your video with audio only, could you follow along? What information is missing? 

All audio, whether narration or audio description, in your media assets should be clear, have adequate and consistent volume, and should be devoid of excessive background noise. Good quality audio makes it easier for students to follow along without losing interest or dropping off midway (West, 2024).

When incorporating any visual elements in your course media (e.g., presentations, graphics, videos), applying accessibility standards can help ensure all students will benefit from the material. 

Media players are the playback tools that students interface with when they encounter videos in your course. In most cases for media uploaded to the Media Library in Canvas at Brown, Panopto will be the host for your videos and will provide the media player. 

If you are using a different learning management system (LMS) or website for course content, you may need to use a different media player. You should ensure that media player windows are resizable so that students can customize their viewing experience. The video player should contain clear labels and playback buttons (e.g., pause, play, fast-forward) instead of starting automatically. Some common video hosting platforms that include these controls are YouTube and Vimeo.

When incorporating third-party media in your course (e.g., YouTube video), it must follow accessibility best practices established by WCAG 2.1 AA, such as captions, transcripts, verbal descriptions and color contrast standards. 

If the available third-party media does not meet accessibility requirements, the content can still be implemented by utilizing alternative formats such as: 

• Self-recorded video: Produce a self-recorded video lecture that speaks to the topic. This facilitates the integration of accessibility features, such as accurate captions and transcripts, from the start of the creation process. 
• Text-based document: Develop written content, such as a handout, that covers any important information that would have been discussed in the third-party media. 
• Curate other media: Curate a list of other recommended sources on the topic (e.g., research papers or articles). 

• Web Content and Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.1): The official W3C website including the accessibility guidelines for digital content, such as time-based media.
• Making Multimedia and Websites Accessible: Many academic websites include detailed guidelines on making accessible multimedia for educational purposes such as this site from UNC Greensboro. 
• Contrast and Color Accessibility: This WebAIM website provides further details on contrast requirements and the use of color to convey information. 
• WebAIM: Contrast Checker: This is a recommended site for use whenever working with color for fonts and graphics.
• Accessibility - Color Contrast: Another great resource from University of Pittsburgh University Center for Teaching and Learning.
• Federal Guidelines for Color Contrast Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1: This is an important resource for better understanding federal guidelines around the use of color in media.
• Guide for Choosing Accessible Data visualizations: This is a helpful guide from Harvard that covers use of shapes, color for distinguishing meaning in graphics.
• 3Play Media’s Ultimate Guide to Audio Description
• Description of Visual Information (W3C)
• How to create audio descriptions for accessible YouTube videos (PopeTech Blog)
• Training Sessions and Materials | Audio Description Project (American Council of the Blind)