[Athen] Question about Chafee Amendment and Captioning

National Deaf Center help at nationaldeafcenter.org
Wed Feb 12 12:17:23 PST 2020


Hi Emma!

We saw your posting on the ATHEN Listserv and wanted to provide you with
some additional guidance that may clarify the institution’s ability to
caption media to provide access and how it can be shared. First, it is
important to differentiate, as others have, between institution-related
media and outside media. Institution-related media could include faculty
produced pre-recorded lectures and videos, student-created video content
for coursework, marketing videos, etc. Outside media typically consists of
videos and other films borrowed from creators and publishers unaffiliated
with the institution to be used for educational purposes. Often you will
find that many YouTube and other media websites do not have accessible
captioned media. Furthermore, automatic captions would not be considered
accessible captioned media due to the high error rate the software
typically produces; therefore, the institution would need to make the media
accessible.

Copyright and Accessibility Laws

Many institutions struggle with balancing the need and requirements for
accessible captioned media with copyright laws. There is good news! In
October 2018, the U.S. Copyright Office <http://copyright.gov/> established
a final ruling that clarifies the right for institutions to caption media
for accessibility purposes without fear of copyright infringement. The Federal
Register Notice 54010
<https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2018-10-26/pdf/2018-23241.pdf> (1) states
this new rule:



“...would allow circumvention of technological measures protecting motion
pictures (including television shows and videos) on DVDs, Blu-ray discs,
and via digital transmissions, for disability services professionals at
educational institutions to create accessible versions for students with
disabilities by adding captions and/or audio description.” (p. 54018)



It is important to note, however, institutions must consider stipulations
outlined in the ruling such as the addition of captions would be necessary
under applicable laws (ADA, Section 504, etc.) and a reasonable effort was
made to obtain an existing accessible version. The ruling
<https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2018-10-26/pdf/2018-23241.pdf#page=10&zoom=auto,-234,710>
also notes that when the institution moves forward with adding captions
that “accessible versions are provided to students or educators and stored
by the educational institution in a manner intended to reasonably prevent
unauthorized further dissemination of a work.” (p. 54019)

Perhaps what Academic Technology may be referring to is the prevention of
“unauthorized further dissemination of a work” and feel the need to
minimize this concern by only sharing captions with the student. You may
want to share the final ruling mentioned above and the following strategies
to ensure videos are strictly for educational purposes and under the
control of the institution:


-

Upload captioned versions to a private YouTube channel (or other video
platform). Links are then only shared with the faculty for use within a
specific course and show during class. Faculty could also store the link on
the institution’s learning management system where only the students and
faculty members have access to the content.

-

Direct upload the captioned version to the learning management system so
that others cannot share outside of the system. Media could still be shown
during class from the platform.


NDC also offers a listserv <http://www.nationaldeafcenter.org/signup> of
professionals working with deaf individuals in postsecondary environments
and may be able to provide additional ideas on ways to control and prevent
sharing of videos to unauthorized users. If interested in joining and
soliciting more ideas, you can sign up for the listserv here:
nationaldeafcenter.org/signup <http://www.nationaldeafcenter.org/signup>

Captioned Media Policies and Procedures

Your post also questions addressing captioned media in all classes,
regardless if there is a specific accommodation need requested through your
office. There is evidence-based research in support of using captioned
media for everyone as it can dramatically improve one’s ability to retain
and recall information from videos including those with ADHD, learning
disabilities, English language learners, navtive English users, deaf
individuals, and more. Morton Ann Gernsbacher’s publication titled Video
Captions Benefit Everyone
<https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5214590/> (2) reviewed over
100 studies on closed captioning and points out several examples of how
captions help hearing people, even those who already have English language
fluency:



Even highly literate adults benefit from captions. For example, when highly
literate adults watch television commercials that are captioned, they
remember brand names better (Brasel & Gips, 2014), and when highly literate
college students watch course lectures that are captioned, they remember
course content better (Steinfeld, 1998). Captions benefit hearing adults,
just as captions benefit hearing children.

With that being said, having a larger discussion with your institution
about a campus-wide captioned media policy may be prudent. We often field
questions about developing captioned media policies and would welcome the
opportunity to work with you as well as provide examples to share with your
institution’s administration. If you are interested, please do reach out to
us directly at help at nationaldeafcenter.org.

We hope the above information and resources are helpful in navigating
captioned media at your institution. If you have any additional questions,
please do not hesitate to contact us. Because we are a federally funded
program our assistance is free and at no cost to you. You may receive a
survey asking for feedback about our post today. Your feedback is
appreciated and will be used to improve our services. Have a great day!

References:


1.

U.S. Copyright Office. (2018) Final Rule 54010. Retrieved from:
govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2018-10-26/pdf/2018-23241.pdf
<https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2018-10-26/pdf/2018-23241.pdf>
2.

Gernsbacher, M.A. (2015) “Video Captions Benefit Everyone”
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5214590/
<https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5214590/>


Additional Resources:


-

Why Captions Provide Equal Access
<http://nationaldeafcenter.org/captionaccess>
-

Creating Offline Captions <http://nationaldeafcenter.org/offlinecaptions>
-

Described and Captioned Media Program <http://www.dcmp.org>
-

The Significance of Harvard’s Settlement on Video Accessibility
<http://nationaldeafcenter.org/news/significance-harvard%E2%80%99s-settlement-video-accessibility>


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NDC is a technical assistance and dissemination center jointly funded by
the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Special Education Programs
(OSEP) and the Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA)
#H326D160001. Disclaimer:
the contents of this email do not necessarily represent the policies of the
federal government.


On Mon, Feb 10, 2020 at 4:52 PM Emma Steincross <ecsteincross111 at stkate.edu>
wrote:


> Hello,

>

> Our institution has some faculty, staff, and students who utilize ASL

> Interpreting and captioning for videos. Our Interpreter Coordinator said

> that her contact in Academic Technology has told her, the interpreters, and

> the faculty that videos he captions can only be made available to the

> specific student with a disability who requires them, that these "captioned

> videos can't be shown in-class because of the Chafee Amendment".

>

> This has caused some confusion for our office and our UDL mindset. Why

> would an accessible version of a video be limited to only one student,

> instead of the faculty member being able to use this version for all

> students? Can faculty members not request captioned versions of videos to

> show their classes in-general? What if there were students in that class

> with disabilities who have either not yet registered with our office, or

> students for whom English is not their first language, who would also

> benefit for captions? What if this student with a disability doesn't have a

> laptop, so they can't view the captioned version anyway because it won't be

> shown in class?

>

> Sorry for the somewhat-hypothetical, but still relevant, questions. I just

> haven't come across this before and don't know enough about the background

> or this amendment to be able to have helpful contributions. Any help is

> much appreciated!

>

> Thanks,

> Emma

>

> Emma Steincross, M.A.

> Access Consultant, Disability Resources

> O'Neill Center | St. Catherine University

> Phone: 651-690-6706

> Pronouns <https://www.mypronouns.org/>: she, her, hers

>

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