Policies

Captioned Media Policy

Policy Purpose

Farmingdale State College relies on administrators, faculty and staff to provide equal access to all programs and activities for students with disabilities. The College is committed to adhering to the requirements of Sections 504 & 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act of 2009 by providing reasonable accommodations to qualified students with disabilities. Students, who are deaf or have a hearing loss as well as other students, may require accommodations and/or modifications to course materials.

As such, it is the responsibility of all academic departments and faculty to ensure that all courses utilize only media products (videos, movie clips, DVDs, films, streaming media from the internet, etc.) with open or closed‐captioning or subtitles, or discuss an alternate assignment with the Disability Services Center.

Persons Affected

Faculty, Staff, Students

Procedures

Captioned Media:
Starting in the Spring 2017 semester, Departments/faculty must purchase captioned media only, and they must review all media currently in use in courses to check if the material is captioned; if the material is uncaptioned, the material must be replaced with a captioned version. (Captioned materials are usually identified by the letters “CC” or a small television‐like icon:
Regardless of the product labeling, it is always necessary to test‐run the material to verify whether or not the item is truly closed captioned and if the captioning is accurate).

It is important to note that, when purchasing DVDs, you should be certain that the discs are standard DVDs and not Blu‐ray discs. Captioned standard DVDs can be played in any of the campus’ TECs (Technology Enhanced Classrooms) by placing them in the DVD drive of the TEC’s computer.

If it is not feasible to immediately purchase a replacement, faculty can consult with a librarian at Greenley Library about the availability of a captioned version of the media through interlibrary loan (an interlibrary loan request should be made at least two weeks before the material is needed).

Alternative Media Selection
Faculty are encouraged to look for an alternative media selection in the library’s Academic Video Online (AVON) database, a media streaming service that includes captions and transcripts. A librarian can assist with finding an appropriate captioned media resource in the Academic Video Online (AVON) collection.

Captioning Existing Media
If a particular uncaptioned media resource is an absolutely essential component of a course or program and no alternative can be found or substituted, it may be possible to have the College send the uncaptioned material to a captioning service. Though, in order to comply with copyright laws, media cannot be captioned without the copyright owner’s written permission and it is the responsibility of the department or faculty to get written permission from the copyright owner to have the media captioned. The process to obtain permission to caption media can be very lengthy and time consuming. The process can take anywhere from two weeks to several months. Additionally, copyright owners may not always respond to requests for permission. (It is recommended that the department or faculty always have an alternative plan). Once permission to caption the material has been obtained, the department chair must send a request to have the material captioned to the Instructional Technology Support Center along with a copy of the permission to caption the media from the copyright holder and a statement that the material is an essential component of the course or program. (If the uncaptioned media is actually owned by the faculty member, then the media must be donated to or ownership transferred to the College before the College can pay to have it captioned).

How do I get permission to add captions to materials that are copyrighted?

• Look over the material to find the publisher’s or owner’s information.
• Call or email the publisher or owner to ask permission to add captions to their work.
• Give a brief explanation of what, where, when and why you need permission to copy their work.
• If they verbally agree to allow permission to copy the material, ask to follow up with a written agreement.

How do I get copyrighted media captioned after receiving permission?

• After receiving your Chair’s approval, attach a copy of the completed and signed Copyright Authorization to Caption to the e‐mail request sent to Instructional Technology Support at tecsupport@farmingdale.edu to have media sent to a captioning service. (Actions are being taken to automate the approval process for payment of captioning services through the Axiom Mentor digital system; notification will be made upon availability).
• Maintain a copy for your files.

Web‐based Media
Web‐based media, such as YouTube videos, that are used in courses must always be captioned. When preparing to use this type of media, search specifically for videos that have closed captions: type your keywords in the YouTube search bar, click the Filters button, then click CC (closed caption).

• Instructions for turning on captioning for YouTube videos
• Instructions for turning on captioning for various other media players

Faculty Generated Video
For Panopto videos created by faculty for use in Brightspace, the captioning procedures are:

• Faculty should post the following message under the Panopto video link: “Please contact the Disability Services Center if assistance is needed with captioning video lectures in learning modules.”
• If a student contacts the Disability Services Center stating that they require captions for Panopto videos, then the Disability Services Center will contact Maya Bentz in Distance Learning.
• Distance Learning will send the video lectures to a captioning service. (It usually takes several days to have Panopto videos captioned).

Faculty should verify that captions are correct in the video lectures.

Responsible Office

Office of the Provost