Digital accessibility student guide

Multimedia accessibility is important in ensuring all members of the audience can access the content in an equitable way. This can involve the production of captions, a transcript, and audio descriptions, as well as the use of an accessible media player for playback.  

City systems use accessible media players and City has switched on automated captions and/or transcripts for a number of our services. These automated captions and/or transcript are available in content created by students and for meetings hosted by students.

1. Automated captions and a transcript will automatically display on any multimedia content that you upload for video assignments or Forum posts to Kaltura MediaSpace.
2. You can enable automatic transcription in any Zoom meeting your are hosting for a study or project group.
3. You can advise participants in your Teams meeting how to view the captions/transcript. You can also generate automatic transcripts for your Microsoft Teams recordings.

As a student you are not responsible for providing corrected captions and transcripts on videos that you produce as part of an assessment or a learning activity (except where this is stated as a part of the assessment requirements). 

We have provided links below to tips and best practices for improving the accessibility of the multimedia content you produce. We have also included links to guidance on correcting your captions if you are interested in exploring this further for your Kaltura MediaSpace content.

• Use supported video file formats that support closed captions and subtitles,
• Avoid compressing your media files, optimising media compatibility or turning your presentation into a video – closed captions, subtitles or alternate audio tracks for video description are not preserved,
• Include captions with readable text overlay and an interactive transcript,
• Plan for audio description of visual information,
• Plan for live captioning, audio description and sign language availability for any live online events you host,
• Use an accessible media player,
• Consider speaker visibility – some users use mouth movement to understand spoken language, so ensure the speaker’s face is visible,
• Avoid using media content that flashes more than three times in any one-second period.

If you are interested in correcting the captions for your video and audio content, review our guide on how to create captions with Kaltura Reach for step-by-step instructions on correcting your captions and transcript for multimedia uploaded to Kaltura MediaSpace.

• Create captions with Kaltura Reach