From the University of Washington, Terrill Thompson, Technology Accessibility Specialist, will describe UW’s multi-faceted approach to video accessibility, including their strategies, funding methods, and tools they have developed to facilitate captioning and audio description on campus.

1. Able Player, YTCA,
& Video Accessibility at the
University of Washington
Terrill Thompson
Technology Accessibility Specialist
University of Washington
tft@uw.edu
http://uw.edu/accessibility

2. Public Videos
• 57 known UW-affiliated YouTube channels
• Over 7,000 videos
• Nearly 2,500 hours of programming
• At least 18 videos with over 100,000 views
• Cost to caption (@ $2/min) = $300,000
• Cost to describe (@ $10/min) = $1.5 Million

3. Lecture Capture
• As of Fall 2016:
– 58,370 videos in our system
– 9,914 videos (over 6 million minutes) viewed
• Cost to caption (@ $2/min) = $12 million
• Cost to describe (@ $10/min) = $60 million

4. Undue burden?
No.

5. Why Making Accessible Video
Isn't an Undue Burden
• Cost of Producing a 10-minute
documentary-style video: $10,000
• Cost to caption (@ $2/min) = $20 (0.2%)
• Cost to describe (@ $10/min) = $100 (1%)

6. Why make a video if you don't
want people to access it?
<video src="myvideo.mp4"></video>

7. You want people to play it.
<video src="myvideo.mp4" controls></video>

8. You want people to know
what's being said.
<video src="myvideo.mp4" controls>
<track kind="captions" src="mycaptions.vtt">
</video>

9. You want people to know
who's saying it.
<video src="myvideo.mp4" controls>
<track kind="captions" src="mycaptions.vtt">
<track kind="descriptions" src="mydesc.vtt">
</video>

10. You want everyone to access it!

11. Able Player
• https://ableplayer.github.io/ableplayer
• Free, open source, HTML5 media player
– Full support for HTML <track> element (captions,
subtitles, descriptions, chapters, & metadata)
– Chapters, captions, & descriptions are automatically
assembled into an interactive transcript
– Fully accessible player controls
– Supports multiple versions of a video (described vs
non-described); user can toggle using "Description"
button
– Can play YouTube videos

12. How UW Does Accessible Video
• Disability Resources for Students (DRS) and
Disability Services Office (DSO) provide
funding and support for captioning and audio
description if individuals request it as an
accommodation
• UW-IT Accessible Technology Services (ATS)
provides internal grant funding for making
high impact videos accessible as universal
design practice
• ATS provides training and support (2 staff)

13. Evangelizing Accessible Video
• Talking up the benefits
• Offering support
– One-on-one consultation
– Group trainings
• Building Community
– IT Accessibility Liaisons
– Captioning parties
• Providing resources
– Website with detailed instructions
– Videos to help promote the cause
– Centralized "seed" funding

14. How We Manage Our Internal
Captioning Grant
• UW-IT secures central pool of funding
• The word is spread through publications, talks,
videos, user groups, etc.
• People apply (simple application form; no
deadline)
• Applications reviewed by committee
• Priority goes to videos that are:
1. Highly visible,
2. High impact,
3. Multiple use, and/or
4. Strategic

15. We build tools to support our
video accessibility goals
• Able Player
https://ableplayer.github.io/ableplayer
• YouTube Caption Auditor (YTCA)
https://github.com/terrill/ytca

16. YTCA helps us to prioritize.

17. For More Information…
• UW Accessible Technology
http://uw.edu/accessibility
• Creating Accessible Video
http://uw.edu/accessibility/videos
• DO-IT Videos
http://uw.edu/doit/videos