Today I participated in a Lunch and Learn event at the Center for Language Teaching Advancement on designing accessible course materials. It was run by Kate Sonka and Dustin Defelise. It was a very interesting group because members ranged from undergraduates with little knowledge or experience in accessibility to those, like me, that have spent a decent amount of time creating accessible content to others that have a detailed knowledge of the WCAG 2.0 standards. I love when discussions involve a wide range of experiences and backgrounds.

One thing we touched on that I haven’t successfully included in my courses is the presence of transcripts in addition to closed captioning. For me, captions are relatively easy, since I record my lectures using a script. Then it’s just a few steps using the YouTube captioning tools to get the timing lined up properly. Transcripts are a different beast, though, because a true transcript should be able to be used as a stand alone document without the student needing to view or hear the video in anyway. This means that all parts of the video need to be described. Have an image on a PowerPoint slide? Needs to be described. Showing a data graph? Needs to be described. Presenting a clip of some animal behavior? Needs to be described. I completely understand the purpose of the transcript, but at the moment, it does seem a little overwhelming to imagine creating one for every video.

Does anyone out there have time saving best practices for creating transcripts?