Accessible Media Production
Accessible Media Production (AMP) is a unit designed to support instructors with digital accessibility accommodations. When a student with an SDC-approved accommodation for closed captions, audio description, or fully accessible course documents registers for an academic course, AMP will work with the instructor(s) to facilitate and support the remediation of accessible course media and documents.
Instructors should continue to work toward the Universal Design Goals of the Accessibility Rubric, and AMP is here to support accommodations with needs that go beyond those goals.
Who is eligible for this service?
AMP services are available to instructors who have a student with an accommodation for closed captioning, audio description, and/or fully accessible documents.
How does this service work?
AMP will contact you (the instructor), typically before the semester starts, to inform you of the accommodation in your course. Once you respond to our initial email by answering an intake questionnaire and agreeing to the support, AMP will initiate accessibility remediation of your course content by accommodation type and provide a timeline for remediation.
During the semester of support, AMP will also provide accessibility consultation as you create new materials and answer any questions you may have regarding accessibility. You can request accessibility remediation on content at any point during the semester while the accommodation student is enrolled in the course.
Accommodations Supported by AMP
Closed Captioning
Closed Captioning is an accommodation for accurate, human-edited captions on videos. This includes all videos in the course, such as optional or supplemental content, content on publisher platforms, and content on the internet (such as YouTube). Human-edited transcripts for audio-only media such as podcasts or radio broadcasts are also included in this accommodation.
Closed Captioning Support
AMP will assist by adding human-edited captions to videos and human-edited transcripts for audio in your course. This includes videos you create and lecture capture. AMP will help you source human-captioned video, and in some instances, provide captioning for online videos such as those on the internet. In some cases, AMP will assist by consulting with the publisher (if the video is available through a textbook publisher via their course software) to have captions added to the video. AMP will provide consultation on how to record and source captioned videos.
Audio Description
Audio description is an accommodation for audio described videos, meaning a narrative audio track is attached to the video describing any visuals (action, background, text, mood, etc.) that may not be conveyed by audio alone. On instructor-made video recordings, use of descriptive language is recommended to convey information about on-screen visuals (text, graphics, or anything not covered by dialogue).
Audio Description Support
To ensure all visual content is accessible, AMP adds descriptive narrative tracks to videos when the dialogue is insufficient. This includes videos you create and videos sourced from the web. In some instances, AMP will coordinate with the video publisher (if the video is available through the CSU Libraries) to have audio description added to the content.
Fully Accessible Documents
Fully accessible documents is an accommodation that ensures all course documents (things like PDFs, Word docs, PowerPoints, Excel files, etc.) are accessible to assistive technology. Course documents are required to meet specific technical standards such as WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) or PDF/UA (Universal Accessibility).
Fully Accessible Documents Support
AMP will assist by remediating your course documents to comply with accessibility standards. This service goes beyond the Universal Design Goals of the Accessibility Rubric, aiming to create a fully accessible document. AMP will consult on accessibility best practices as instructors create content for the course and will provide remediation beyond those best practices. In some cases, the quality of the document (specifically, scanned material) may prevent it from being remediated. In cases like this, the content may need to come from a different source (e.g., a publisher copy of a journal article rather than a scan) or replaced. Complex images that require advanced knowledge of the content may still require alternative text description provided by the instructor. AMP will provide consultation for accessible document best practices.
Frequently Asked Questions
For courses without SDC-approved accommodations:
This service is only provided for students with a listed accommodation. AMP can answer related accessibility questions, but without an enrolled student with a listed accommodation, AMP will not be able to provide accessibility remediation support.
Yes. While accommodation letters tell us what a specific student needs right now, accessibility is about making sure your course is ready for any student. Accessibility is a fundamental pillar of Universal Design for Learning and CSU’s land-grant mission.
By building accessible materials now, you also save yourself significant time by not having to retrofit your content during a busy semester when an accommodation request arrives.
For courses with SDC-approved accommodations:
No. While they are a step in the right direction, auto-generated captions are not ADA-compliant because they can lack punctuation and have inaccuracies that can alter the meaning of the text.
No, transcripts are for audio without video (think of content such as radio broadcasts or podcasts) and are not a substitute for closed captions. You can provide transcripts alongside captions, but they are not a 1:1 substitute.
No, as Canvas does not have automated speech recognition and will not create a caption file for your video. It is recommended to use a platform such as Echo360, then link to the video or embed it on a page in Canvas.
Like Canvas, PowerPoint does not have automated speech recognition and will not create a caption file for your video. To make a video in PowerPoint accessible, it is best to link to the video or embed a captioned video. Another option is to create a caption file on another video platform, such as Echo360, then manually add the caption file to the video inside the PowerPoint.
Yes, the goal is to make sure all our content can be used by all students, regardless of their ability. If something is optional, we would want to give that option to all students.