Commitment to Captioning is an ongoing institution-wide campaign hosted by UAB’s Disability Support Services (DSS). This campaign encourages universal access to communication and motivates those within the UAB community to distribute the most inclusive options when it comes to video content for students, faculty, and staff.

UAB’s DSS office can help faculty and staff in many ways, such as:

• Recognizing when materials must be captioned
• Locating captioned media
• Creating captioned media
• Arranging for captions to be added by an outside vendor. 

Captioning and transcription are essential tools in guaranteeing access to course material and institutional communications for everyone. To comply with evolving legislation and educational requirements regarding disability services, UAB is establishing a set of best practices and required guidelines for captioning course materials. Additionally, DSS is encouraging faculty and staff to incorporate captioning protocols into their existing process for producing new video content, classroom presentations, and campus-wide events.

Captioning benefits individuals with disabilities by providing access to communication. In addition, international students and bilingual students can benefit from captioning, as well as students who have online pre-recorded lecture videos or online course materials. While these scenarios don’t fall under a disability or legally obligated requirement, adding captions and transcripts will be beneficial for all students, faculty and staff regarding a universal design approach. 

For more information or to request disability accommodations, contact dss@uab.edu.