Accessibility & UDL in Action: Course Readiness Series - Session 5: Captioning Cafe - Plan, Record, Caption, and Share Accessible Videos

This is the fifth session in the Accessibility & UDL in Action: Course Readiness Series, a hands-on summer professional development series designed to help faculty make practical improvements to their courses before the start of the term. This session was to support faculty with both existing videos and future video creation. The focus was on planning ahead so videos are easier to caption, easier to navigate, and more useful for students. Faculty learned practical strategies for reviewing captions and prioritizing existing videos for accessibility improvements. Topics included captioning expectations, common captioning barriers, captions versus transcripts, reviewing and correcting auto-captions, planning before recording, decluttering slides or screenshares, speaking visual information aloud, keeping videos short and focused, and identifying which existing videos should be prioritized for remediation. Faculty were encouraged to bring one existing video or one planned video idea. During the supported work time, participants may review captions, identify next steps, or create an accessible video planning outline. Participants left with a captioning action plan, a corrected caption sample, or an accessible video planning outline, along with an Accessible Video Planning Checklist + Caption Review Guide resource. This session is appropriate for all faculty who use or plan to create instructional videos, recorded lectures, demonstrations, or multimedia course materials.