One-Year Engagement
ADA Title II Media Accessibility Program
A one-year program that brings your instructional and public-facing media under a documented, WCAG 2.1 AA–aligned workflow you can stand behind with DOJ and OCR.
Public universities now have a clear federal standard for digital accessibility under ADA Title II: WCAG 2.1 Level AA for web and mobile content, including video and audio. The question is no longer whether you "should" address captions and audio description — it's how you will do it across course media, trainings, and public-facing/marketing content in a way that is realistic, defensible, and sustainable. The CampusCaptions ADA Title II Media Accessibility Program is a structured, one-year engagement that takes you from where you are now to "we can show DOJ/OCR that our video and audio content is being managed under WCAG 2.1 AA."
What this one-year program is
This is not just a captioning contract or a one-off audit. It is a one-year media accessibility program that builds a repeatable way to handle captions and audio description for your university's most important video and audio content — both instructional and public-facing — under ADA Title II and WCAG 2.1 AA.
The program focuses on time-based media in:
- LMS courses and lecture capture
- Training and compliance modules
- Public-facing web content
- Official YouTube/streaming channels
- Marketing and advancement media
It is built around six pillars:
- 01Governance and ownership
- 02Media inventory and risk mapping
- 03WCAG-based triage rules for captions and audio description
- 04Standard production workflows
- 05Campus standards and training
- 06Exceptions, archiving, and documentation
CampusCaptions designs this program with your existing accessibility, teaching & learning, IT, and communications teams — and then acts as the execution engine underneath it.
Governance and ownership
The first step is deciding who owns what so media accessibility is not 'just IT,' 'just online learning,' or 'just the web team.'
A typical governance model looks like this:
- Usually an accessibility or equity office (for example, an Office of Equity and Access or Accessibility & Accommodations). This group owns Title II interpretation, your exceptions framework, and your overall digital accessibility policy.
- Typically your Center for Teaching and Learning / CELT. They own course-media practices, faculty training, and LMS guidance for instructors creating and publishing instructional video.
- IT and LMS/video platform administrators (Brightspace, Kaltura, Echo360, Panopto, etc.). They own player capabilities, closed-caption and AD track support, integrations, and technical publishing rules across both course media and public platforms.
- Central communications and web teams who manage public-facing and marketing media on the main domain, key subdomains, and official YouTube/streaming channels. They ensure new public media follows accessibility standards and that legacy content is triaged appropriately.
- CampusCaptions (and any internal media staff we coordinate with) runs the day-to-day production: captioning, audio description, quality assurance, and file handling.
This structure gives your media accessibility program a clear institutional home and a defined place where CampusCaptions plugs in as the operational arm under your umbrella, rather than as a side project.
Media inventory and risk map (first 60–90 days)
You cannot manage what you cannot see. The first 60–90 days are about building a media inventory and risk map across both instructional and public-facing content.
We work with your teams to:
- Main university website and key subdomains
- LMS courses (e.g., Brightspace or similar)
- Official YouTube/Vimeo and other streaming channels
- Central Kaltura/Echo360 or similar lecture-capture libraries
- Training and compliance systems (HR, student conduct, safety, etc.)
- Central marketing and advancement media repositories
- Other 'official' repositories your students, staff, alumni, or public rely on
- Required course media and high-enrollment classes
- Essential services (admissions, financial aid, registration, health, student support)
- Mandatory trainings and compliance modules
- High-visibility marketing, leadership, and advancement content
- Other or archival content
- Prioritize required instructional content and essential public services first, then mandatory trainings, then high-visibility marketing and other public media. This ensures the highest-impact content is addressed early instead of spreading effort evenly across everything.
The outcome of this phase is a simple, actionable picture: 'Here's where our highest-risk hours of video live, by system and unit,' covering both the LMS and your public-facing footprint.
WCAG-based triage rules for captions & audio description
Once you know where your content lives, you need clear rules for what each video or audio file needs. The program uses WCAG 2.1 Level AA as the anchor, not guesswork.
Captions: All prerecorded synchronized media in scope must have accurate captions. Auto-generated captions can be a starting point, but they must be reviewed and corrected before they count — whether the video is in a course, on a training portal, or embedded on the public site.
Audio description decision rule: "Would a blind or low-vision student, staff member, or member of the public miss important meaning if they only heard the native audio?" If the answer is yes, that video needs audio description.
To make this easy to apply across campus, we use a three-bucket rubric:
- Talking-head lectures, interviews, or announcements where all meaningful slide text, charts, and visuals are fully read or explained aloud.
- Slide or webinar content with some unspoken titles or bullet points, occasional visual-only elements like charts not fully explained, or public-facing videos where a few on-screen labels or visuals need to be named.
- Demos and process videos, chart-heavy explainers, orientation and training modules with on-screen instructions, and promotional or storytelling pieces where visuals are the main carrier of the message.
CampusCaptions helps encode this rubric into your internal guidance — FAQs, video accessibility guides, and checklists — so instructional units and communications/marketing teams make consistent decisions instead of inventing their own rules.
Standard production workflow
With governance, inventory, and triage rules in place, the program establishes one standard path from 'raw video' to 'accessible, published asset,' for both instructional and public-facing media.
The workflow usually looks like this:
- Academic units, central HR/training teams, communications, and marketing submit videos through a simple form or an automated feed from your LMS/video platforms. Each submission includes unit, context (course, training, campaign, etc.), whether the media is required or optional, and desired turnaround.
- Using your WCAG-based rubric, CampusCaptions classifies each file as captions-only or captions+audio description and assigns it to a priority band based on your risk ladder (critical instructional/service, training, public/marketing).
- Captions are generated and then human-reviewed/corrected to your institution's standards for accuracy, timing, non-speech information, and speaker identification.
- Audio description is scripted and recorded at the agreed level (light vs fuller), then mixed to fit into the natural pauses of the program audio, whether the video is for a course, a training, or a public campaign.
- Finished caption files and AD tracks are delivered in the formats your systems need and returned to your LMS and platforms (e.g., Brightspace, Kaltura, training portals, public web players, YouTube). Clear instructions and checks ensure captions and AD are actually enabled and visible to users.
This is where CampusCaptions handles the heavy lifting, so faculty, staff, and marketing teams are not manually pushing every file through tools or troubleshooting technical quirks on their own.
Campus standards and training
To make your media accessibility program sustainable, the work needs to be supported by clear standards and training, not just after-the-fact fixes.
The program includes:
- Written guidelines for accuracy, timing, line length, non-speech indicators (e.g., '[music]', '[applause]'), and speaker identification, aligned with higher-education best practices. These standards apply across course media, trainings, and public-facing videos.
- A concise guide for AD writers and reviewers that covers tone (neutral, objective), tense (usually present), what to describe, what to omit, and how to handle complex visuals like charts and diagrams. Wherever possible, examples are drawn from your own course content, training modules, and marketing pieces.
- Narrating meaningful visuals as they appear
- Reading key text and labels aloud
- Structuring content so captions and AD are easier to add later
- Sessions tailored for instructors, staff who create trainings, and communications/marketing teams who produce public-facing media.
The goal is to reduce future remediation demand by helping creators make born-accessible content and to support your broader universal design, inclusive teaching, and inclusive communications efforts.
Exceptions, archiving, and documentation
Finally, the program makes sure your institution can defend its decisions under the Title II rule.
- We help you apply the limited 'archived content' and similar exceptions carefully. Together, we define when older course videos, trainings, or public media are truly archival and no longer in active use, and we document why specific video sets are treated that way.
- The program encourages a simple, formal internal process for any claims of undue burden or fundamental alteration. These decisions are evaluated and recorded by the appropriate office, not made informally at the department or project level.
- Hours of media captioned and described, broken down by instructional vs public-facing
- High-risk areas covered so far (courses, services, trainings, campaigns)
- Remaining backlog by category
- Exceptions and archive decisions logged
If DOJ or OCR ever ask, 'What have you done since the extension to 2027?', your institution can show a structured program with evidence, not just intentions.
Where CampusCaptions fits
CampusCaptions is the operational partner that makes this program real across both instructional and public-facing media.
Within your governance model, we:
- Help design your media inventory, triage rules, and workflows around WCAG 2.1 AA and ADA Title II requirements.
- Run the day-to-day production work for captions, audio description, QA, and file management across your prioritized course, training, and public media.
- Provide clear, institution-level reports showing progress, risk coverage, and remaining work so your leadership can see the path to compliance.
You stay focused on policy, training, and campus-wide culture change. We ensure the videos and recordings themselves actually meet the standard.
Ready to plan your year?
If you're responsible for ADA Title II digital accessibility and you're looking at a growing pile of course videos, lecture captures, training modules, and public-facing/marketing media, you don't need another abstract memo — you need a program.
The ADA Title II Media Accessibility Program gives you a one-year, structured way to:
- Define ownership and expectations across academic, IT, and communications units
- See your full media landscape clearly
- Apply WCAG-based rules to captions and audio description for both instructional and public-facing content
- Put a scalable workflow in place
- Train your campus creators and communicators
- Document the decisions that matter
Additional Resource
Reference Guide
Download our reference guide on Title II digital accessibility compliance.
Stony Brook University Title II Digital Accessibility Compliance Guide