Synchronize alternative content for presentations

Requirement: Non-live multimedia presentations must feature accessible alternative content (such as a text transcript) that can be read in sync with the presentation. Live presentations should make every effort to deliver a similar level of accessibility with the help of services such as someone writing text describing audio or graphic content.

Tools such as MagPIE from the National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM) are very useful toward making multimedia presentations accessible to a broad range of users and Web browsers.

Whenever possible, any sort of multimedia-based presentation should provide synchronized alternative content. For example, a five-minute campus tour with video and audio should feature a text equivalent for each section of the tour. This would allow hearing-impaired users or those users who have no audio devices on their computers to view the tour and also read the audio presentation.

By the same token, visually impaired users or those users who do not have any multimedia capabilities on their computers should be able to use the text equivalent to participate in the campus tour.

It should be noted that typical close-captioning devices for video are not readily made accessible as the text captions are incorporated into the video signal and not sent or stored as separate text files.

For the purposes of the campus policy, all archived presentations, that is to say presentations that are not live, must provide synchronized alternative content. Live presentations should make every effort to provide some sort of alternative content. For example, a video conference that also features a text-based chat tool; the presenters should make arrangements for a facilitator to type descriptive text and repeat audio questions and answers as text.

Recognizably, given current technical limitations, there may be incidents where providing syncronized alternative content is not practical. If this appears to be the case, the presenters should make an accessible archived copy of the presentation available as soon as possible after the live presentation.

Presenters should also take steps to inform users of the availability of this transcript.