Category: Accessibility

Panopto: Automatic Speech Recognition Captioning

WordPress User [jbw] Accessibility, Panopto, Technical Updates Leave a comment

We are pleased to announce that Panopto Automatic Speech Recognition Captioning was approved at the recent Quality and Standards Committee.

This means that for the academic year 2025-26 and beyond, automatic captions will be applied to your Panopto recordings.

Viewers see the captions appearing at the bottom of the screen or can download a transcript:

Screenshot showing a Panopto recording with captions

Whilst captions will appear automatically next academic year, colleagues can already apply automatic captions to all the recordings in a Panopto folder. Consult Panopto’s guidance on how to do this.

We have been working to enable automatic captions for several years, so we welcome this development. As part of this work, we have taken mitigating steps to address some of the challenges and concerns, including:

  • Inaccuracies of automatic captions
  • Clear expectations for staff and students
  • Managing multi-language courses

Automatic Captions are applied to all recordings on the site once we enable this feature. The default language that will be applied to module folders is English. Modules delivered 100% through the medium of Welsh will have their folder settings manually updated to generate Automatic Captions in Welsh.

We have also undertaken an Equality Impact Assessment to address some of the challenges posed by Automatic Captioning which is available by request (elearning@aber.ac.uk).

To facilitate the enabling of automatic captioning, the Lecture Capture policy has been updated. We review all of our policies (Lecture Capture, Blackboard Required Minimum Presence, and E-submission) annually. We will release further communications regarding these updates in due course.

We will now start work on updating Panopto to enable Automatic Speech Recognition captioning for 2025-26.

Ally AI Alt Text Assistant

WordPress User [kaw] Accessibility, Blackboard, Virtual Learning Environment(VLE) Leave a comment

If you are stuck for ideas for the alternative text on your images, the Ally AI Alt Text Assistant can give you suggestions.

Screenshot of the ALT Text screen with Auto-generate description highlighted

You should always check the suggestion provided by the AI Assistant as it may not always provide an accurate description of the image. You can edit any the AI generated suggestions.

Have a look at the accessible learning material guidance to find out why Alt Text is important. The Poet training tool provides guidance on how and when to use Alt Text as well as online tools to practice creating useful Alt text for images (please note that the Poet web site is an external site and is not available in Welsh).

Blackboard Ally

WordPress User [kaw] Accessibility, Blackboard, Ultra Leave a comment

Blackboard Ally is available to everyone who uses Blackboard.

Any student can download course content in alternative formats for free. If you want to know more have a look at Which format should I use table on the Ally website.

All staff can check the accessibility of their course and get help fixing any issues.

Since September 2023, when AU started using Blackboard Ally, staff and students have been making use of it.

Alternative Formats

  • 3579 individual users download an alternative format
  • 22,912 documents converted
  • Alternative formats used in 1100 courses

The most downloaded alternative format is the Tagged PDF. Tagged PDF is useful for reading on the go, or for students who like to read information to search, print, or take notes. It can also be good for anyone who uses screen readers or text-to-speech with speed adjustment.

Course Accessibility

Staff have also been using Ally to make content more accessible for students:

  • 282 fixes to content
  • 66 courses have had content fixed
  • AU accessibility score improved from 65.7% to 69.5%

To find out more about using Ally have a look at our Staff and Student FAQs.

Accessibility – Using External Resources

WordPress User [kaw] Accessibility Leave a comment

When using external resources such as PDFs or scans and videos in your teaching and learning activities, it is important to check how accessible they are and ensure that all students will be able to use them. This is crucial if you are relying on them to support a learning activity, because usually it isn’t possible for you to edit such an external resource. If the item you want to use is not very accessible, then look for an alternative, otherwise some students will be excluded.

The guidance in the AU accessibility checklist can be used to evaluate how accessible an external resource is.

Please select the most accessible material available – if the only resource that is available is not accessible, think carefully about how you provide that information to student who may find it difficult to use.

PDF documents / scans

Scans of handwritten documents, or non-OCR scans from books, magazines etc are inaccessible to people who need to use screen-readers, enlarge text etc. Wherever possible use OCR readable scans and PDFs. You can talk to the Information Services Digitisation Team about getting appropriate scans of materials. If you use scans of handwritten documents, you could provide a transcription of the content.

The University of Chicago’s guidance on OCR and PDFs is useful if you want to know more about this issue (note that it includes links to services and software not available at AU; it is also only available in English).

Videos

Check the video that you want to use has captions or subtitles. For example, if you are using YouTube, there’s a Subtitles/Closed Captions icon in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen.

Screenshot of YouTube video controls with Subtitles/closed captions icon highlighted.

Check the quality of the audio and make sure you can hear and understand it at a reasonable volume.

If there are no captions, or the audio quality is poor, is it possible to lip-read the actors or presenters?

Many TV recordings in Box of Broadcasts recordings include a transcript, so this is a good place to source video. Remember that some BBC programmes are also broadcast with sign language interpreters.

If videos use text to convey meaning, make sure that it has clear fonts and good contrast.

Avoid videos with lots of flashing lights and fast-moving images – if you can’t avoid using a video that contains this, make sure that you warn students (and provide an alternative explanation or video where possible).

The W3C web page on audio and video content is also useful. Although it is designed for people creating audio and video, if gives you some pointers of things to look for when selecting resources.