Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Closed Caption

May 01, 2019

I have a e-learning course that I am building. I have closed caption for most of the training. However, their is a YouTube video that is inserted in the course. Does the law require company's to have closed caption in a e-leaning course?

I feel that this should be yes. Thank you for your professional and helpful feedback. 

3 Replies
Julie Stelter

Hi Mel,

Sometimes YouTube videos offer closed captioning and yes to your question.

I'm not a lawyer...My understanding is that the standards set in Section 508, which actually just pertains to websites, but we use it as a standard for eLearning, applies to governmental, educational, and any other organization receiving public money. I'm not sure that a company is required to abide by this for its employees. However, if an employee requests an accessibility feature, you need to provide this asap or you could get into trouble.

So what I'm thinking is that you want to do the right thing and proactively provide for accessibility. This is considered a best practice if the learner does not have to self-identify their needs. There are loads of other accessibility features besides closed captioning. Make sure you are offering those as well. 

Keep up the great work!

Cheers,

Julie 

Paul Schneider

The law does not just pertain to websites.  All electronic content would apply if the law applies to your organization.  For Youtube videos you need to add it in YouTube, but make sure the rest of the content is compliant.  Storyline (like any tool out there) does require effort on your part to follow all guidelines, limitations etc. to be conformant to the standards and depending on how closely you follow that (or need to) you will find gaps.

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