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Standards-aligned videos with high-quality captions and audio description.
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DCMP's Learning Center provides hundreds of articles on topics such as remote learning, transition, blindness, ASL, topic playlists, and topics for parents.
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DCMP offers the only guidelines developed for captioning and describing educational media, used worldwide.
Learn how to apply for membership, find and view accessible media, and use DCMP’s teaching tools.
DCMP offers several online courses, including many that offer RID and ACVREP credit. Courses for students are also available.
Asynchronous, online classes for professionals working with students who are deaf, hard of hearing, blind, low vision, or deaf-blind.
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For interpreters, audio describers, parents, and educators working with students who are hard of hearing, low vision, and deaf-blind.
Modules are self-paced, online trainings designed for professionals, open to eLearners and full members.
These self-paced, online learning modules cover the topics of transition, note-taking, and learning about audio description.
DCMP can add captions, audio description, and sign language interpretation to your educational videos and E/I programming.
Captions are essential for viewers who are deaf and hard of hearing, and audio description makes visual content accessible for the blind and visually impaired.
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DCMP partners with top creators and distributors of educational content. Take a look
The DCMP provides services designed to support and improve the academic achievement of students with disabilities. We partner with top educational and television content creators and distributors to make media accessible and available to these students.
A paper by Elena Sanz Ortega, University of Edinburgh, U.K., in 2011. Examines the important role which non-verbal information can play in polyglot films (films in multiple languages) at horizontal and vertical levels. As films belonging to this film genre often portray the misunderstandings that exist amongst cultures, they tend to include characters who speak different languages. In relation to this, multimodal analysis suggests that non-verbal components help characters to communicate and are also used to convey information to the audience in situations where fictional characters do not speak. It is in this latter situation where non-verbal information plays its most important role. Consequently, it is necessary for subtitlers to leave enough time for viewers to catch the non-verbal signs in order for them to understand the communication problems that fictional characters exper
From The Hearing Journal , 2013, an article by Lauren E. Storck. Dr. Storck is founder and president of the nonprofit consumer advocacy organization Collaborative for Communication Access via Captioning (CCAC). Lists and overviews the reasons why many people who need captioning do not ask for it, even though they may become increasingly excluded from education, employment, further training, healthcare, and social situations. The list is not all-inclusive; there are individual variations and many other contributing factors.
This an archive video of the Video Description Research and Development Center webinar #1 - Bringing Video Description Into The 21st Century. The webinar occurred January 24, 2012. Topics in this webinar include: (1) A teachers' guide to using video description; (2) A comprehensive overview of resources for obtaining described materials; and (3) A sneak peak at the description technologies of the future being developed at the VDRDC. Presenters included Dr. Joshua Miele, Director of the VDRDC; Jim Stovall, President of Narrative TV Network; Jason Stark, Director of the Described and Captioned Media Program; Joel Snyder, Director of the Audio Description Project at the American Council of the Blind; and Emily Bell, Multimedia Manager at CaptionMax.
This an archive video of the Video Description Research and Development Center webinar #2 - "Do It Yourself" Educational Description: Guidelines and Tools. The webinar occurred October 24, 2012. Topics in this webinar include: 1) An update of the activities of the VDRDC; 2) The "Dos and Don'ts" of description; 3) Live demonstrations of two free software programs which can be used to add description to media; and 4) An overview of resources for obtaining described materials for use in the classroom.
Dissertation prepared by Nicole Elaine Snell, Clemson University, 2012. Ms. Snell's project was an interdisciplinary empirical study that explores the emotional experiences resulting from the use of the assistive technology closed captioning. More specifically, the study focused on documenting the experiences of both deaf and hearing multimedia users in an effort to better identify and understand those variables and processes that are involved with facilitating and supporting connotative and emotional "meaning-making."
Paper in 2004 by Bernd Benecke, Bayerischer Rundfunk, Munich, Germany. Deals mainly with two aspects of audio description: the development (history) of this mode of language transfer and the main steps in the preparation of audio description. Overviews status of television description in Germany at the time it was written.
This article looks at the context of accessibility in Spain, and after a general picture of the Spanish reality on media accessibility, it goes into describing and analyzing the standard for audio description approved in 2005 by the Spanish Ministerio de Trabajo (Ministry of Labour). By Pilar Orero, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain.
This general guide to the description of video, by Dicapta in 2012, proposes parameters, rules, and guidelines. The authors indicate that it is a difficult task to develop standards, given the creative and artistic nature of this activity.
Captioning web multimedia is one of the biggest accessibility issues faced in education. Current technology and cost limitations make captioning, especially of live events, prohibitive for many in education. This article provides an overview of captioning technologies, implications for education, and ideas for future development. The National Center on Disability and Access to Education (NCDAE), 2006.
On her blog devoted to writing tips for screenwriters and novelists, Lucy V. Hay reveals her discovery that description for the blind is an inspiration for writers. The new narration added has to be clear, simple, recognizable, and succinct. Listening to it is like attending a scriptwriting masterclass.
Individuals who are visually impaired and blind face challenges in accessing many types of texts including television, films, textbooks, software, and the Internet because of the rich visual nature of these media. In order to provide these individuals with access to this visual information, special assistive technology allows descriptive language to be inserted into the text to represent the visual content. This study investigates this descriptive language. A thesis written by Philip Piety, Georgetown University, in 2003.
This document aims to gather the lessons learned in different countries, and to help build capacity across the World Blind Union membership to campaign for audio description. Defines description, and provides technical information and lobbying tips. World Blind Union, 2007.
Videos can be a terrific medium for driving the point home, as long as the time is taken to ensure they'll drive that point home for everyone – including those with impairments that might make audio or visual information difficult to process. Overviews captioning and description, and discusses the importance of each. By Carlin Headrick, Learning Insights, 2013.
The WGBH National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM) reported in 2010 that it was conducting the Caption Accuracy Metrics Project (funded by the U.S. Department of Education, National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research) to explore using language-processing tools to develop a prototype automated caption accuracy assessment system for real-time captions in live TV news programming.
A 2011 Spanish translation by Dicapta of the DCMP Captioning Key.
