Closed Captioning

California community colleges have a legal responsibility to provide equal access to video resources for students, faculty and staff who are deaf or hard of hearing. This is often most easily accomplished through closed captioning of video resources. If you are unfamiliar with the captioning process, you might wish to begin by exploring the definition of some common terms. This list of terms is provided by the National Captioning Institute.
Captioning Services for the California Community Colleges

The DECT resource (Distance Education Captioning & Transcription) is designed to assist California Community Colleges with the expense of real-time captioning for distance education courses. Visit the Distance Education Captioning & Transcribing page for more information about applying for and receiving services.
Background Captioning Information

* About Captioning
* Telecommunications Act of 1996
* Television Decoder Circuitry Act of 1990
* The FCC and Captioning
* Legal Opinion on Captioning from the Chancellor's Office (PDF)

Captioning Resources

* Captioned Media Program - http://www.cfv.org
* PEPNet On-Line - PostSecondary Education Program Network for individuals who are Deaf and Hard of Hearing.


Providers of Captioning Hardware/Software

The following vendors provide encoders, captioning software, decoders and other technologies used for producing real-time and off-line captioning. We will continue adding to this list as more vendors are identified.

* National Captioning Institute (NCI)
* Rapid Text
* Computer Prompting and Captioning
* Cheetah
* International Computers
* Bay Area Video Coalition (Captioning Service Provider)
* WGBH (Captioning Service Provider)

Providers of Captioning Services

The following vendors provide captioning services. Rates will vary depending upon:

1. the availability of a transcript for the tape
2. how much narration the tape contains
3. whether or not the tape contains technical jargon
4. what captioning formats are used
5. how quickly the job must be completed

Some of these providers have established a business relationship with the Community Colleges Foundation and offer discounts to California community colleges. Please remember to inquire of these vendors if such a discount is available. We will continue adding to this list as more vendors are identified.

* Off-line Captioning Providers
* Real-time Captioning Providers
* Web Captioning Providers