Student Disability and Accessibility Center

A student who is deaf or has a hearing loss in your class may require an American Sign Language (ASL) interpreter to be scheduled throughout the semester. 

Considerations for in-class settings:

• In most situations, the interpreter will sit or stand near you, in order for the student to be able to observe you and read your lips at the same time.
• During a mask required period, faculty may request clear face shields or clear masks from EOC Form 213 Resource Request.
• On occasion, interpreters may request a desk copy of texts in order to familiarize themselves with the course vocabulary.
• Faculty are responsible for contacting SDR if they plan to cancel a class or intend a change in location, such as a field trip.

Considerations for one-on-one meetings with the student:

• If faculty plan to have a meeting with the student outside of the regular class time, please contact SDR and we will arrange for an interpreter to be present.
• To enhance your communication with the student, watch the student, but listen to the interpreter’s voice. 
• The interpreter facilitates communication. It is inappropriate to address student-directed questions to the interpreter if the intention is to discuss something with the student.
• If the student or the interpreter does not understand something you say, you may be asked to repeat or restate the information.

SDR works with the Center for Academic Technologies (CAT) to manage how closed captioning will work during Zoom lectures for students who are Deaf and Hard of Hearing. To further facilitate accommodations, please follow the steps below.

• Ensure that SDR has been sent a reoccurring Zoom link with updated meeting days and times. If there are any changes, please email sdr_deaf_services@csumb.edu.
• Enable Closed Captioning on all meetings. You can see a tutorial on enabling Closed Captioning here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a06O8JmpPZA
• During scheduled Zoom lectures, we ask that you join the meeting 5 minutes before starting your class instruction. This allows our outside vendor, AST CaptionSync, to join your class and get set up.
• You will receive a message from the captioner with a request for the meeting's API Token. Please find it by clicking the Closed Caption button on your meeting controls, and clicking "Copy the API token." Paste the API token in a chat message to the captioner.

If you have any questions, please email sdr_deaf_services@csumb.edu.

When a student is authorized for captioned videos in a course, SDR will email the faculty to inform them of the next steps. It is the faculty’s responsibility to provide SDR with a comprehensive media list, containing all audio/visual material that will be shown throughout the course. SDR needs at least 3-weeks advance notice of any video that will be shown in class or published in Canvas. 

• This allows SDR to review the course material, and ensure it meets accessibility standards. We strive to achieve 99% percent accuracy when providing captioned videos; this means if a video is already captioned, if there are more than 7 errors SDR will need to be re-captioned.
• If you are using Canvas, SDR will request access in a support role to your course. Please ensure your modules are finalized at least 3-weeks in advance of publishing.   

Finding Captioned Material

Many of the publicly available videos may already be captioned. SDR recommends faculty search within the CSUMB library, other CSU libraries, and Youtube for captioned versions of a video you plan to use in your course. 

CSUMB and Other CSU campus libraries:

CSUMB’s library has two streaming services including Academic Video Online (AVON), which contains educational and documentary films covering a wide variety of subject areas, and Swank Motion Pictures, a limited collection of feature and documentary films. Many titles are captioned, but not all.

Youtube videos:

If you’re planning to use a Youtube video in your course, you must ensure the captions are not auto-generated, because they will not meet the accessibility standard of 99% accuracy. To check, click on the “CC” symbol at the bottom right of the video window. In the top left, if it states “English (Auto Generated),” it is captioned using voice recognition software that SDR will need to run through a captioning service in order to improve accuracy of the captioning. If a Youtube video is captioned by a professional, it will only state “English”, it is more likely to be accurately captioned. 

If you are unable to find a captioned version of the video, please contact SDR to request captioning at sdr_deaf_services@csumb.edu.