Best practices in online captioning

In 2003–2004, I worked for the TILE project, a university research program in accessibility of “learning objects” in education that was funded by Industry Canada. My topic was “best practices in online captioning,” about which little has been written.

I was hoping to have a few demonstration projects to show you, but then again, demonstration projects are pretty much all we've got in online captioning. I did write the following chapters.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Standards-compliant Web pages with captioning, including every known method of using embed and object with valid HTML
• Training and education
• Styles and genres (with illustrated examples!)
• Reformatting and reuse: How to convert one kind of caption file to another
• Typography and appearance
• Special cases: How to handle certain types of video
  • Subtitled video
  • Sign-language video
  • Audio-described video
  • Dubbed video
  • Closed captions and open captions together
  • Multilingual video
• Comparison with other formats: How does online captioning differ from captioning for TV, video, DVD, and movies, for example?
• Standards in online captioning: How do Web standards apply to online captioning? What other standards apply?
  • ATAG
  • WCAG
  • UAAG
• Functional spec for a publishing tool that supports captioning
• Bibliography
• Acknowledgements

Version history

2004.03.31

Completed and posted for beta-testing and review

2004.09.03

Posted publicly

2004.09.08

Copy errors corrected, small additions made

2006.07.11

Tutorial on creating a DTD to make embed legal in XHTML restored; link added to A List Apart article