Disability Resource Center

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Faculty Resources

Faculty are important partners when it comes to ensuring Deaf & Hard of Hearing accommodations for DRC students. Faculty are responsible for:  

  • Ensuring all pre-recorded instructional materials have appropriate transcripts and/or captions and turning on captions for any video materials shown in class; and 
  • Cooperating with DRC staff to facilitate accommodations.

Facilitating Interpreting and Realtime Captioning Accommodations

Interpreting & Realtime Captioning accommodations require faculty cooperation to ensure equal access for DHH students. These accommodations apply to all classes including face-to-face, synchronous, and asynchronous formats. The interpreter/captioner coordinator will contact faculty at the beginning of the semester to facilitate accommodations. 

Steps faculty can take to help facilitate these accommodations include: 

  • Verifying the mode of instruction listed in PeopleSoft matches the mode of instruction the faculty member will be using for the course 
  • Making sure the meeting dates, times, and locations (including Zoom links) are provided to DRC staff well in advance  
  • Communicating any changes to hybrid class schedules to DRC staff well in advance, so DRC coordinators know whether in-person or remote service providers will be needed 
  • DRC Staff may need access to your Canvas Course to facilitate these services. DRC may work directly with Center for the Advancement of Faculty Excellence (CAFE) to add staff or ask the instructor for assistance. More details can be found on our DRC Staff Role on Canvas webapge.
  • Adhering to the class schedule and not running over time; students who rely on these services may miss out if class runs late and their service providers need to move on to their next class 

Additional steps to facilitate these accommodations in face-to-face class meetings include: 

  • Ensuring adequate workspace is allocated for DRC service providers in the classroom 

Additional steps to facilitate these accommodations in remote class meetings include: 

  • Keeping the Zoom application updated to the most-recent release 
  • Ensuring the student receiving accommodations is placed in the same breakout rooms as their captioners or interpreters 
  • Enabling Zoom multi-pinning feature for classes with sign language interpreting 
  • Adding DRC staff as Zoom co-hosts upon request. This will allow the service providers to assist with setting-up multi-pinning or seeing which breakout rooms the DRC student is in so that they can continue to serve the student.

Please contact DRC’s captioning and interpreting coordinators with any questions about facilitating in-class accommodations. 

Captions and Transcripts for Pre-Recorded Instructional Materials

Accurate transcripts and captions are required for all pre-recorded instructional materials. This is especially important when a student who has requested Deaf & Hard of Hearing accommodations is in the class. 

When showing a video or streaming media during class or online, closed captioning must be available and turned on. Showing multimedia without captions is not permitted.  Realtime captioners and sign language interpreters in the classroom will not transcribe or interpret recorded material during class. Accurate captions must be shown on the same screen as the recorded material to constitute equal access.  

Accurate captions are required for lectures that are recorded live, then posted online for students to review after class. This content can be captioned using the instructions below in "Videos Created by Instructor". 

Faculty with students who have requested Deaf & Hard of Hearing accommodations in their classes will be eligible to receive professional captioning for recorded material. DRC gives MediaVision a list of faculty authorized for professional media captioning each semester. If a faculty member believes they should have professional media captioning access but finds they do not, please contact DRC at drc@cpp.edu to inquire. Professional captioning is costly, so faculty are asked to only utilize the service for the requested classes. 

Media Captioning Tips

All videos created in or uploaded to CPP Streaming/Kaltura, CPP’s recommended video streaming service, will have auto-generated captions added to the content. Faculty have the ability to review and edit the auto-generated captions for accuracy, and are encouraged to do so for all of their instructional media.  

Faculty with students who have requested Deaf & Hard of Hearing accommodations in their classes may opt to request professional captions be added to their CPP Streaming content as follows: 

  1. Upload content to CPP Streaming/Kaltura, If you're unsure how to do this, please refer to CAFE’s Kaltura quick start guide. 
  2. Select the check box to the left of the content you'd like to caption 
  3. Select the 'Actions' drop down in the top right 
  4. Select 'Caption and Enrich' 
  5. Select the ‘Unit’ drop down menu and select ‘Cal Poly Pomona Plus Human’ 
  6. All of the default options under the caption area are good to go.  Feel free to add instructor notes if you feel it's necessary 
  7. Hit Submit 
  8. Captions will be updated to video within 2 business days 

Once the video is uploaded to CPP Streaming/Kaltura you can use the embed link or share the video in Canvas. The link will not change when captions are added.

Instructors should review captions in videos created by others. If the captions are missing or inaccurate, instructors may submit a request to MediaVision to have captions added. Instructors who received a Faculty Notification Letter that a student in their class has requested Deaf & Hard of Hearing Accommodations and requires professional captions, should be sure to check the box that a DRC student enrolled in the class requires captions. Once captions have been added, instructors will be provided with new links to the content to use for the class.

If using recorded media that is audio only (spoken language), the instructor must make a transcript available. Many video captioning services can also generate transcripts for audio-only files. 

Resources and Instructions

Once you have been notified of the DRC staff who will be assigned to your class, please follow these steps to add them to the Canvas course.
  1. Log into CPP Canvas 
  2. Open your course
  3. Select ‘People’ from the left course menu
  4. Select the ‘+ People’ button near the top right corner
  5. Choose to add user(s) by Email Address (should be select by default)
  6. Type or copy/paste the enrollee's full CPP email into the ‘Email Addresses’ field. If you are enrolling multiple users, separate their email addresses with a comma
  7. Choose the ‘Observer’ role
  8. Select ‘Next'
  9. Select ‘Add Users’ 

Note: Until the newly-enrolled user accepts your course invitation, their status will display as “pending.” They can interact with the course once the invitation has been accepted.

More information about the manual enrollment process in Canvas can be found here on Canvas' Instructor Guide.

Check out some quick Tips for Working with Interpreters

Multi-pinning gives the DRC student and DRC staff the ability to pin-each-other during Zoom meetings.  You can manage the multi-pinning access yourself during each class using the instructions below, or you can also make the DRC staff a “co-host” so they can do this for you. 

At the start of each class meeting

  1. Open the Participants menu from the meeting toolbar
  2. Locate the DRC staff or student, hover your mouse over their name and a button with More with appear
  3. Click on More and from the dropdown menu choose Allow to Multi-pin
  4. Repeat for the remaining DRC staff and student

American Sign Language (ASL) Interpreting Request for a Campus Event

This form should be completed by the event coordinator only. Please note it is highly recommended to complete this form at least 7 business days prior to the scheduled event. DRC Students who are eligible for ASL Interpreting as an accommodation should submit their request through the myDRC portal.

ASL Interpreting Request Form

In accordance with Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Section 504 and 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and the Accessible Technology Initiative (ATI), all instructional media such as films, videos, recorded lectures, presentations with audio and/or any digital content posted to Canvas, must have captions if an individual who is deaf or hard of hearing is enrolled in the course and needs access to the content as an accommodation. Additionally, audio files such as MP3 files and podcasts need transcripts."   

CSU Guidelines: In accordance with the Chancellor’s Office Captioning Prioritization Guidelines and Executive Order 1111 the CSU must “make its programs, services, and activities accessible to students, faculty, staff, and the public, with disabilities. This includes, but is not limited to, multimedia programs and services as well as multimedia materials.” 

Faculty Frequently Asked Questions

An interpreter's role is to facilitate communication between signed and spoken languages. Interpreters sign everything that is spoken and voice everything that is signed. They also abide by a strict Code of Professional Conduct. They are to transmit the message by maintaining the original intent and meaning of the speaker to the receiver. Interpreters are to remain neutral and do not share personal opinions or advice. Furthermore, interpreters are obligated to respect confidentiality.

Students can request accommodations at any time, once a student is approved the professor will be notified.

The captioner(s) typically sit up front and off to the side of the lecturer so as not to interfere with movement in the classroom. Captioners may sit near the DHH student and an electrical outlet.
The Interpreter(s) will be sitting/standing close enough to the lecturer so that the DHH student can see both at the same time.

The captioners will caption lectures and class discussions. Communication with the Deaf or Hard of Hearing (DHH) student will also be facilitated. It is the captioners responsibility to caption everything you say.

Sharing handouts, power point presentations, and access to Canvas will provide a good preview of the lecture.

When using a Realtime Captioner or Interpreter, talk directly to the DHH student. As the DHH Support Staff takes down the student's reply, keep eye contact with the student to preserve the person-to-person relationship. Speak at a normal rate.

Sharing handouts and power point presentations will provide a good preview of the lecture.

Yes. In accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Section 504 and Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and the Accessible Technology Initiative (ATI), all instructional media must have captions if an individual who is deaf or hard of hearing is enrolled in your course. Also, MP3 files and Podcasts need transcripts.

Please review the Media Captioning Tips above for thorough information and resources on captioned media including, but not limited to, how to submit requests and how to caption media yourself. 

Contact IT & IP eHelp for captioning requests Service Catalog - eHelp.