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question about audio descriptions of video

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From: Jeremy Merritt
Date: Nov 8, 2011 1:57PM

Good afternoon,


We had a question come up at our institution today about a specific video clip that our Athletics department posted, and determining how to ensure the video is accessible. This video can currently be located at:


https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=534338130888


This particular video has no essential audio (the only audio is background music that is non-essential) but shows some basketball players performing some dribbling and passing techniques. Since there is no essential audio, the video would not need to be captioned according to our state's accessibility requirements. However, our requirements have the following statement:


"Provide audio descriptions for all multimedia that contains essential visual information when it is provided to the public and/or required to be viewed by employees."


Guidelines: http://www.dhs.state.il.us/IITAA/IITAAWebImplementationGuidelines.html


Based on this statement, it would appear that audio descriptions that describe what the players are doing would be legally required according to our guidelines. Or is this a case of determining whether the visual information is essential? (That begs the question - can there be a video with neither essential audio OR video?)


Any general thoughts on this? Particularly interested to hear from anyone that may be in Illinois following the Illinois Information Technology Accessibility Act (IITAA)


Best,


Jeremy Merritt
Coordinator - Web Services
University Technology
Western Illinois University
88 Horrabin Hall
Phone: (309) 298-1287