Pre-Event Preparations

The following are some actions to complete weeks, hours, or minutes before the start of the event.

Provide Accommodations

Schedule sign language and realtime (human) captioning services accommodations based on vendor contractual requirements as defined in the vendor Statement of Work.

Realtime Captioning Services or Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART)

This service is provided in realtime by a human captioner. This is not the same as live or auto captions.

  • Send a service request with event details to the service provider several days before the meeting. Note: The request should include a 15–30-minute lead time for the pre-event practice session.
  • When service is confirmed, invite the captioner as a panelist or co-host and provide meeting links as soon as they are available. Confirm links have been received.
  • If there is an official agenda or list of topics, keywords, acronyms, speaker names, presentation materials, and/or technical terms, the information should be sent to the captioner and/or ASL interpreter ahead of time.
  • If you plan to show pre-recorded videos during your event, consider the following:
    • If the pre-recorded videos do not have captions, allow time to have them captioned prior to your event.
    • If the pre-recorded videos are captioned, inform the captioner in advance, so they can provide appropriate captions when the captioned pre-recorded videos are shown during the event.

Sign Language or Other Types of Deaf/Hard-of-Hearing Interpretation Services

These services should be provided by certified interpreters depending on the specific needs of the attendees who request these services. Specific needs may include, but are not limited to: American Sign Language (ASL), British Sign Language (BSL), other signed languages, oral interpreting, oral with sign support, etc.

  • Send a service request with event details to the service provider several days before the meeting. Note: Events that last more than thirty (30) minutes will require a two-person team of interpreters unless otherwise noted by the provider. Also, the request should include a 15–30-minute lead time for the pre-event practice session.
  • When service is confirmed, request interpreter contact information and invite the interpreters as a panelist or co-host and provide meeting links as soon as they are available. Confirm that the captioner and/or ASL interpreter has received the links to join.
  • Depending on the meeting content, provide an agenda, keywords, acronyms, speaker names, meeting materials, and/or technical terms to the interpreting provider.
  • When providing pre-recorded videos, include information in your presentation that indicates when pre-recorded videos are being shown so the interpreter is prepared for the change in content.

Provide Accessible Materials

  • Caption pre-recorded videos to be shown during the event.
  • Create material with accessibility in mind. If you need assistance making sure your materials are accessible, please reference the Accessible Document Support Center or reach out to the accessible materials support team via the support request form.

Conduct a Technical Check

Conduct a practice session prior to the event to get acquainted with webinar controls before the actual event. You should pay particular attention to the settings during formal meetings so that everything is working properly.

  • Test assistive technologies to ensure that attendees and or co-presenters can share and access meeting content and platform features.
  • Captioners and Interpreters should be present to test that the appropriate settings are in place. Confirm that Interpreters will appear appropriately on screen to the participants.
  • Test video and audio to ensure settings, and audio is clear.
  • Confirm that meeting presentation materials are presented clearly to meeting attendees.
  • Verify that interpreting and realtime captioning services settings are working and the captions display correctly.

Arrive Early to Your Event

Event hosts/organizers, presenters and accommodation providers should arrive 15 min ahead of the event to make final preparations.

  • Allow time for presenters and organizers to get logged in before the scheduled time to ensure there is no delay due to unforeseen technical or hardware issues.
  • Captioners and interpreting Interpreters should arrive early to test caption settings and be assigned as interpreters in the platform.
  • Test video/audio capabilities.
  • Test assistive technology, if being used by presenter.
  • Discuss how Chat, Q&A, Tech support will be addressed during the event.