The Case for Captioned Lectures in Australian Higher Education

Abstract

This article provides a case for the benefits of captioning recorded lecture content in the Australian higher education sector. While online lecture captioning has traditionally been provided on a case-by-case basis to help students who are deaf or hard of hearing, this paper argues for a mainstream approach in order to benefit a range of student groups both with and without disability. It begins with some background on the regulation and technology context for captioning in higher education and online learning in Australia. This is followed by a review of the current literature on the benefits of captioning to a wide range of students both disabled and non-disabled, the perceived barriers to captioning, and how the increasing internationalisation of the university context effects captioning options, both culturally and commercially. The paper concludes by suggesting that it may be inevitable that all recorded lecture content will need to be captioned in the future and highlights the potential benefits to Australian universities to move quickly to embrace this existing technology.