What happens when an institution captions online courses? Higher completion, stronger engagement & ADA compliance

Online learners are busy, distracted, and often watching lectures on a phone in a noisy room. For colleges and universities, that raises a practical question: what actually changes when an institution captions online courses at scale? More students watch to the end, more students understand what they watched, and the institution moves closer to meeting its ADA Title II obligations.

That last point now runs on a clear timeline. In April 2026, the US Department of Justice extended the ADA Title II web accessibility compliance dates. Larger public entities now have until April 26, 2027 to meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA, and smaller entities have until April 26, 2028. The extra time is an opportunity, not a pause. Institutions that use it wisely can caption their course libraries in a way that improves learning outcomes, not just solves a compliance need.

Best of all, it’s now simple for a university to implement captioning for online courses. Verbit Campus Complete was built for exactly this. It brings unlimited AI-powered captions, transcripts, AI audio description, and more under one simple annual subscription, so institutions can caption every online course without watching a per-minute meter run.

Why captions improve online course completion rates

Online video is now core to how students learn. According to federal IPEDS data, 54.8% of US college students took at least one online course, and 26.5% studied fully online. Completion depends on students actually watching and understanding that video – and captions remove many of the reasons they stop.

• Captions are now the default way many people watch. An AP-NORC survey found that one-third of US adults always or often use subtitles or captions, with adults under 45 the most regular users. Netflix has reported that nearly half of all US viewing hours happen with subtitles or captions on.

• They solve the problems that make students tune out. Among caption users in the AP-NORC survey, 50% said they want to catch every word, 33% watch in noisy environments, and 25% cite poor audio or multitasking. Younger adults were especially likely to use captions in noisy settings (40%) and while multitasking (30%) – a close match for how students study.

• Students say captions help them learn. In a recent University of Bristol study of 144 undergraduates published in the British Journal of Educational Technology, students reported that captions improve comprehension, focus, and study efficiency. The researchers concluded that automatically generated captions don’t impair learning, meet accessibility requirements, and are valued by students, so they “should be used routinely.”

When students can watch, listen, and read at the same time, they have more than one way to follow a lecture – and fewer reasons to give up halfway through it.

Benefits of captions in e-learning for every student

Captions started as an accommodation, and they remain essential for students who are deaf or have hearing loss. In online learning, their reach is much wider.

1. Students who are deaf or have hearing loss get equal access to spoken lecture content.
2. Multilingual and international students get a reading scaffold for fast speech, technical vocabulary, and unfamiliar accents. When they need content in another language, subtitles do a different job, so it helps to know the difference between captions and subtitles.
3. Neurodivergent learners and students with attention challenges get an extra anchor that helps them stay on track.
4. Every student gets the flexibility to study on a commute, in a shared apartment, or late at night without headphones.

Transcripts extend these benefits. Searchable transcripts double as study guides and let students jump straight to the concept they need to review before an exam.

This is universal design in practice: build it once, and it works for everyone.

For a closer look at how accessible learning supports both students and institutions, see Educational accessibility in 2026: The key to student success and institutional compliance.

Accessibility in online education: What ADA Title II means for the 2026-2027 academic year

Under the DOJ’s ADA Title II rule, state and local government entities – including public colleges and universities – must make their web content and mobile apps conform to WCAG 2.1 Level AA. For course video, that means captions for prerecorded and live audio and audio description for prerecorded video.

Key dates after the April 2026 extension:

• April 26, 2027: Public entities with a total population of 50,000 or more

• April 26, 2028: Public entities with a population under 50,000 and special district governments

Which date applies depends on the population of the government entity an institution belongs to, so confirm your category with counsel.

The deadlines aren’t the only reason to act. More than 5,000 digital accessibility lawsuits were filed in a single year, according to UsableNet, and existing ADA and Section 504 obligations still apply today. Institutions that receive HHS funding may also face separate Section 504 web accessibility deadlines that HHS did not extend.

For a step-by-step plan, see Navigating ADA Title II compliance: Your 2027 guide to college accessibility.

Best practices for captioning online courses

Knowing the requirements is the first step. Turning them into a campus-wide plan is the next, as we cover in From awareness to action: How higher education can prepare for ADA Title II digital accessibility requirements. For captioning specifically, these practices help:

1. Caption everything, starting with what students use most. Aim for full coverage of course videos, recorded lectures, and supplementary media, and start with high-enrollment and gateway courses.
2. Match accuracy to the stakes. AI captions can cover an entire media library quickly and affordably. For accommodation requests, technical courses, and public-facing content, add human review.
3. Don’t forget live content. Live lectures, hybrid classes, webinars, and commencement need real-time captions, too.
4. Plan for visual content. WCAG 2.1 AA calls for audio description on prerecorded video, and AI audio description makes that practical at scale.
5. Build accessibility into faculty workflows. LMS and lecture capture integrations mean faculty don’t have to request captions video by video.
6. Audit regularly. Review your LMS, video platforms, and websites against WCAG 2.1 AA at least once a year, ideally every term.
7. Make accessibility part of procurement. Require vendors to meet WCAG 2.1 AA and document it.
8. Ask students. Regular feedback from students with disabilities surfaces issues automated audits miss.

Scaling these practices across thousands of courses is where many teams get stuck, usually because they’re juggling multiple vendors, contracts, and invoices. Consolidating accessibility vendors is often the fastest fix.

How Verbit Campus Complete helps institutions caption online courses in bulk

Verbit Campus Complete is an all-in-one accessibility subscription for higher education, designed to support ADA Title II, Section 508, and WCAG 2.1 AA compliance. It’s a core part of Verbit’s education accessibility solutions and includes:

• Unlimited AI-powered captions for recorded and live content

• On-demand human review for accommodation requests and high-stakes content

• Unlimited AI audio description for visual content

• Accurate, searchable transcripts that work with screen readers

• Multilingual translation and subtitles for international and multilingual learners

• AI learning tools such as summaries, quizzes, keywords, and chapters that help students review

• Integrations with platforms campuses already use, including Canvas, Anthology, Panopto, Kaltura, Mediasite, Zoom, YouTube, Vimeo, and Google Drive

• Flat annual pricing with no per-minute charges or overages, so departments can caption more without blowing the budget

Verbit also brings experience from large-scale online learning, having worked with e-learning platforms including Coursera, Skillshare, and Udacity.

Real-world results from institutions using Verbit captioning

University College London. UCL, which serves more than 50,000 students from over 150 countries, moved from paying students to edit captions by hand to an automated workflow, with its Panopto lecture capture platform feeding recordings straight to Verbit. The partnership now spans AI and human-reviewed captions, live captions, transcription, translation, and audio description. “I genuinely have never seen an example of something that was designed to be more accessible that wasn’t just better – easier to use, more usable,” said Ben Watson, Head of Digital Accessibility at UCL. Read the UCL story.

San Francisco State University. “As a large organization, we’ve had a really good experience with Verbit, and that’s why we keep renewing the contract every year,” said Roberto Santiago, Associate Director of the Disability Program. Read the SF State case study.

Chatham University. “Using Verbit has been incredibly easy. They answer emails at all hours. They’re super responsive and just absolutely wonderful to work with,” said Becky Borello, Instructional Technologist. See the Chatham University spotlight.

Use your time wisely: Caption online courses now

The 2027 deadline gave institutions more time. The ones that use it well will reach compliance with captions, transcripts, and audio description already woven into every course – and with students who are more engaged because of it.

If you’re interested in discovering how partnering with Verbit can help you caption all your content without compromise, contact our team. We’re happy to arrange a demo to talk through our Campus Complete solution or standard captions for educational content, so you can explore unlimited AI-powered captions, on-demand human review, LMS integrations, pricing options, and more to meet your accessibility needs.