Chemeketa Community College

Chemeketa Community College In a Nutshell

Meeting captioning and transcription needs for 17 colleges in the Oregon Community College Distance Learning Association (OCCDLA) might seem daunting. However, Chemeketa Community College is able to rely on Verbit to deliver captioning that’s accurate and complies with Section 508 guidelines to ensure video content is accessible to all students across these colleges who require accommodations. Chemeketa’s leaders have established an organized captioning process with Verbit, administering the account and distribution of captioning minutes, which saves them valuable time and provides them with helpful data reports for budgeting and tracking. With Verbit, the 17 colleges are also able to track their individual captioning requests and usage.

The Challenge

Chemeketa is charged with managing distance captioning efforts for the OCCDLA consortium. “When we started hitting 2020, the captioning ramped up quite a lot,” said Heather Mariger, the Digital Accessibility Advocate for the Center for Academic Innovation. With limited staff and an increase in captioning requests, tracking and managing these accessibility needs was quite complex.

“It’s a really helpful thing to have that data reporting, which has allowed us to be able to internally organize our process. We go into the billing account area and export the billable submissions for all users, sort it by college and generate the reports.”
— Sage Freeman, Media Production Specialist, Center for Academic Innovation

The Solution

Verbit’s captioning provides accessibility to a wide range of students across the OCCDLA constituent schools and takes it one step further by providing leaders with a useful, organized system. Verbit offers the colleges increased flexibility, helpful account management and data for tracking. Verbit also serves as a true partner in the process to help guide OCCDLA leaders in their mission to provide equity and inclusion. “We wanted a company that was going to be in line with our philosophy and ethics,” said Freeman.

Verbit offers Chemeketa Community College:

• Time-saving submission methods
• Access to professional transcribers
• Section 508 compliance
• An organized system with important tracking features
• Equity for remote learners

Verbit seems to feel more like a partner than like a vendor. We have shared values and principles. That really makes a difference in terms of how we view Verbit versus some of the other vendors out there.”
— Sage Freeman, Media Production Specialist, Center for Academic Innovation

Chemeketa Community College Profile

Chemeketa Community College is one of the 17 public community colleges in the Oregon Community College Distance Learning Association (OCCDLA). They are located in Salem, Oregon and serve over 30,000 students.