Faculty and Staff

Video

• Shorter segments are better. 5 minutes is probably best, but 10 minutes would be a maximum. Break into smaller pieces if you have a longer presentation.
• Keep things simple and easy to see on a very small screen. Many students will be watching on their phones.
• High contrast (black and white) is easiest to make out on a screen. Sometimes the image will not be pristine due to bandwidth, but text and graphics are a bit easier to see if high contrast.
• Please try to caption your videos to make them accessible.  If you upload them to YouTube, it will help you create a caption file you can include with the video.

Audio

• Speak a bit slower than you might normally speak and try to be relatively close to the microphone.  
• Try to avoid having any noise making objects in the recording space with you. Fans, clocks, machines that have a hum in the motor can all make it hard to decipher the audio recording.
• Play the audio back and step about 3 feet from the playback device.  If you cannot hear it, your students may not be able to hear it.

Graphics and Images

• Avoid text-heavy graphics are not recommended online. If it is unavoidable (scientific graphics or charts) you MUST include alt text for vision-impaired users. 
• If the item is more complex, please consider providing it in an email, dropbox, or some other means so that the details can be seen by your students.
• Try to keep colors limited. You may have students who cannot see colors well.  For example: to some people who struggle seeing blue, that color may appear white to them and not show up on their screen. Hyperlinks default to blue when you publish them, so be aware. Black and white are typically best.  When you do use color, perhaps consider a grayscale or black and white version if possible and appropriate.

View supported YouTube file formats

If you're not sure which format to save your video as or are getting an "invalid file format" error message when you're uploading, make sure that you’re using one of the following formats:

• .MOV
• .MPEG4
• .MP4
• .AVI
• .WMV
• .MPEGPS
• .FLV
• 3GPP
• WebM
• DNxHR
• ProRes
• CineForm
• HEVC (h265)