Resources for Accessible Events

The following language should be used on all promotional material, registration platforms, and landing pages for your events:

Boston University strives to be accessible, inclusive and diverse in our facilities, programming and academic offerings. Your experience in this event is important to us. If you have a disability (including but not limited to learning or attention, mental health, concussion, vision, mobility, hearing, physical or other health related), require communication access services for the deaf or hard of hearing, or believe that you require a reasonable accommodation for another reason please contact the event organizer [link to your or organization/department email] by [insert date 3 weeks prior to event] to discuss your needs.

 

Requesting Communication Access for your Event

Online Request Form

To request communication access (deaf and hard of hearing access) for your event, please complete the form above. We will make every effort to respond to and accommodate requests received. To help us best determine what access is required and who is responsible for payment, please fill out the form below with as much detail as possible. Requests received outside the recommended timeline below may be difficult to accommodate with preferred services and/or providers. In such cases, we will work with you to devise alternative arrangements, as needed.

Note: Our ability to secure qualified communication access providers is heavily influenced by four factors:

  • Administrative tasks: Time is needed to acquire, modify, and disseminate content materials to providers as well as secure ancillary University services that are critical to service provision.
  • Recruitment and scheduling: Providers qualifications in the content area of the event and the event community’s profile needs to be vetted and confirmed.
  • Location: In-person, hybrid, or exclusively virtual events require different levels of coordination attention.
  • High demand – low supply: Periods such as the beginning of the academic semester, regional matriculation and commencement season, conference season and evenings, weekends and holidays are considerably more challenging times to secure providers.

Marketing and Communication 

The tone that organizers set from the outset is key to optimal accessible marketing. Engaging campus stakeholders, internal and external to your unit or department, is invaluable in order to get an idea of who your target audience might include, and for getting a sense of how the message you are sending out will land on a variety of receivers. Marketing materials which are explicitly accessible signal those individuals with disabilities that they are welcomed and supported.   

All events should have a discoverable and clear accessibility/accommodations statement so that individuals with disabilities know how to request needed accommodations and by when. This is accomplished by creating accessible event promotion materials and registration process. Registration materials themselves should be accessible to screen reader assistive technology, and audio/video media must be open/closed captioned and/or made available as a transcript. 

Identify and publicize a contact person for accessibility and accommodation questions. Set a definitive date to accept requests for a communication access accommodation that allows the contact person to clarify, secure, and confirm the requested accommodation, ideally three weeks in advance. Ask for any information from attendees and presenters about their allergy free dietary choices, fragrance free spaces, and companion ticketing needs. Event planners may use the following accessibility and accommodations language or a version thereof on event promotional materials, media, and event registration platforms.   

“Boston University strives to be accessible, inclusive and diverse in our facilities, programming and academic offerings. Your experience in this event is important to us. If you have a disability (including but not limited to learning or attention, mental health, concussion, vision, mobility, hearing, physical or other health related), require communication access services for the deaf or hard of hearing, or believe that you require a reasonable accommodation for another reason please contact the event organizer [link to your or organization/department email] by [insert date three weeks prior to event] to discuss your needs.” 

“For questions about accessibility or to request an accommodation to view this event live (e.g., ASL Interpreters, Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART), assistive listening devices, hearing or induction loops), please contact [host contact information]. Please submit requests for an accommodation as soon as possible, ideally three open administrative weeks (see University calendar) in advance of the event. If you are seeing this message closer to the event, please still reach out to us, and we will try our best to fulfill the request or offer an alternative.”   

“In real time human captioning will be provided for this event. For questions about accessibility or to request an accommodation to view this event (e.g., ASL Interpreters, Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART), assistive listening devices, hearing or induction loops), please contact [host contact information]. Please submit requests for accommodations as soon as possible, ideally three administrative weeks (see University calendar) in advance of the event. If you are seeing this message closer to the event, please still reach out to us, and we will try our best to fulfill the request or offer an alternative.”    

When applicable, add the following to event notifications that direct people to the accessible media of an archived event:   

“The accessible recording will be made available on [insert website or social media link].”  

Fees and Service Related Expenses 

It is often the case that moderate-to-large require AV support and perhaps some teleconference broadcast support, such as in a webinar. Communication Access services that are utilized in-person or remotely must be factored into the budget  these primary or auxiliary AV services. Perhaps an additional large telemonitor must be brought in to display the video feed of a remote ASL-English Interpreter. Perhaps the monitor will be used to display a live transcript of the event proceedings in order for Deaf or hard of hearing event participants to perceive the proceedings. Perhaps an additional camera and camera operator must be hired to capture an ASL-English Interpreter that is in the event space that needs to be broadcast virtually as part of a split-screen or picture-in-picture broadcast. 

Our colleagues at Learning & Events Technology Services or our colleagues in BUMC IT for similar AV services on the medical campus. 

The following conditions are subject to approval for additional DAS resources from Dean of Students Office on an individual department or event basis: 

DAS is happy to help you make your event more inclusive. If the event is free, open to the public, and has an accommodation statement inviting participation from the community, it is highly likely that DAS will cover the costs of certain accommodations (e.g., CART, ASL or Audio Description) when it is requested by a member of the public. If your request for interpreters or transcribers was made by a registered student or BU staff or faculty, DAS will likely cover the costs of these accommodations.   

If the event is revenue generating it is expected that your budget will cover accommodation expenses. DAS can assist you with arranging accommodations and responding to requests that fall outside the events budget planning.  

If the focus of a planned event is high interest to the disabled community, DAS will cover the costs of providing CART services when consulted at least three weeks in advance of the event. Accommodations such as ASL-English interpretation will be provided only if directly requested as an accommodation for a participant.  

Note: There is a two hour minimum charge for each ASL-English Interpreter and there is a hourly charge for remote CART services. Fees associated exclusively with ASL-English interpreting services may range from $55 -$100 per provider, and may range from $110-$125 per provider for remote CART services. Boston University, as a private institution, pays fees for these services that are at or above a competitive market rate for the service, however, you may find the Commonwealth’s fee structure for public and state institutions an informative supplement to assist your event budget development for these services. (See Massachusetts Commission)