PBS’ American Experience is offering free downloads of six of its
award-winning Presidential biographies for educational use. As the
2008 election heats up, closed captioned biographies of Franklin
Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Jimmy
Carter, and Ronald Reagan — more than 23 hours of programming —
are available on the American Experience “The Presidents” web site
(pbs.org/presidents) and on Apple’s on iTunes U, a section of the
iTunes Store showcasing free educational offerings from WGBH and top
universities.
“Our iTunes U collaboration with Apple is an effective platform for
reaching our existing audience and attracting new viewers,” says
Annie Valva, WGBH Interactive’s director of Research and Business
Development. WGBH’s digital reach is further expanded by the
pioneering work of WGBH’s Media Access Group. Annie notes, “Within an
hour of posting one American Experience film to iTunes U we heard
from a user who told us how much he and his wife depend on our
captioned material.”
The Roosevelt biography is the first online video program to be
offered as a download with a Descriptive Video Service (DVS) track,
which makes video more accessible to viewers who are blind or have
low vision via narration of key visual elements, inserted into pauses
in dialogue. American Experience is closed captioned and described
for broadcast by WGBH’s Media Access Group (access.wgbh.org) for the
nation’s 36 million viewers with hearing or vision loss.
For more information on access features for web-based video, either
creating captioning and description or making sure these features are
included when video is repurposed for the web, contact the Media
Access Group at WGBH, access@wgbh.org