[Chris2048]

> it should have been done as they were posted

This was not something they where required to do?The implication here is if you add requirements to free content, institutions just won't bother - the material was only released due to the low bar to do so in the first place.

> sometimes there is no other way forward

There is if you change the law, which is what I think parent was implying

[vizeroth]

This is where it can be difficult for people to understand the culture in which people are operating. From the outside, a public University is the ivory tower, but from the inside, it's just short of chaos. Sometimes faculty have direct access to post this stuff and either don't understand the requirements or don't care. Other times the staff who post this stuff don't have the support to stand up to faculty when they're told to post it.

The University is not removing all of their content, and they plan to continue to add new public content. It would definitely be a significant undertaking to make 20,000 audio and video files accessible. I'm sure the people responsible for the content will consider prioritizing that undertaking and possibly seek funding to get some of that content back out there.

Something else that is missing in their discussion of requiring University credentials to access the content is the fact that the same requirements apply to content they distribute to students, faculty, and staff. The difference is primarily in the likelihood they would be sued, and the fact that they would have a much easier time finding the funding to make something accessible if a student needed it.

Yes, you could change the law, which would theoretically benefit the people who could access this content, but would completely set back the few gains we've seen in web accessibility (assuming we're not also talking about everything else the ADA does).

Or you could set priorities for the content and fund the effort to make it accessible if it's really worth making it available. Fund research into improving automatic captioning/transcription, put your students on the path to better jobs, and improve the content for everyone.