Federal Work-Study (FWS) Internship Program: Library Undergraduate Digital Accessibility Assistant (Student Wage)

uva; Charlottesville (VA); On-site; USD 17,000 - 25,000; Part time

Job summary

The University of Virginia Library seeks a Library Digital Accessibility Student Team member. This part-time role supports two tracks: Captioning & Transcription or PDF & Document Remediation, producing accurate, standards-based work for digital media and documents.

The team is guided by a Graduate Lead and supervised by the Library’s Digital Accessibility Specialist to ensure quality and FERPA-compliant handling.

Qualifications

• Current UVA undergraduate student.
• Experience with captioning, transcription, or audio/video editing preferred.
• Ability to follow style guides and quality benchmarks.

Responsibilities

• Produce captioning/transcription work per track in a high-volume, production-focused environment.
• Follow established workflows, style guides, and quality benchmarks.
• Maintain logs and confidentiality per FERPA and Library policies.
• Assist with quality reviews of captions, including non-English language media as directed.

Skills

Captioning

Transcription

Audio/video editing

Quality control

Education

Current undergraduate UVA student

Tools

YouTube Studio

Verbit

3Play Media

Amara

Job description

The Library Digital Accessibility Assistant contributes to the UVA Library's Digital Accessibility Student Team by performing production work in one of two focus areas: captioning and transcription of digital media, or remediation of PDF and other document files. Assistants work within a small sub-team led by a Graduate Library Digital Accessibility Lead, who provides day-to-day direction and quality review. Overall program supervision is provided by the Library's Digital Accessibility Specialist. This is a production-focused role for students who are detail-oriented, reliable, and committed to digital equity and information access. Specific responsibilities vary by track.

Primary Responsibilities

Production Work (approximately 80-85% of effort)

Assistants perform high-volume, standards-compliant production work in their assigned track. Track-specific responsibilities will be provided in the position supplement. Across both tracks, all Assistants are expected to:

• Follow established workflows, style guides, and quality benchmarks
• Submit completed work to their Graduate Lead for quality review and incorporate feedback
• Apply quality control for complex content, flagging items that require escalation to the Graduate Lead
• Maintain consistent throughput to meet team production targets
• Maintain accurate work logs in the team tracking system
• Maintain confidentiality of student and patron records accessed in the course of processing materials, consistent with FERPA and Library privacy policies

General Team Responsibilities (approximately 15-20% of effort)

• Participate in onboarding and training during the first weeks of each semester
• Attend team check-ins and contribute to workflow improvement discussions
• Communicate proactively when questions, edge cases, or blockers arise

Captioning & Transcription Focus Area

The Student Accessibility Assistant (Captioning & Transcription) performs production captioning and transcription work for the UVA Library Digital Accessibility Student Team. This position focuses on creating and editing accurate, standards-compliant captions and transcripts for Library digital media collections, including a supplemental multilingual captioning pilot. Job functions include:

• Create accurate captions and transcripts for Library digital media using captioning software tools
• Edit and correct auto-generated captions to meet quality standards for timing, accuracy, speaker identification, and readability
• Edit captions and transcripts for materials with multiple speakers, background noise, or technical vocabulary, applying judgment about clarity and speaker attribution
• Follow established style guides and quality benchmarks for caption formatting
• Submit completed work to the Graduate Captioning Specialist for quality review and incorporate feedback
• Assist with quality review of LLM-generated captions for non-English language media as directed by the Graduate Captioning Specialist
• Flag accuracy concerns and document recurring issues for pilot evaluation

PDF and Document Remediation Focus Area

The Student Accessibility Assistant (PDF & Document Remediation) performs high-volume remediation of PDF and document files for the UVA Library Digital Accessibility Student Team. This position focuses on making Library digital content accessible by correcting structure, tags, reading order, alt text, and metadata using professional remediation tools. Job functions include:

• Remediate PDF and document files to meet WCAG 2.1 AA and PDF/UA accessibility standards
• Correct and add reading order, semantic tags, heading structure, alt text for images, and document metadata using Adobe Acrobat Pro
• Apply quality control for complex content types such as tables, charts, and multi-column layouts, flagging items that require escalation to the Graduate Remediation Specialist
• Process documents through the established remediation workflow, including pre-processing steps in SensusAccess and Equidox as appropriate
• Run quality checks using PAC 2024 or equivalent PDF accessibility validation tools
• Submit completed files to the Graduate Remediation Specialist for final review and incorporate feedback
• Maintain consistent throughput to meet team production targets
• Maintain confidentiality of student and patron records accessed in the course of processing materials, consistent with FERPA and Library privacy policies

Minimum Requirements

• Education: Current undergrad UVA student
• Licensure: None
• Federal work-study students are eligible to apply.

Preferred Experience

• Prior experience with captioning, transcription, or audio/video editing
• Familiarity with captioning platforms such as YouTube Studio, Verbit, 3Play Media, or Amara
• Experience with or interest in linguistics, a