Captioning

Visual Media

If you receive an email indicating that you have a student needing captions in your course, all videos should be shown with captions turned on. Any videos posted in Moodle or shared with your class should have the option of turning on closed captions. If needed, you can submit videos for captioning to DAR, or we can help you find a captioned version. 

Lecture Recording

If you have a student approved for captions, you can send your recorded lectures to DAR. We use rev.com for captioning. In general, turnaround for captions take 12–48 hours.

If you do not currently have a student approved for captions, you can caption your videos by using artificially generated captions, such as YouTube, Google Slides or built-in live captions on your phone. Also, you can download the transcript generated by the paid version of Zoom (CIT provides licenses for Hope employees for the paid version). Please reach out if you have questions or need help getting started. 

Synchronous Online Lectures

If you have a student approved for captions who needs captions in real-time, this can be arranged through our office. Contact us with questions. 

If you do not have a student approved for captions, some platforms can create free, real-time captions that are artificially generated. Please reach out if you would like help getting started.

Artificially Generated Captions

When using artificially generated captions, it is important to keep in mind that the accuracy of the captions is based on the sound quality of your video content as well as the clarity of the speakers. If the language in your video is very discipline specific or contains complex terminology, this method may not produce accurate captions. Since artificially generated captions are not 100% accurate, this should be considered a first step towards creating your own captions.

Cleaning up Captions

Artificially generated captions may miss some content and/or misinterpret what the speaker is saying. Here are a few things to consider when editing artificially generated captions. 

• Make sure that all spoken words are accurate.
• Keep caption lines short and easy to read. Aim for about 5 to 6 words per line.
• If there is more than one speaker, add labels or identifiers. If the speaker's name is known, put their name in brackets. For example:
  [Stacey] Will you go over the second problem from the homework?
• If it is obvious who is speaking, you do not need to use labels.
• Put non-speech sounds in brackets on their own line. For example:
  [Dog barking] 
  or
  [Soft music]
• If you cannot understand something being said, write [indistinct].

If you would like to learn more about captions, check out Captions, Transcripts, and Audio Descriptions (WebAIM).