Captions
Captions are an essential tool that provide deaf and hard of hearing people equal access to video content. Captions can also improve the experiences for other people like non-native English speakers, people with learning disabilities or even people in a noisy environment.
Captioning requirements
The university web accessibility policy requires all videos content - like lectures, live streams, YouTube videos and social media posts - to include accurate captioning that is human reviewed and edited. While auto-captioning has made significant advancements and should be used to accelerate the captioning process, the quality of scripts still requires human editing and reviewal.
Prerecorded videos must always include captions with:
- Correct audio synchronization
- Adequate time on screen for reading comprehension
- Correct spelling and punctuation
- Identification of speakers
- Identification of sounds or music as appropriate
Captioning tips
- Do not exceed 30 characters per line
- Do not have more than two lines on the screen at a time
- Use a readable font with an adequate font size
- Do not use words with ALL CAPS
- Keep most uses of "Um" or other gaps in talking
How to use auto-captioning tools
Videos can be uploaded to certain services that will automatically generate a transcript that can be reviewed and added into the final video as closed captions. Below are two recommended options for transcript generation.
Generating captions through Echo360
Echo360 is a lecture capture platform available to all university faculty. The platform integrates within Canvas and has automated captioning tools that can assist in the captioning process.
When videos are uploaded to Echo360, the system will auto-generate a transcript in the background. This automation takes time and can take a couple hour to show, depending on the length of the video. Once, a transcript is generated, it is editable and can be assigned as closed captions for the video.
Generating captions through YouTube
YouTube provides a generated transcript file for any uploaded video that are editable. Learn more about YouTube captioning.