Lesson: Closed Captioning

Representation: Using Closed Captioning

 

 Lesson Pages

 

 Sizing Up the Barrier 

The potential flexibility of online courses benefits everyone, but may be particularly attractive to students with sensory impairments that can be mitigated to a degree through digital tools online. However, just because a course is available in a digital medium does not make it inherently accessible (Massengale & Vasquez, 2016 Links to an external site.). Students with hearing impairments, audio-processing disorders, or for whom learning through audio-channels is inherently challenging for whatever reason may be inadvertently and unintentionally excluded when instructors use otherwise effective podcasts or instructional videos that rely on students' aural comprehension.

Indeed, provision of captioning when a student with a hearing impairment is enrolled in a class is a legal mandate through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and the Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA).

Moreover, there is ample evidence that students without hearing impairments benefit from the option for text-based options when presented with instructional videos (Furnham, De Siena, & Gunter, 2002 Links to an external site.; Montali & Lewandowski, 1996 Links to an external site.; Tindall-Ford, Chandler, & Sweller, 1997 Links to an external site.; Xiaowen, Shuang, Brzezinski & Chan, 2006 Links to an external site.).

Despite all of this, many instructors feel at a loss for creating captions, which seems to be laborious and skill-intensive beyond reason. As such, instructors may forgo use of otherwise effective media or simply accept that some students will not have access to all parts of the course - both unsatisfying options.

 

 

Scenario

Young man with glasses stands between a large paper and pencil on the one side and a video camera on the other.

Leroy is a Graduate Assistant responsible for teaching two courses while he works on his PhD. He really enjoys bringing in media from YouTube and making his own podcast lectures for students. However, this year he has a student, "Sam Pull" with an audio-processing disorder who requires text-based alternatives to audio for instructional material. Leroy looked over the YouTube videos he uses and noted that the "automatic captions" that they have are laughably terrible. He feels overwhelmed by the prospect of having to type up transcripts for all the media that he uses in the course and thus opts to replace most of the videos he usually uses with print articles. He feels that the course is less engaging than it normally is, and honestly feels a little resentful toward the student whose presence forced him to change his instructional methods.

How can instructors proactively provide the options for captions so that all of their students may benefit from them when they choose and so that they themselves needn't react when students like "Sam" in the scenario above turn up in courses?

That's the focus of this lesson.

 

Methods

Method One: Find Existing Well-Captioned Videos

The UT Library has quality media resources, the majority of which come with quality captions. To inquire as to whether a captioned version of a video or film used for a class exists, instructors may contact Hodges library staff Links to an external site.. Please check out Download this flyer

with information regarding UTK's subscription to educational videos.


Method Two: Using Canvas Studio 

  1. On the far left-hand menu, click on the Canvas Studio logo ().
  2. Click on the “Add” button to the top-right ().
  3. Click on "Browse Files" and locate the file from your computer. 
  4. After your video has finished uploading and processing, click on the video you wish to caption.
  5. Locate the “CC Captions” tab in the white window below the video.
  6. Under “Captions Request” on the left side, select the spoken language of the video (Some languages are not available for captioning in Canvas Studio). Click Request. 
  7. Canvas Studio will auto-generate captions. This can take several minutes to several hours depending on the length of your video and other factors. You can safely navigate away while this is working.
  8. When Canvas Studio is finished processing the automatic captions, click Review and Publish.
  9. Scan through the captions and make any edits necessary simply by clicking on the text and making changes.
  10. When finished, click the green Publish button to the top-right of the captions. Done!

Also check out Canvas's own guide for using Canvas Studio to caption Links to an external site.! 

Method Three: Using YouTube

Note: This option works best when the video being subtitled is relatively short (<10 minutes), but can conceivably be used with videos of any length.

YouTube is ubiquitous as a video-hosting platform and there are a wealth of videos already available on YouTube that may be useful. It is also a useful place to upload one's own videos to embed in Canvas or otherwise share with their students. YouTube began overlaying caption files for videos in 2010 and more recently began generating "automatic captions" for videos. Unfortunately, these auto-captions are often of dramatically poor Links to an external site.quality and do not fulfill ADA requirements.

It would seem as though instructors must be fortunate enough to find quality videos that have professional-grade subtitles for this to be useful. It would also seem that uploading their own videos puts quality subtitles out of reach. Fortunately, neither of those statements are true. How one goes about utilizing YouTube to generate quality subtitles depends on whether they are owners of the said video or not. Below I address both cases.

When an instructor "owns" the video. In this case, instructors will benefit from the automatic captions that YouTube generates as a major time saver. Here's how it works. Instructors should...

  1. Go to www.youtube.com Links to an external site. and sign in.
  2. Click "Upload Button" in the top-right corner to upload a video from the computer.
  3. Give it some time. Depending on the length of the video, the automatic captions will take some time to generate. This could be anywhere from five minutes to several hours.
  4. Now, the automatic captions will in all likelihood be at least partially inaccurate (in my experience, they tend to be about 80-90% correct, depending heavily on the sound quality of the recording). However, that means that they will also be partially accurate and the timing of the captions (one of the more laborious aspects of captioning) will be done. All that the instructor must do now is edit the existing automatic caption to iron out the errors. YouTube makes this pretty easy! I've assembled a screencast Links to an external site. to demonstrate; OIT has also put together a nice Download document with screenshots to demonstrate the process.

 

Resources

Quick Reference Guide to Captioning with Canvas Studio

Quick Reference Guide to Captioning with YouTube

 

Captioning someone else's YouTube Video.  What if the video is someone else's and has automatically generated subtitles? Try to contact the creator Links to an external site.(s) of the video and ask them to give you the opportunity to contribute subtitles, then (if they respond affirmatively), continue as described in step one below. If the video owner does not respond, there is still a way!

  1. Copy the transcript from the YouTube video you are hoping to subtitle (follow instructions in this tutorial to create a caption file).
  2. Add the YouTube video to Canvas Studio.
  3. Upload the caption file you created in step one.

 

Consider This: Educator "Fair Use" Rights

Some instructors may be concerned about copyright laws when it comes to adding captions to videos that they themselves do not own. This is a good question! When sharing videos and media created by others, faculty should seek accessible alternatives. UT Libraries offers captioned educational videos in various subject areas. Other sources such as TED and Khan Academy almost always include captions, as well. Additionally, faculty members may caption a video that is not their own work product so that it may be used for educational purposes (Fair Use Doctrine). If one exercises the Fair Use doctrine, such materials would be best restricted to access only for members of the class (i.e., not made available publicly).

Method Four: Call in the Pros

Uppsala University has a procured Space360 as supplier of subtitling for videos and films. Subtitling is charged per minute of film. Swedish subtitles of a Swedish speech is 80 kr/min and English subtitling of English speech is 35 kr/min.

Please note that in nearly all use cases (including on Youtube and Studium / Canvas) it is best to provide subtitling as closed captions, i.e. text that is displayed on top of the video and not as part of the actual video image. To get this, check the box SRT-fil when filling out the order form linked below.

See all current subtitling prices in the contract database Links to an external site.

Form for ordering subtitling from Space 360 Links to an external site.

 

 

Summary

This lesson emphasized that providing alternatives to audio options when using video media is a best practice not only for meeting the needs of students with hearing-related disabilities, but is an option that can benefit all students.

There are three ways suggested for addition of captions to videos whether the instructor "owns" the video or not. If there is a student with a hearing-related disability in the class, calling on Student Disability Services is the best option, but otherwise there are still good options available in the form of harnessing the good in Canvas Studio or YouTube automatic captions or utilizing the free services of Amara. In cases in which time is premium and there's a budget, professional vendors can provide quality captions for a fee. 

While captioning one's own videos may seem daunting at first, remember that it needs to be done only once and the benefits for everyone make it well worth the extra effort.