Ensuring your video content is accessible is crucial for inclusivity. William & Mary provides tools and resources to help you add and manage captions effectively. There are two places that we most commonly deal with captions, in YouTube and in Zoom.
When you create YouTube videos for your students you want to ensure captions are added. Here is the method I use.
After you drop a video in YouTube, YouTube will automatically apply captions. It may take several days for them to appear, so keep track and go back.
In YOUR VIDEOS select the video you want by clicking on the title.
From the left column, select SUBTITLES. Do not choose the option on the bottom right. There will be no subtitles. It exists to apply a text file that you have created elsewhere.
DUPLICATE AND EDIT. This will apply the subtitles.
After this, there will be several options. Select the line that says PUBLISHED. Hover over the word PUBLISHED and click the EDIT icon. It is ok if you pick the wrong one. Just X out and try a different one. You should get to a page that lists everything said. It will be in one long text block with no punctuation breaks.
Go through manually adding punctuation and editing.
*If you don’t finish, the new file will have already been created. Don’t duplicate again. If you select to duplicate, all your edits disappear, as if it were raw. You will only see the work you have already done if you choose EDIT.
Expect captioning to take five to six times the length of the video to transcribe. For a long oral history interview, it takes much longer. While tutorials are straight reading of text, there are some rules of captioning that have to be followed for conversations.
Most importantly, the speaker has to be identified on each line, whether they are on screen or not.
(Hall) Welcome to our interview. Please tell us a little about yourself.
(Cozart) Hello. I am the world’s greatest librarian.
(Hall) I find that unlikely since I am the world’s greatest librarian.
Next, time synchronization is very important. The words should appear when they are being said. You tube automatically does this, but you still need to verify accuracy by listening. You can make timing changes in the editor, which should be open while you are verifying accuracy.
Each frame of the video should only contain one to three lines of text, with 32 characters maximum per line. Each line should last a minimum of one second on screen.
Neatness counts. It is not just ok to remove the Ums. It is recommended. This is called Clean Read.
For other tips and specific issues, visit the Described and Captioned Media Program site.
It is much easier to edit the captions in Zoom than in YouTube. As an added advantage, there are far fewer mistakes in a Zoom transcription. Once you receive the email that says your Cloud recording is ready, you can edit the video. Log in to Zoom. All your Zoom meetings are listed under RECORDINGS AND TRANSCRIPTS. Select the one you want to edit.
You will see options that include trimming and editing the captions. While not related to this topic, it is a good idea to trim off the early part of the video that has people waiting around for the meeting to start. You can also trim the end as people are leaving. Remember the part you select is the part that will be left, so trim with care. It is easy to get it backward.
To edit the text, simply hover over it until the edit pencil appears and then select it.
While Zoom generally does a good job of translating voice to text, it is weak in punctuation. It often interprets pauses as ends of sentences. You will have to capitalize a lot of sentences and names. It also does not capture text when two people talk at the same time. You may end up adding entire sentences.
Once you have the text set correctly in Zoom, you may want to post the video to YouTube to make it easier to access for your students.
In YouTube CREATE and add the .MP4 file associated with the Zoom meeting.
Fill in the supporting information. On the third page, you will have an option to add subtitles. You will want to select to add subtitles and upload the .VTT file associated with the Zoom meeting. Again, you should check to make sure it is accurate.
If you like learning the deeper options in Canvas try Editing Zoom captions in Canvas.