Captioning
Captions are text versions of the spoken word presented within multimedia. Captions allow the content of web audio and video to be accessible to those who do not have access to audio. Though captioning is primarily intended for those who cannot hear the audio, it has also been found to help those that can hear audio content, those who may not be fluent in the language in which the audio is presented, those for whom the language spoken is not their primary language, etc.
Why Caption Videos?
- Required for accessibility for the deaf and hard-of-hearing
- For anyone in noisy situations, when the audio quality is poor, or where noise isn’t allowed
- Make your video text searchable by search engines
- Increase comprehension, especially for people with English as a second language
Caption Questions or Requests:
- Email Doris Pierce at: commaccess@uca.edu
- For any questions regarding Captioning call 450-3613
Resources
National Center on Disability and Access to Education Cheatsheet for captioning YouTube Videos
Captions: Improving Access to Postsecondary Education: DO-IT
Captioning YouTube Videos
YouTube already has automatic captions so why should I have my videos manually captioned?
YouTube does offer an automatic caption service. Unfortunately, the technology that YouTube (which comes from Google) uses is not always accurate in choosing the correct captions.
For example, below you will see a clip from a recent Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration. This clip has utilized automatic captioning from the YouTube site. The automatic caption reads, “my dream is killed three months to make my community.” What the person is actually saying is, “My dream is pretty much just to give back to my community.”
Automatic captions are, in theory, a great idea aimed at making YouTube more accessible. However, as seen above, the auto captions are not always correct and this can cause significant confusion for students who rely on the text to capture the content of the video or don’t hear the audio. It is important to check and see if the automatic captions for your video work before you show the video clip in class! If the captions don’t match up with what is being said, we have provided links below on how to caption all of your YouTube videos.