Captioning

Captions are the text representation of the audio in a video. Captions are crucial for learners who are deaf or hard of hearing, but they can benefit all students.

How do I Caption My Videos?

When you consider whether a video needs to be captioned by a paid service or by a machine through Kaltura, the question is whether it’s a one-time use, just-in-time video in your announcements, or whether you intend to reuse the video year after year.

One-Use, Just-In-Time Videos

If you have an informal video used in your announcements, you may have those videos machine captioned. Because machine captioning is not accurate enough to meet accessibility standards, you should then edit those captions for accuracy.

Step 1: Ordering Machine Captions

Any video created after December 2021 will be automatically captioned. You can skip to Step 2: Editing Captions

If you have a video created before December 2021, it may not have been captioned automatically. See Kaltura (Captioning) – Manually Requesting Machine Captions for instructions on how to request machine captions, then move to Step 2.

Step 2: Editing Captions

Automatic machine captions through Kaltura, or even through Zoom or YouTube, are not accurate enough to meet accessibility standards and should be edited. See Kaltura (Captioning) – Editing Captions from the UW System KnowledgeBase for directions on how to edit your videos through Kaltura.

Formal Videos to be Included in Course Content

If your video will be used every semester and included in the course content, ask your instructional designer to order manual captions for your videos. Your video will be captioned by a skilled human at a 99 percent accuracy rate. It’s still a good idea to review these captions for accuracy.

Video Summaries

If you are planning to record an informal video (i.e. announcement videos, one-time videos) that students will watch before you have a chance to edit the captions, we recommend writing a brief summary of what you covered in the video for students who may need this information in a text-based format for accessibility purposes. This summary can be a quick bullet point summary. Any important information that was covered in the video needs to be included in the summary.