Captioning Basics

VLC ProfessionalDevelopment Center

About Us…

VLC Professional Development Center• Hosted at Wake Technical Community College• Provide training and support on distance learning

and teaching to faculty throughout the NCCCS• Contact information– Jennifer Jones, Center Director– 919-866-5636– jjones4@waketech.edu

• vlcprofessionaldevelopment.pbworks.com

Session Overview

• Why Caption?• Captioning Vocabulary• Online Captioning Tools– Amara– YouTube

• Finding Captioned Videos

Why Caption?

• Who benefits from captions?– Deaf– Hearing impaired– Anyone unable to access the audio for any reason– Viewers not familiar with the language being

spoken in the video• Supports multiple learning styles

Section 508

From Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act• § 1194.22 Web-based intranet and internet

information and applications.– (b) Equivalent alternatives for any multimedia presentation

shall be synchronized with the presentation. • § 1194.24 Video and multimedia products

– (c) All training and informational video and multimedia productions which support the agency's mission, regardless of format, that contain speech or other audio information necessary for the comprehension of the content, shall be open or closed captioned.

Captioning Vocabulary

Five Key Words:• Transcript• Captions• Subtitles• Open Captions• Closed Captions

Transcript

• Text version of all of the important audio information

• Includes :– Spoken word– Conversation– Other sounds that influence

the content or the context of the audio.

• Multiple speakers are identified in the transcript

Captions

• Text displayed on or below the video in unison with the audio

• Captions are an equivalent to the spoken word• Captions must be accessible (access to turn on

or off with assistive technology)

Subtitles

• Synchronous text-based replacements for the audio content

• Generally provided in a language different from the audio

• Subtitles facilitate language accessibility

Open Captions

• Embedded in the video • Visible all the time• Open captions cannot be

turned off• Generally not the solution of

choice

Closed Captions

• Can be turned on and off by the viewer

• Closed caption files work with the video file, but are not part of the video itself.

• Player control allows captions to be toggled on and off

• Preferred accessibility solution

Online Captioning Tools - Amara

• Amara - http://www.amara.org/en/ – Free tool for captioning videos already online– Can link YouTube account with Amara to sync

videos for captioning– Tutorial: NCLOR – Amara Universal Subtitles

Online Captioning Tools - YouTube

• Add captions to your videos in YouTube• Will need a transcript saved as a text (.txt) file• YouTube will sync transcript with audio in

video• Demo of uploading a transcript to YouTube– http://youtu.be/G-COLjDgRck

Finding Captioned Videos

• YouTube– http://www.youtube.com/– Filter search results for closed captioned videos

• Teacher’s Domain– http://www.teachersdomain.org/ – Search by topic, grade level, resource type– Filter search results for captioned videos

• Request captioned videos from publishers

Summary

• Provide equivalent content for video and audio content

• Video– Transcript and captions for spoken words throughout

the video – Video descriptions of relevant actions taking place on

the screen should also be provided. – Synchronize with the action as it occurs on the screen.

• Audio – provide text transcription

QUESTIONS?