Captioning Resources

Videos are being integrated more and more into the online classroom. However, they can create barriers for learners with hearing problems. If a student asks for an ADA accommodation for a video, you will be scrambling at the last minute to create a text supplement. That’s why it’s good practice to create a text supplement at the same time that you create a video.

Why Captioned Educational Video Is a Must!

The Americans with Disabilities Act and SB 105 and Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act require captioning on educational video that is available to students as well as the public, to ensure effective communication for people who are deaf and hard of hearing.

Resources

Requested Services:

The DECT Grant: (Distance Education Captioning and Transcription) is a state chancellor’s office funded grant that pays for the captioning of your online or hybrid content. The College of Canyons is the grant administrator and the grant is accessible to all California community college instructors.

3C Media Solutions is another chancellor’s office funded grant and works similarly to the DECT grant and is another FREE captioning solution for online/hybrid California community college instructors. Content is uploaded to 3C Media and your content is captioned (usually) within a few days. Check out my demo.

Do it Yourself

TechSmith Relay makes it simple to generate captions for your videos based on the existing audio track. And the built-in Caption Editor makes it possible for you to edit and publish generated captions when you're ready. Cuesta College has a subscription for TechSmith Relay, get started today and set up your account.
Amara is home to an award winning subtitle editor that makes it easy to caption and translate video for free. Amara also hosts volunteer localization & accessibility communities, and offers professional tools and services for subtitles.

YouTube auto caption is a FREE tool and is an automatic process. When uploading a video to YouTube, it will automatically add captions to your multimedia. Access and edit these captions by accessing the creator’s studio, selecting the Captions and CC button, and selecting the AUTOMATIC caption file. This tool is best used for shorter videos. NOTE: These machine-generated captions are rarely if ever fully accurate. However, if their accuracy is decent and captions can be perfected with only a few minor corrections, the easiest way to correct them is to do so directly in YouTube. For instructions see the Edit Captions help page on YouTube.

Paid Outsource

Companies such as Automatic Sync Technologies, 3PlayMedia, cielo24, and many other captioning service providers will caption videos for a fee. Contact these companies directly for additional information.

Benefits

Captions Clarify Video for All Students

While closed captioning for education is crucial to prevent disability discrimination, there are many additional benefits. The first of which is that captions help all students better understand and focus on educational videos. Captions clarify the dialogue when:

the speaker has an accent
technical terms are used
the audio is muffled or too quiet
the environment is noisy

All of these issues would normally distract students’ focus, but with captions, students can easily follow along without a problem.

Captions Aid ESL and Foreign Language Students

There are 4.5 million public school students in the U.S. whose first language is not English, as well as thousands of international students that come to the United States. Captions are a powerful way to help non-native speakers fully understand key concepts, especially when dealing with technical subjects.

Captions Aid Students with Learning Disabilities

Learning disabilities affect thousands of students and when not accommodated, can hinder students’ success in higher education. In 2014, only 17% of young adults with learning disabilities received accommodations and supports in postsecondary education because of their disability. Captions are an easy but impactful way to aid students who have trouble processing speech and auditory components in media.

Captions Improve Reading Comprehension & Literacy

Researchers Greg McCall and Carmen Craig found that reading comprehension scores from students increased dramatically when captioned educational video was used compared to uncaptioned educational video.

Captions Improve Retention & Focus

Captions are eye-catching and allow students to read along with the video. This combination of audio and visuals creates the best learning environment for students. The U.S. Dept. of Labor tested research subjects’ recall for information delivered orally, visually, or both orally and visually after a three-day time period.

Oral-only instruction had an information retention rate of 10% and visual-only instruction had a retention rate of 35%. The combination of both visual and oral instruction resulted in a 65% retention rate.

Captions Enable Search Across Video Platforms

Schools can use their video platforms as a powerful library. When videos are not captioned, you have to scroll through the entire database to find what you are looking for. When you use captions service to create captions and transcripts, the textual data opens your videos up to a full video library search. Rather than scrolling through endless videos, you now can search for keywords, concepts, speakers and more within seconds and all relevant videos will appear.