Captioning audio/video content

Adding captions and providing transcripts for video and audio content is important for a number of reasons:

A moral imperative to not exclude users from content.
Aston’s charter to provide an education for all and not to disadvantage any student or member of staff.
Accessibility for users that are deaf or hard of hearing.
Accessibility to those with poor internet connections.
Providing multimodal access to content can have a positive effect on comprehension.
“After surveying our students, nearly 50% are downloading our transcripts and using those as study aids.” Patrick Wirth, University of Wisconsin – Extension survey research
Ability to view in sound-sensitive environments.
Adhering to legislative responsibilities.

The majority of audio/video content at Aston falls into 2 categories.

Asynchronous recorded content such as lecture captures and learning resources distributed via Panopto.
Synchronous teaching and learning sessions such as those taking place via Blackboard Collaborate.

Below are some suggestions on how captioning can be used with both types of content listed above.

Adding and editing Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) Captions into a recording on Panopto

Every session recorded into Panopto has ASR generated captions available. These are machine-generated and are not 100% accurate. You will need to manually revise them after you have imported them into the session.

Enabling live (computer generated) captions in Chrome (useful for Blackboard Collaborate sessions)

There’s more information on the Google Chrome blog.

Human-generated live closed captions in Blackboard Collaborate

More information on live closed captions can be found on the Blackboard Collaborate help site.

Enabling live (computer generated) captions in Teams meetings

Although not strictly part of Aston’s Technology Enhanced Learning Provision, Teams meetings are often used in an educational setting for one to one meetings with students be it for Personal Tutoring, supervision or office hours. Live captions can be enabled in Teams meetings and be very useful for those with hearing impairments.

Take a look at Use live captions in a Teams meeting for guidance.