The Accessible Media & Technology (AcMe) team in the Office of Disability Services (ODS) has created comprehensive guides on how to caption content & integrate captioning throughout JMU environments.
Within these guides you will find information about how to caption your own media, find captioned media, assess adequate captioning, and more. This content has been made with all skill levels in mind. There is also a list of definitions for terms that may be unfamiliar or confusing.
Not sure where to start?
Learning how to provide captioning for all of your videos is a big undertaking. And with all of the ways media can be shared in higher education, it can also be highly individualized. You will likely be utilizing several captioning platforms and practices at one time.
If you are new to captioning at JMU, we recommend reading our Captioning Best Practices Guide for Instructors. This guide covers the nuances of captioning in the most common video platforms at JMU.
How to caption by platform
These are captioning platforms that allow you to caption content, either by creating your own captions or editing automatic captions. All how-to guides reference our transcription guidelines and caption editing guidelines.
How to add caption files by video platform
These are video platforms to which you can upload a caption file. Caption files are obtained either from a captioning vendor or a captioning platform mentioned above.
Definitions
You may find some of the following terms throughout our guides.
- automatic captions: Captions that are generated using automatic speech recognition (ASR) technology. These captions often lack accuracy and crucial details such as punctuation, speaker identification, and non-speech sounds.
- captions: A text version of speech and non-speech auditory information in audiovisual media. They are synchronized to the audio of the media.
- caption cell: A single caption or block of text, usually 1-2 lines.
- caption editing: The second stage of the captioning process. This step is the synchronization of the caption text with its corresponding audio. Caption text can typically still be edited during this stage, too.
- caption file: A text file that contains the caption text and timecodes. This file can be downloaded from captioning vendors and certain video platforms and then uploaded onto videos. There are several caption file types. The most common are SRTs (.srt) and VTTs (.vtt). Some video platforms only take a specific caption file type.
- closed captions: Captions that can be turned on and off.
- open captions: Captions that are "burned on" or embedded into a video. They are always visible and cannot be turned off.
- subtitles: A text version of spoken dialogue in audiovisual media, often representing language translation. As opposed to captions, they usually do not include non-speech audio. Sometimes they are used interchangably, such as in Amara.
- transcript: A text version of speech and non-speech auditory information, usually provided as a formatted document.
- transcription: The first stage of the captioning process. This step is the act of typing or producing the text version of speech and non-speech sounds in auditory media.
Coming Soon
Please check back soon for more content, including captioning in Camtasia and Microsoft Stream (the video player for Microsoft Teams & OneDrive).