We're increasingly relying upon a variety of digital tools to share content with our students.

All course materials that consist mainly of audio or video must have captions and transcripts. Audio and video content can present significant access and accessibility challenges for our students if not properly implemented.

Whether due to a hearing impairment, technology barrier, or situational need, captions, and transcripts are vital to many students to successfully understand audio and video content. 

Uploading these presentations to YouTube to take advantage of the automated captioning services provided is a great step towards improving the accessibility for all viewers.

These course materials may include: 

• narrated voice-overs of PowerPoint or Google Slides

• recorded live class meetings

• recorded class tutorials

• podcasts

Start With A Recording

Capture the course content using a tool of your choice. The example shown below was recorded using Zoom, but you might consider Google Hangouts Meet, Jing, or Screencast-o-matic, among others.  

Steps To Upload

1. Access YouTube using your Geneseo email account. One easy way to do this is through the Apps button in your email account. Look for the cluster of buttons next to your username at the top right of your email screen. 

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   YouTube Button in Gmail Apps

2. Another good way of accessing your YouTube account is to go to https://studio.youtube.com, especially when needing to access videos that you've already created and uploaded. 

3. If this is your first time accessing YouTube from this account, you will be instructed to set up a channel. 

4. Click the "Create" icon at the top of the page to "upload video." Note: in order to upload videos longer than 15 minutes, YouTube will ask you to verify your account.  

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5. Follow the steps provided to import your video. Note: select "unlisted" in the visibility options when publishing to limit viewership to only those you provide the link to.  

6. Once finished, the video will show up on your Studio page. English auto-captions will be automatically added, and a transcript of the video will also be available for viewers. 

The consensus is that YouTube's auto-captioning accuracy is about 80% right: pretty great for a starting point, but far from perfect. That accuracy rate goes down for content in STEM fields or other advanced terminology, if the audio quality is poor, or if the AI doesn't recognize a speaker's accent. Every video's auto-captions should be reviewed to catch the absurd, unintentionally funny, or perhaps inappropriate interpretations it comes up with. 

Sometimes the auto-captioning may fail. The "Troubleshooting" section of Support: Use Automatic Captioning explains situations that may cause this, including poor sound quality, multiple people talking over one another, or silence at the beginning of the video. 

Steps to Improve the Auto-Captions

It's possible to edit YouTube's auto-captions. This is much faster than transcribing everything from scratch, and it also builds upon the convenient timestamps already noted in the automated system.   

1. On your YouTube Studio page, open the desired video (double-click on the name), and then click the "subtitles" button on the far left menu.

2. If your default language has been set to English, then you will see the "English (Automatic)" subtitle option. Click the Edit menu.

     

3. A new tab will open, with the "Edit" button option at the top. You will then be able to make changes to the auto-generated text. If nothing else, adding punctuation will help your viewers immensely. Be sure to click Publish when finished.

YouTube's workflow updates often. Please refer to YouTube's Support pages for additional guidance.  

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