Innovative Approaches to Closed Captions and Transcripts in Blackboard Videos

Doug HenryAdjunct Instructor – CIS-101

Co-conspirators:Jason Monroe - Videos and transcriptsCheri Coder-Kembell - Videos and transcripts Rebecca Waldo - Transcripts, YouTube, and BlackBoard

Summary:We discuss approaches used in the preparation of the training videos for the new CIS-101 shell. During the shell development, members of the team considered various closed-captioning and transcript techniques, finally settling on videos in YouTube, to take advantage of the captioning and transcript capability. We mention alternatives to accommodate students who cannot access YouTube.

Some Terminology

• Transcript - text of the audio in a video or audio presentation

• Captioning - synchronizing the transcript to the video - include meaning and sound effects

• Closed Captions - Able to turn on or off (CC) - play in a separate video track

• Open Captions - imbedded in the video - always on

• Subtitles - Brief, mainly for translation and for emphasis

• Post-production – Captions added after the video is created – increasingly being automated

• Real time – Captions added during play – typed by someone more focused than I, with really good hearing…

Regulatory Aspects

• Rehabilition Act – 1973

• Section 508 - All federal electronic and information technology must be accessible to people with disabilities

• Section 504 - People with disabilities get equal access to any program or activity that receives federal subsidy - includes video and audio class content.

• 21st Century Video Communications & Accessibility Act - expands closed caption requirements for all online video that previously aired on television.

• OTC Disability Support Services (DSS) - speech-to-text, note taking, visual describing, alternative formats, tape recording

Benefits of Captioning

• Comprehension - hearing impaired, ESL

• Subtitles and translations

• Search engines - indexing videos online - repurposing video information

• Workplace viewing, noisy surroundings, mobile

• Interactive captioning - text search, seeking, bookmarking

CIS-101 Videos

• Prepared by Jason Monroe and Cheri Coder-Kembell

• Video tutorials on first assignment for each weekly lesson - 1 to 3 per unit – 12 units – 5 to 15 minutes each

• Screen capture using Camtasia - narration added - posted to YouTube in a CIS-101 channel

• Screen capture tools: Commercial (Camtasia, Captivate, Snagit), free (Camstudio), online (Screencast-o-matic, Jing)

• Features to look for: • Various window, cursor, options • File save options (quality, filesize)• ‘Callouts’• ‘Autopan’• Audio, webcam recording

Transcripts

• Typed - while listening to narration

• Voice Recognition - Dragon, Windows 7

• Self: Train for best results

• Other narrator: Play at 1/2 speed, listen and narrate into Dragon or Windows 7

Dragon Win 7

HTML:<div style=“height:120px; width:100%;overflow:scroll;”>text</div>

• Presenting transcripts in Blackboard

• Separate PDF (open in new window)

• Scrolling text box in Bb (edit HTML)

Adding Closed Captions

• Submit file to YouTube

• Caption file formats

• Plain text with blank lines - example• SRT - YouTube – example• Others (Flash, iPod, DVD, Win Media, QT)

Plain Text SRT

Autocaption in YouTube (machine processing) – not quite there yet…

More …

Translations

• Transcripts – Google Translate can do PDF files, and posting translations is easy

• Captions – multiple captions can be added to YouTube videos

Interactive transcripts

• Becoming more popular

• Allow highlighting intranscript to jump to apoint in the video

• YouTube example:

Interactive Transcripts – Cool Commercial Examplehttp://www.3playmedia.com/

Interactive Transcripts

Home grown (tinkering) - for students who cannot access YouTube – uses <iframe> and Flash player ‘seek’ to start video at certain point

Some Lessons Learned• Teamwork under pressure - learning from colleagues

• KISS - the technology will catch up fast

• Make it FUN!

References• http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1

00077 - Adding captions and subtitles

• http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?answer=100076 – Options for generating captions

• http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2010/06/youtubes-interactive-transcripts.html - Adding interactive transcripts

• http://www.3playmedia.com/company/webinars/ - several good webinars on closed captioning - including Sec 508, interactive captioning, search and accessibility, university examples