D12 & D13 - Video/Audio

What Is "Appropriate Captioning"?

Many instructors aren't aware that auto-generated captioning (as is found on most YouTube videos) is not sufficient for accessibility. Proper captioning needs punctuation and appropriate word-matching. (If you doubt me, try watching a poorly captioned video with the sound turned off!)

Depending on the ownership of the video, there are several options for ensuring the videos you're using in your course have appropriate captioning.

If you created the video:

• use a video-editing tool (e.g., Screencast-o-matic, YouTube) to adjust the captions as needed
  OR
• submit the video for captioning from 3CMedia (check out the other tab on this page).

If you didn't create the video:

• Amara Links to an external site. offers both open software for captioning 3rd-party educational videos and an archive of videos already captioned by others. (A free account is required.)
• Add/edit captions using the YouTube "Community Captions" tool Links to an external site.. (Many YouTube users aren't aware of the feature so you may need to request that the owner of the YouTube channel turn it on first.)
• Do a search on YouTube or Google for whatever search terms are appropriate and then filter for “closed captioned.” (You’ll still have to double-check to make sure the captioning is good enough, but it will cut down on the number of obviously bad choices in your search results. =-)) 

What's the Difference Between Captions and Audio Description?

The short answer is captions provide a text version of dialogue or narrative (for hearing impaired viewers). Audio description is a verbal explanation of what's happening on the screen (for visually impaired viewers).

Here's a nice blog post explaining What Is Audio Description?

Handling Audio

Audio files--spoken content and music with lyrics--will need to have a complete and accurate transcript provided.

Transcripts, which allow anyone not able to access content from web audio to read the content instead, are an important part of making web multimedia content accessible. Transcripts allow deaf/blind users to get content through the use of refreshable Braille and other devices. 

Transcripts don't necessarily have to be verbatim accounts of every single spoken word (for example, "um" or "uh" could be omitted). They should, however, contain additional descriptions, explanations, or comments that may be beneficial, such as indications of laughter or other relevant sounds.

The Beauty of 3C Media

Because audio and video files are so large, it's best not to store them directly in your Canvas course. 3C offers both media storage AND free captioning for instructor-created materials.

You have been provided with a free 3C Media Solutions Links to an external site. account, courtesy of the Chancellor's Office. 

First, you'll need to create an account using your campus email address. Then, there is a 3CMedia LTI that integrates beautifully with Canvas. 

Do You See the 3C Media LTI in Your Canvas Apps? 

From Settings, click the Apps tab. Do a search for 3CMedia. Once you've installed it, it will be available as part of the Rich Content Editor on every page. Yea!

You'll be helping create an equitable environment for your students and your fellow instructors will thank you for making their lives easier too!